Essay About Testbank Strategic Management Chapter And Reflective Thinking Skills

Testbank Strategic Management Chapter 1
PART VI: TEST ITEM FILECHAPTER 1The Nature of Strategic ManagementTrue/FalseIntroductionThe underpinnings of strategic management hinge on managers gaining an understanding of competitors, markets, prices, suppliers, distributors, governments, creditors, shareholders and customers worldwide.(t; easy; p. 4)What Is Strategic Management?Optimizing for tomorrow the trends of today is the purpose of strategic management.                (f; easy; p. 5) Even though useful, strategic planning has been cast aside by corporate America since the early 1990s.                (f; medium; p. 5; AACSB Reflective thinking skills)Resource allocation is included in strategy-formulation activities.        (t; medium; p. 5)The terms strategic management and strategy implementation are synonymous.(t; easy; p. 5)A vision statement is, in essence, a company’s game plan.(f; easy; p. 5)Strategy implementation is often considered to be the most difficult stage in the strategic-management process because it requires personal discipline, commitment and sacrifice.(t; difficult; p. 6; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)The final stage in strategic management is strategy implementation.(f; medium; p. 6) Strategy formulation, implementation and evaluation activities occur at three hierarchical levels in a large diversified organization: corporate, divisional and functional.(t; medium; p. 6; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)One of the fundamental strategy evaluation activities is reviewing external and internal factors that are the bases for current strategies.(t; medium; p. 6)An objective, logical, systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization is a way to describe the strategic-management process.(t; medium; p. 7; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)Strategic management is an attempt to organize qualitative and quantitative information in a way that allows effective decisions to be made under conditions of uncertainty.(t; medium; p. 7; AACSB: Analytic skills)Analytical and intuitive thinking should complement each other.(t; easy; p. 7)According to Albert Einstein, “Knowledge is far more important than intuition.”(f; difficult; p. 7)Management by intuition can be defined as operating from the “I’ve-already-made-up-my-mind-don’t-bother- me-with-the-facts mode.”(f; medium; p. 7; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)By monitoring external events, companies should be able to identify when change is required.(f; easy; p. 8)In 2007, Toyota surpassed General Motors as the world’s top producer of cars(t; medium; p. 8)As of 2006, the largest company in the world was ExxonMobil.  (f; medium; p. 8)Key Terms in Strategic ManagementAnything the firm does especially well compared to rival firms could be considered a competitive advantage.(t; easy; p. 8)Once a firm acquires a competitive advantage, they are usually able to sustain the competitive advantage for an extended period of time.(f; medium; p. 9)Newspaper companies in the United States provide a good example of how a company can sustain a competitive advantage over the long term.(f; difficult; p. 9; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)Although the Internet has increased in popularity, it has actually led to increases in company expenses.(f; medium; p. 10; AACSB: Reflective thinking skills)Consumer e-commerce is five times greater than business-to-business e-commerce.(f; medium; p. 10; AACSB: Analytic skills)Currently, online shopping accounts for almost 15 percent of all shopping.(f; medium; p. 10)Customers spent more money online for clothes than they did on computers.  (t; easy; p. 10)In order for a firm to achieve sustained competitive advantage, a firm must continually adapt to changes in external trends and events and effectively formulate, implement, and evaluate strategies that capitalize upon those factors.(t; difficult; p. 9)Strategists are usually found in higher levels of management and have considerable authority for decision-making in the firm.(t; easy; p. 10)