Organisation Strategy and Strategic Leadership

1. Executing a good strategy often determines the success of a firm's success. True or False?
a. True
b. False

2. Strategy is fundamentally about:
a. satisfying all stakeholders.
b. being an excellent "corporate citizen".
c. being better than rivals.
d. winning.

3. The concept of "Strategic fit" describes the gap or fit between the environment and a firm's strategy. True or False?
a. True
b. False

4. Analysing an organisation's strategic position
a. starts with a SWOT analysis.
b. concentrates on an internal resource and capability analysis.
c. concentrates on an external environment analysis.
d. involves an internal and external analysis and concludes with a SWOT.

5. Business Strategy defines:
a. the way a firm competes in a particular industry or market.
b. the way a firm establishes a competitive advantage over its rivals within a specific industry or market.
c. both of the above.
d. neither of the above.

6. Corporate strategy is concerned with:
a. the scope of the firm in terms of industries and markets, and the allocation of its resources.
b. a firm's relationships with its principal stakeholders.
c. the corporate governance of each individual business.
d. none of the above.

7. How do corporate level strategy and business level strategy differ?
a. Corporate strategy defines the scope of a firm's activities, while business strategy focuses on how to beat the competition in a specific product market.
b. Corporate strategy defines the scope of a firm's structure, while business strategy emphasises the relationship of each business with its environment (state, regulators, etc.).
c. Corporate strategy focuses on the overall strategic plan, while business strategy focuses on implementing strategic decisions in each product market.
d. Corporate level strategy is concerned with long term goals, while business level strategy focuses on short term sustainability.

8. The most effective strategic leadership style is:
a. technically excellent.
b. charismatic.
c. transformational.
d. action oriented.

9. Which one of the following actions is not key to effective strategic leadership?
a. Effectively allocating and managing a firm's resources and capabilities.
b. Selecting and developing the career of key employees.
c. Determining strategic direction.
d. Establishing appropriate balanced controls.

10. Which one of the following actions of strategic leadership influences how individual employees behave and how the organisation generally goes about achieving its strategy?
a. Determining strategic direction.
b. Controlling employees through performance management systems.
c. Sustaining an effective organisation culture.
d. Effectively allocating and managing an organisation's resources and capabilities.

Vision, Mission, Stakeholders and Corporate Social Responsibility

1. Business is fundamentally about:
a. satisfying all stakeholders.
b. respecting laws and regulations.
c. making customers satisfied and happy.
d. creating value.

2. The maximisation of the value of the firm is primarily determined by:
a. the firm's compliance with state regulations.
b. its market capitalisation.
c. the profits it earns over its lifetime.
d. the market share it enjoys over its lifetime.

3. Value added can be defined as
a. the retained profits.
b. the difference between sales and wages.
c. the difference between the money value of a firm's output and inputs
d. the difference between sales and expenses.

4. The value added created by a firm is:
a. distributed primarily to employees (wages), lenders (interest), government (taxes), and owners (dividends).
b. appropriated exclusively by its owners.
c. nearly all distributed to the most powerful stakeholders, especially to members of the Board of Directors.
d. completely reinvested into the expansion and improvement of its business activities.

5. The notion that a firm is merely the private property of the shareholders is questioned as outdated by leading contemporary management theorists. True or False?
a. True.
b. False.

6. To survive and generate profit over the long run requires a firm to:
a. focus on revenue maximisation.
b. be responsive to evolving customer needs and to relevant changes in the wider political, economic, social and technological environment.
c. choose a low cost strategy and a differentiation strategy simultaneously.
d. put emphasis on its top managers' behaviours and ethics.

7. A firm's vision and mission statement should be:
a. a consistent, long-term sense of purpose which changes relatively little over the life of the firm.
b. to create a better everyday life for people.
c. to satisfy its customers and be their supplier of choice.
d. to become the "Best in Class".

8. The set of shared values of the firm:
a. can be manipulated and transformed easily.
b. are so difficult to assess and understand that it should not be the main focus of strategy analysts and decision-makers.
c. are part of a qualitative world that is not relevant to strategic management.
d. represent the basic reason for the firm's continued existence as a viable organisation.

9. Corporate Social Responsibility is:
a. about maximising profit and issuing statements saying that the company believes in CSR.
b. genuinely recognising that a firm is answerable to all stakeholders, not just the shareholders.
c. being willing to do something "environmentally friendly".
d. concerned about the environment and working for it.

10. Michael Porter argues that corporate social responsibility should be addressed by a firm:
a. for reasons of reputation, customer expectations and anticipated legislation because it is ultimately in the firm's profit interests.
b. because there is a "moral imperative" to do so.
c. the owners no longer "own" the firm in a meaningful sense.
d. Answers A and B

Strategic Decision-making in Practice

1. A major criticism of formal strategic planning is that:
a. it slows down the decision-making process.
b. it lacks good measurement systems.
c. it predicts changes in the environment.
d. it creates too much paperwork.

2. One of Mintzberg's major criticisms of formal planning is:
a. it focuses too much on the means to achieve goals than the goals themselves.
b. it assumes that the thinking stage of decision-making is separate from the doing stage.
c. it is an effective method of communicating the strategy.
d. it fails to involve all levels on managers.

3. The Positioning School provided strategists with analytical tools to:
a. explain how strategy can be changed as a result of learning.
b. understand its competitive environment and select a generic strategy.
c. develop a framework portfolio planning.
d. guide the organisation on how to build its core competencies.

4. The resourced based view of the firm (RBV School) is:
a. also referred to as the Industrial Organisation model.
b. concerned with how a firm builds, nurtures and deploys its resources and capabilities.
c. concerned with how the organisation analyses its external environment.
d. a useful adaptation to the formal planning approach to strategic decision-making.

5. Two schools of thought consider the strategic process differently:
a. The Psychological school emphasises the founder's subconscious limitations and assumptions, while the Sociological school studies the strategy formulation process as team dynamics.
b. The Design school sees strategy as a rational and analytical process and the Implementation school which looks at the actual behaviour exhibited by an organisation.
c. The Design school sees strategy as a rational process while the Emergent school views strategy as the outcome of interaction between strategy formulation and implementation.
d. The Learning school sees strategy as a learning process while the Structural school focuses on the strategy-structure relationship.

6. Strategy can be
a. realised, emergent, or failed.
b. emergent, critical, or sustained.
c. intended, emergent, or realised.
d. intended, emergent or sustained.

7. Logical Incrementalism is:
a. a structured systematic approach to strategic decision-making.
b. a trial and error approach to strategic decision-making.
c. an evolutionary approach to strategic decision-making.
d. a haphazard approach to strategic decision-making.

8. The balance between design and emergence depends mostly on:
a. top managers' personalities.
b. the type of organisational structure.
c. middle managers' personalities.
d. the stability and predictability of a firm's environment.

9. In practice, strategy making is:
a. a combination of centrally-driven rational design and decentralised adaptation.
b. a combination of luck, organisational politics, and centrally-driven planning.
c. frequently the expression of power struggles among the top managers.
d. none of the above

10. Behavioural psychologists distinguish between two types of thinking:
a. Intuitive and reflective
b. Rational and analytical
c. Logical and philosophical
d. Reasoning and numerical

Transformational Leadership Approaches and Emotional Intelligence

1. The four characteristics of transformational leadership are:
a. Infallible Stewardship, Inspiring Rhetoric, Intellectual Prowess, Idealised Vision
b. Intense Emotion, International Focus, Inspirational Rhetoric, Idealistic Endeavour
c. Intellectual Stimulation, International Strategy, Incorruptible Behaviour, Interpersonal Focus
d. Inspirational Motivation, Intellectual Stimulation, Individualised Consideration, Idealised Influence

2. Which of the following is not a characteristic of Emotional Intelligence?
a. Self-awareness
b. Self-management
c. Self-belief
d. Empathy
e. Social skills

3. Mirroring refers to:
a. tendency of leaders to see themselves as their followers see them.
b. tendency of leaders towards self-admiration.
c. tendency of leaders to model themselves on famous people.
d. tendency of leaders to reflect upon their own values and beliefs

4. Trait based approaches to leadership have been shown to yield consistent results in empirical tests. True or False?
a. True
b. False

5. Path Goal Theory specifies four categories of leader behaviour. Which ones?
a. Supportive
b. Directive
c. Participative
d. Achievement-oriented
e. Authoritarian
f. Laissez-faire
g. Authentic

6. According to Jim Collins (2001), a level 5 leader builds greatness through:
a. inspirational rhetoric and strategic decisions.
b. humility and goodwill.
c. building morale and employee commitment.
d. compliance with international standards.

7. A manager: (Select 4 responses)
a. looks outward
b. maintains order and control
c. execute strategy
d. avoid risk-taking
e. sets the vision
f. handles operational matters
g. is inspirational and passionate

8. Competencies are behavioural characteristics causally related to effective or superior performance on a job. True or False?
a. True
b. False

9. Methods of improving the effectiveness of change efforts include: (Select 3 responses)
a. Spending more time planning
b. Gaining greater top management commitment
c. Employing more management consultants
d. Reducing staffing levels in the organisation
e. Communicating Goals more broadly
f. Consulting theories of change management

10. Stewardship is defined as:
a. a manager who works in a caretaker role.
b. accountability without control or compliance.
c. accurate and timely control of organisational decision-making.
d. an individual who supports the CEO.

The Leader Follower Relationship and the Psychodynamics of Leadership

1. Leadership is:
a. something leaders do.
b. exclusively undertaken by the CEO or Managing Director in an organisation.
c. an outcome that results from the interaction of leaders and followers.
d. a specialised activity reserved for selected individuals.

2. A "dyad" is:
a. an individualised relationship between a leader and follower.
b. a description of the "colour" of the relationship between leader and follower.
c. a term used to describe ineffective leaders.
d. someone who blindly followers a leader without questioning.
3. An ingroup refers to:
a. individuals with preferential access and influential relationship with a leader.
b. the opposite to an out-group.
c. individuals who do extra things for the leader and the leader does the same for them.
d. all of the above.

4. Leadership is inseparable from the goals and the needs of followers. True or False?
a. True
b. False

5. According to Padilla, what are the four important issues relevant to virtual teams?
a. Knowledge of computers
b. Regular communication
c. The need for face-time to build trust
d. The need to manage cultural differences
e. The need to keep hard copies of all information
f. The need to bring in technical expertise and specialist software
g. Empathy and assertiveness
h. Keeping notes of all meetings

6. Which famous researcher carried out experiments on obedience to authority?
a. Oppenheimer
b. Milgram
c. Darwin
d. Watson
e. Northouse

7. The Pygmalion effect refers to:
a. the enhanced performance of subordinates of whom supervisors expect more.
b. the beliefs followers have in the effectiveness of supervisors.
c. the two-faced mask of leadership.
d. differences in leadership effectiveness in overseas cultures.

8. In times of crisis, followers may be prone to support more extreme forms of leadership. True or False?
a. True
b. False

9. Leader and subordinate behaviour are not affected by attributions that each makes about the other. True or False?
a. True
b. False

10. It is important for ethical leaders in times of crisis to:
a. not explain to followers the whole picture as it might frighten and scare them.
b. communicate candidly and truthfully.
c. communicate in bite-sized chunks to let followers absorb information slowly.
d. keep quiet until the crisis passes.

Team Leadership

1. According to Bolman and Deal (2008), "the more often team members work together, the greater the chance of a successful outcome". True or False?
a. True
b. False

2. Whilst it is important to be organised, team roles are overly restrictive and inflexible, inhibiting cross-functional working. True or False?
a. True
b. False

3. The benefits of a dual authority structure are: (Select 2 answers)
a. Makes it easier for followers to know who to go to
b. Reduces each bosses span of control
c. Divides tasks into more manageable portions
d. Quickens communication
e. Improves morale
f. Enhances performance

4. An all-channel network is: (Select 2 answers)
a. An international system of TV networks
b. A free-flowing network of information and communication
c. Also called a star network
d. Useful for all team-related activity
e. Best suited to the management of conflict

5. A team leader's job is to focus solely on the immediate task of managing the task and relational aspects of the team. True or False?
a. True
b. False

6. Which of the following is not an approach for resolving conflict within teams?
a. Compete
b. Accumulate
c. Avoid
d. Compromise
e. Collaborate

7. The acronym CAIRO stands for:
a. Communication, Accountability, Information, Respect, Official
b. Competence, Accountability, Inspection, Responsibility, Organisation
c. Consults, Approval, Informed, Responsibility, Out of the Loop
d. Criticality, Approval, Internal, Record, Ordinal

8. Key characteristics of self-managed teams include: (Select 3 answers)
a. They manage themselves.
b. They rely upon other departments.
c. They plan and schedule work.
d. They take action to remedy problems.
e. They work as independent individuals.
f. They operate under the auspices of the managing director.
g. They are not subject to organisational control.

9. Groupthink is caused by
a. too much brainstorming.
b. lack of socialisation.
c. desire for harmony and cohesion in teams.
d. teams working too long hours

10. Social loafing is:
a. where individuals are shy and quiet in group situations.
b. where individuals exert less effort in group situations.
c. where individuals avoid conflict as much as possible in group situations.
d. where individuals avoid risk-taking behaviour.

Strategic Decision-making in Innovative Contexts

1. Once established, competitive advantage is:
a. subject to erosion by competitors or entrants.
b. a firm's reward for leading the industry.
c. easily maintained unless entry barriers are high.
d. relatively stable over time.

2. Strategic management of innovation and technological change:
a. exists only in technology-intensive industries.
b. tries to influence or direct technological change before it occurs.
c. cannot be managed.
d. can contribute to a firm's competitive advantage.

3. The difference between invention and innovation is:
a. an inventor is guaranteed a payment, an innovator is not.
b. invention requires an inventor, innovation requires no individual person.
c. you must innovate before you invent.
d. invention is the development of new knowledge, innovation is the commercialisation of it.

4. As the industry life cycle progresses:
a. product innovation gives way to process innovation.
b. foreign competition is more likely.
c. strategic innovation becomes more important.
d. technological innovation declines.

5. Why is innovation no guarantee of success and fortune?
a. Implementation of innovation may be a failure due to internal organisational factors.
b. Success depends on the value created and the portion of that value that the innovator is able to appropriate.
c. Nothing is guaranteed in the corporate world and in life in general.
d. Success depends on the value created.

6. To determine the strength of an innovator's appropriation, four elements should be considered. Which ones?
a. Property rights, lead-time, complementary resources, and relative bargaining power
b. Property rights, lead-time, complementary resources, and tacitness and complexity of technology
c. Property rights, tacitness and complexity of technology, corporate culture, and HR management
d. Property rights, tacitness and complexity of technology, lead-time, and luck

7. Licensing, joint ventures, and alliances, are examples of:
a. strategies involving third parties.
b. alternative strategies to exploit innovation.
c. alternative strategies to create inventions.
d. alternative strategies to sell inventions to another firm in the industry.

8. The choice of a strategy to exploit innovation depends on two factors:
a. luck and past experience in the industry.
b. characteristics of the innovation and a firm's financial resources.
c. characteristics of the innovation and a firm's resources and capabilities.
d. all of the above.

9. Lead-time refers to:
a. the period of time during which a firm is the leader of an industry.
b. the period of time during which a firm has discovered the largest number of innovations.
c. the time it takes followers to catch up.
d. none of the above.

10. Innovation is an act of:
a. luck
b. creativity
c. selfishness
d. none of the above

Creating Systemic Innovation

1. Double loop learning is where:
a. individuals learn in groups and with work colleagues.
b. individuals look back to the past to inform the future.
c. individuals carefully think through their actions.
d. individuals question taken-for-granted assumptions and ways of doing things.

2. The process of co-creation is one which involves customer input in the design and production of the product/service. True or False?
a. True
b. False

3. Regulation is:
a. an opportunity to engage in innovation.
b. a barrier to innovation.
c. a two-edged sword encouraging innovation in some areas and closing off innovation in others.
d. something which has no effect on innovation.

4. Deep-diving refers to:
a. an extreme under-water sport.
b. conducting multiple focus groups with particular groups of individuals.
c. studying what people actually do, rather than what they say they do.
d. making best use of learning technologies.

5. Corporate Venturing is where:
a. a company partners with a competitor to establish a joint-venture.
b. a company sets up a specialist unit with a particular innovation remit.
c. a company engages in a risky initiative where the return on investment is uncertain.
d. a company specialises in mergers and takeovers.

6. Kanter (1995) argues that companies have begun to realise that they possess consid- erable assets in the form of:
a. People, Products and Processes
b. Concepts, Competence and Connections
c. Systems, Structures and Strategies
d. None of the above

7. A blue ocean strategy is one where firms enter an existing market with a new innovative product. True or False?
a. True
b. False

8. Recombinant innovation is where:
a. ideas and applications which are commonplace in one part of the world are regarded as new and innovative in another.
b. an existing process for developing products is redesigned to improve efficiency.
c. new approaches to product design are taken using old ideas.
d. previously discarded ideas are recycled and regenerated.

9. Crowd sourcing is a term which refers to the use of communities to co-create innov- ations and find new ways of creating and solving problems. True or False?
a. True
b. False

10. Benchmarking is:
a. a form of graffiti by homeless people who live in public parks.
b. a waste of time.
c. a process whereby companies make structured comparisons with other companies.
d. a mechanism for ensuring companies retain their competitive advantage.

Authentic and Sustainable Leadership

1. The letters CSR stand for:
a. Corporate Social Responsibility
b. Company Secretary Role
c. Comparative Social Research
d. Committed Socially Responsive

2. The author Milton Friedman is a strong advocate for organisations being fully engaged in CSR activities. True or False?
a. True
b. False

3. Which of the following areas are not covered in the UN Global Compact adopted in July 2000? (Select all that apply)
a. The Environment
b. Human Rights
c. Anti-Corruption
d. International Fraud
e. Labour Standards
f. Hijacking

4. The Global Reporting Mechanism is:
a. an international system for reporting persistent polluters.
b. a mechanism for companies to measure and report upon their sustainability performance.
c. a system for companies to report profits and financial performance.
d. repository of company annual reports.

5. Elkington's Triple Bottom Line (3P) framework has become very commonly used in relation to sustainability. Which of the following are not listed among the 3Ps?
a. Profits
b. Planet
c. Performance
d. People
e. Progress

6. Stakeholder Theory asks two questions that executives need to answer. These are: (Select the two correct responses)
a. What is the purpose of the firm?
b. Who are our stakeholders?
c. How do we connect with stakeholders?
d. What responsibility do managers have to stakeholders?
e. What do we plan the future direction of the firm?

7. According to Jensen and Luthans (2006), authentic leadership finds its origins in the following field:
a. Economics
b. Human Resource Management
c. Positive Psychology
d. Coaching

8. A key characteristics of authentic leaders is that they are true to themselves and true to others. True or False?
a. True
b. False

9. A leader deemed authentic by employees is one who is perceived as striving to create a transparent, future-oriented, and associate-building organization. True or False?
a. True
b. False

10. Authentic leadership places emphasis on pleasing others and responding to the needs of followers. True or False?
a. True
b. False

Current Trends in Strategic Leadership

1. Given the amount of data monitoring and computer power, isn't the world more predicatable?
a. Yes. The economic crisis is just a glitch.
b. No. This is a fallacy, since the global system can react violently to small changes.
c. Not yet, but with the next generation of computers, it will be.
d. It predicts a global economic catastrophe.

2. What are some characteristics of the 2008-2009 crisis?
a. Very few people saw it coming.
b. It affected the entire global financial structure very rapidly, regardless of the place of origin.
c. There was a very rapid global lack of available bank credit.
d. All of the above.

3. Which areas and principles can help firms to navigate the current crisis?
a. Top management need to concentrate on cashflow and survival.
b. A comprehensive, exhaustive strategic review is called for.
c. Management needs to cut prices.
d. All of the above.

4. Which performance criterion is paramount in times of recession?
a. Liquidity: having enough cash to pay the bills.
b. Long-term strategic forecasting.
c. Market share.
d. Earnings per share.

5. What is the main problem inside many companies regarding shareholder value creation?
a. It is interpreted in such a way as to maximise executive remuneration, and thus short-term profits.
b. It is interpreted by management to mean the management of the firm's long-term prospects.
c. It is interpreted by management to mean the maximisation of growth.
d. It is interpreted by management to mean the management of the firm's market share.

6. Which factors explain the corporate disasters of the last decade?
a. Management opting for high-risk strategies which took little account of those risks, and which overestimated their capability.
b. The uncertainty and the turbulence of the business environment in general.
c. Top manager's greed, the absence of any ethics, and human nature.
d. The complexity of the environment, and a misfit between the marketing strategies of the firms involved, and their product characteristics.

7. If firms are social institutions that must identify with the values of society, then:
a. when society's values change, the strategies and behaviours of firms must change as well.
b. there will need to be additional members of society on the board of directors.
c. firms have no freedom to make profit.
d. shareholders will invest elsewhere if their values are not met.

8. In option theory, an attractive resource is:
a. one that can be deployed in different businesses.
b. one that can support alternative strategies.
c. the one that is able to generate the largest number of capabilities.
d. Answers a and b.

9. Ultimately, the only sustainable competitive advantage which matters is:
a. the ability to perform better than rivals.
b. the ability to be flexible.
c. the ability to maintain an acceptable situation in terms of available cash.
d. the ability to create new sources of competitive advantage, although this is not very practically helpful.

10. If a business is inherently unpredictable, then:
a. only statistical management can achieve excellent results.
b. the managerial challenge is to design a structure which is inherently flexible and adaptable.
c. no one can act in any way to manage a firm.
d. there's no longer any point in having a strategy.