Strategic Planning
Exam Materials
Course Introduction
Strategic Planning is a comprehensive course designed to equip students with the analytical skills and frameworks needed to formulate, implement, and evaluate effective organizational strategies. Through case studies, real-world scenarios, and interactive discussions, students will learn how to assess internal and external environments, set long-term goals, and align resources to achieve competitive advantage. The course emphasizes stakeholder analysis, vision and mission development, risk management, and measurement of strategic outcomes, preparing students to lead organizations through dynamic and complex business landscapes.
Recommended Textbook
Strategic Management 4th Edition by Frank
Rothaermel
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12 Chapters
1217 Verified Questions
1217 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: What Is Strategy
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100 Verified Questions
100 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Marigold Servers, a web services firm, has experienced a 7% decline in revenues in consecutive quarters. In an effort to reduce operating costs, managers reduced the customer service staff from 12 employees to 6. Management also enlisted the remaining employees to help produce a new company vision: to give customers of all budgets a customizable, stress-free web hosting experience. What is wrong with this scenario?
A) Marigold's vision is not customer-oriented.
B) Internal stakeholders were not invested in defining the vision.
C) Marigold's organizational structures do not align with the vision.
D) Marigold's vision is not aspirational.
Answer: C
Q2) During an AFI planning session, the managers of the Fukuhara Motorcycle Corporation decided to place various stages of production in different countries in order to implement the strategy of cutting overhead costs. By doing this, what issue did the firm address?
A) philanthropic strategy
B) business ethics
C) corporate governance
D) organizational design
Answer: D
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Strategic Leadership: Managing the Strategy Process
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101 Verified Questions
101 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following best qualifies as a firm's internal stakeholder?
A) an auditor assigned to the firm by a federal government agency
B) a labor union with whom the firm's employees can affiliate
C) a manager taking care of the firm's operations in a foreign market
D) a competitor manufacturing the same products as that of the firm
Answer: C
Q2) A surprise event that leads to a change in strategic initiatives, such as the accidental discovery of a new use for an existing product, is known as serendipity.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Windmill Inc., a vendor, regularly supplies capacitors to Inland Electronics for use in its products. Therefore, Windmill Inc. is Inland Electronics'
A) internal stakeholder.
B) director.
C) shareholder.
D) external stakeholder.
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: External Analysis: Industry Structure,
Competitive Forces, and Strategic Groups
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101 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are the two key insights that form the basis of Michael Porter's seminal five forces model?
Answer: By combining theory from industrial organization economics with hundreds of detailed case studies, Michael Porter derived two key insights that form the basis of his seminal five forces model:
1. Rather than defining competition narrowly as the firm's closest competitors to explain and predict a firm's performance, competition must be viewed more broadly to not only encompass direct rivals but also a set of other forces in an industry: buyers, suppliers, potential new entry of other firms, and the threat of substitutes.
2. The profit potential of an industry is neither random nor entirely determined by industry-specific factors. Rather, it is a function of the five forces that shape competition: threat of entry, power of suppliers, power of buyers, threat of substitutes, and rivalry among existing firms.
Q2) Firms within the same industry automatically belong to the same strategic group.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Internal Analysis: Resources, Capabilities, and Core Competencies
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105 Verified Questions
105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Compare and contrast tangible and intangible resources.
Q2) According to the value chain analysis, which of the following is a primary activity?
A) research and development
B) human resources management
C) accounting and finance
D) marketing and sales
Q3) Iceberg Storage, a leading hard drive manufacturer, recently filed for bankruptcy. While most of Iceberg's competitors were shifting away from physical data storage devices toward online cloud storage services, Iceberg invested most of its retained earnings in the effort to improve its hard drives. Once the hard-drive market drastically declined, Iceberg Storage was unable to capitalize on the new technology. Which of the following does this scenario best illustrate?
A) causal ambiguity
B) knowledge diffusion
C) social complexity
D) path dependence
Q4) Provide examples of the secondary activities in a firm's value chain.
Q5) Explain the value chain perspective of a firm's competitive advantage.
Q6) Elaborate on the dynamic capabilities perspective of competitive advantage.
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Chapter 5: Competitive Advantage, Firm Performance, and Business Models
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100 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) A sustainable strategy is one that produces a competitive advantage that can be maintained over time.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following statements is true of accounting data?
A) Accounting data focus mainly on intangible assets, rather than tangible assets.
B) Accounting data are historical data and thus backward-looking.
C) Accounting data do not have to be adjusted in any manner to compare companies with different capital structures.
D) Accounting data consider off-balance sheet items, such as pension obligations of a firm.
Q3) Discuss the limitations associated with using accounting data to measure competitive performance.
Q4) Once a firm chooses a business model, it must stick with it for the life of the firm.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What is the relationship between producer surplus and consumer surplus?
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Chapter 6: Business Strategy: Differentiation, Cost
Leadership, and Blue Oceans
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105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Briefly explain the difficulties in pursuing a blue ocean strategy
Q2) Meadows Mowers initially spent nine man-hours to assemble a lawnmower. But as the production doubled, the number of hours spent on assembling a mower reduced by 20 percent. This increase in productivity reduced the company's cost per unit. What is this phenomenon referred to as?
A) learning-curve effect
B) network effect
C) black-swan event
D) time compression diseconomies
Q3) When a firm pursues differentiation strategy, what does it focus on?
Q4) In a successful ________ strategy, the trade-offs between differentiation and low cost are reconciled.
A) blue ocean
B) focused differentiation
C) liquidation
D) divestment
Q5) Discuss product features as value drivers.
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Q6) Why is keeping its costs the lowest in the industry not the only focus of a firm pursuing cost-leadership strategy?
Chapter 7: Business Strategy: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Platforms
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Sample Questions
Q1) Incumbent firms favor incremental innovation over radical innovation because A) their business decisions are independent of the other parties in their innovation ecosystem.
B) radical innovation will disturb the existing power distribution within the firms.
C) incumbent firms do not have formal organizational structures and processes like the way new entrants do.
D) incremental innovations help firms sustain a permanent competitive advantage, whereas radical innovations only help gain a temporary advantage.
Q2) Which of the following is a feature of the maturity stage of the industry life cycle?
A) The competitive intensity within the industry is at its peak.
B) The market reaches its maximum size.
C) The industry structure is more monopolistically competitive.
D) The focus on product innovation is higher than that on process innovation.
Q3) Briefly discuss the four strategic options firms have during the decline stage of the industry life cycle.
Q4) Define entrepreneurship. Who are entrepreneurs?
Q5) Briefly discuss the strategic implications of the crossing-the-chasm framework.
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Chapter 8: Corporate Strategy: Vertical Integration and Diversification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Coastal Pharma and Brainwave Technologies have together invested and created a new organization, InnerView, to focus on developing diagnostic devices. Through this new firm, both companies are attempting to combine their core competencies to innovate and reduce their risks associated with transaction-specific investments. However, the new organization operates independent of Coastal Pharma and Brainwave Technologies. Which of the following alternatives to integration does this scenario best illustrate?
A) a joint venture
B) a franchisee
C) a licensing contract
D) a corporate acquisition
Q2) Which quadrant in the core competence-market matrix is the hardest to pursue?
A) building new core competencies to protect and extend current market position
B) building new core competencies to create and compete in markets of the future
C) leveraging core competencies to improve current market position
D) redeploying and recombining core competencies to compete in markets of the future
Q3) List the five reasons why firms need to grow.
Q4) Describe the two types of vertical integration along the industry value chain.
Q5) Discuss the benefits of taper integration.
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Chapter 9: Corporate Strategy: Strategic Alliances, Mergers, and Acquisitions
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Sample Questions
Q1) When deciding whether to build, borrow, or buy as a means of growth, firms no longer need to consider the need for physical closeness to their resource partners.
A)True
B)False
Q2) It is necessary for government authorities such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and/or the European Commission to approve any large horizontal integration activity because
A) the horizontal integration activity changes the industry structure from oligopolistic to monopolistically competitive.
B) the surviving firms will need to be protected against the increasing bargaining power of the suppliers.
C) the horizontal integration activity has the potential to reduce competitive intensity in an industry.
D) the surviving firms will need protection against the relaxed entry barriers.
Q3) Although Disney acquired Pixar through a hostile takeover, the merger has proven extremely profitable for both entities.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Global Strategy: Competing Around the World
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are the two opposing forces that multinational companies have to face when competing around the globe?
Q2) The risk of intellectual property appropriation increases when companies follow a multidomestic strategy. Elaborate on this statement.
Q3) Which of the following statements is true with regard to international trade between countries?
A) Greater cultural distance between the home and host countries decreases the liability of foreignness to multinational companies.
B) Colony-colonizer relationships have a strong negative effect on bilateral trade between countries.
C) Wealthy countries engage in relatively more cross-border trade than poorer ones.
D) Political integrations decrease the expected trade intensity between two countries.
Q4) How can expanding globally become a threat to a multinational enterprises (MNEs) reputation? Explain with the help of a real-world example.
Q5) What is the engine behind globalization? Provide a real-world example.
Q6) What products and industries does geographic distance affect the most?
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Organizational Design: Structure, Culture, and Control
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following types of groups is most susceptible to groupthink?
A) a diverse group
B) a cohesive group
C) a heterogeneous group
D) a decentralized group
Q2) A high degree of formalization in an organization is most likely to
A) improve customer service.
B) slow down decision making.
C) produce inconsistent results.
D) increase creativity and innovation.
Q3) Galaxy Toys Inc., a toy manufacturing company, encourages its employees to enjoy their work by taking on additional responsibilities or switching jobs with each other. It allows its employees immense flexibility in charting their own career path within the organization. Chris has worked at Galaxy Toys for eight years, but has never had a boss or supervised an employee. Which of the following is most likely true in this scenario?
A) Galaxy Toys Inc. is a mechanistic organization.
B) Galaxy Toys Inc. has a flat organizational structure.
C) Galaxy Toys Inc. has a high degree of centralization.
D) Galaxy Toys' organizational culture is governed by codified rules.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Corporate Governance and Business Ethics
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105 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Marika received a tip from a close friend who is an executive manager of a publicly traded company called MicroGreen Inc. The manager received some inside information about how to trade MicroGreen stock to get a huge profit. He shared this information with Marika. This scenario is an example of A) information asymmetry.
B) adverse selection.
C) stakeholder strategy.
D) shared value creation.
Q2) What helps notions such as fairness, honesty, and reciprocity to be codified into law?
A) The notions are synonymous with law.
B) The notions differ to some degree in different cultures around the globe.
C) The notions are universal norms.
D) The notions are characteristics inherited by each person irrespective of the culture.
Q3) Why is board independence critical to effectively fulfilling a board's governance responsibilities?
Q4) What is the benefit of granting stock options as part of a compensation package in a public stock company?
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