Bus Strategy & Mgmt Principles

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CHAPTER 5 QUESTIONS: (3 PAGES)

1. Describe low-cost strategy. How does this strategy is different from differentiation and how it can relate to differentiation?
2. describe what differentiation strategy is and how products and services are offered under this strategy? What is branding and how that concept relates to differentiation.
3. Describe how businesses approach segmentation in market. Why market segmentation could help businesses to achieve the goals of their strategies? What approaches can be used to segment the market? How can this lead to competitive advantage?

CHAPTER 6 QUESTIONS: (3 PAGES)

1. Define fragmented and consolidated industries. What are the differences between these two types of industries? How an industry can be consolidated?
2. What opportunities and advantages do consolidated industries offer that fragmented industries do not?
3. Describe horizontal and vertical integration. How do businesses leverage these strategies for growth, and how can they aid them in gaining competitive advantage? How developing competitive advantage could fail by horizontal and vertical integration.

CHAPTER 4 QUESTIONS: (6 PAGES)

This assignment covers the content in Michael Porter’s Competitive Advantage. In this assignment you must pick an article from the Harvard Business Review website (https://hbr.org/ (Links to an external site.)) that deals with strategic management of a company. The HBR article MUST be related to the strategic management of a company. A number of these articles are listed in your syllabus.

READING MATERIALS AND ACTIVITIES: PLEASE READ MICHAEL PORTER’S BOOK, COMPETITIVE STRATEGY. READ ALSO A CASE OF A COMPANY ON STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT FROM THE HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, HBR. THE CASES CAN BE BOUGHT AND DOWNLOADED FROM THE HBR SITE. A LIST OF SOME OF THESE ARTICLES ARE IN YOUR SYLLABUS. THEN APPLY THE READINGS FROM COMPETITIVE STRATEGY TO THE HBR CASE

QUESTIONS:

1. Describe Michael Porter’s model and its components. Pick an industry and describe how the different components of the model relate to that industry.
2. Apply all components of Porter’s model to your HBR case, as a case review. Your response here must be at least two pages in length or more.

CHAPTER 7 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. Describe standardization, format wars, and how standardization can lead to a format war. Who can benefit from a format war and why?
2. Once standardization occurs, how does an industry benefit?
3. During a format war, describe how competition occurs and how a price war can take shape.
4. Define first and second movers. what are the advantages of being the first mover? What are the advantages of being the second mover.

CHAPTER 8 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. Why do companies go global? Once a company has decided to go global, what entry modes could the company leverage to break into the global market? What is that entry mode is based on?
2. What additional benefits from economies of scale does a company receive from going global? How economies of scale can be related to the decision of a company going global?
3. Describe the main strategies available to an organization going global. Describe why different strategies may be chosen.
4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different entry modes a company can use to break into the global market? What resources and distinctive competencies a company should have to choose specific entry mode?

CHAPTER 9 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. Who makes strategies at the corporate level, and how this strategy is made? How would an organization with a multi-business model form their strategies? What would they target?
2. Why would a company leverage horizontal integration as a strategy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of horizontal integration ?
3. Why would a company leverage vertical integration as a strategy? What are the advantages and disadvantages of vertical integration? When companies vertically disintegrate and why?
4. What is strategic outsourcing? Describe why a company would explore this option as an alternative to vertical integration. What are the potential advantages and disadvantages of strategic outsourcing.

CHAPTER 10 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. Why do companies diversify? When do companies consider diversification? What are the advantages of diversification.
2. Describe related and unrelated diversification, and why a company would choose one diversification method or the other.
3. Describe what can cause diversification to fail.
4. When seeking to enter a new industry, some companies decide to acquire another company. Describe the advantages and disadvantages a company may face when exploring acquisition to enter a new industry.

CHAPTER 3 QUESTIONS: (6 PAGES)

This assignment covers the content in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline. In this assignment, you must pick a case study from the end of the book (Section C), describe the case, and then apply the disciplines taught to the case.

READING MATERIALS: PLEASE READ PETER SENGE’S, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE. ALSO READ ONE OF THE BUSINESS CASES, CASES 11-29, FROM YOUR BOOK, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT. THESE CASES START FROM THE MIDDLE OF YOUR TEXT, PAGES C-39 TO C-257.

QUESTIONS:

1. What are the main themes of The Fifth Discipline? Describe and explain each discipline.
2. How is each of these disciplines related to each other?
3. Describe how each of these disciplines is important to establishing a learning organization.
4. Pick a case study from the end of the book (Section C), describe the case, and then apply the disciplines taught to the case. During your evaluation, discover if the organization is a learning organization or not. Describe why the organization is a learning organization, and if it is not – why? Describe either how you would transform the organization into a learning organization if it is not, or how you would improve upon the organization if it is.

CHAPTER 11 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. Define stockholders and stakeholders. What is the difference between the two? How companies distinguish stakeholder.
2. What process does a company adopt to go through to and respond to stakeholders’ concerns? What are the steps in this process?
3. What is the agency problem? What are the governance mechanisms that can be put in place to guard against this problem?
4. Describe internal controls and strategies that can be implemented to ensure ethical behavior within a company. Why internal controls to maintain ethical concerns are important?

CHAPTER 12 QUESTIONS (3 PAGES)

1. How can organizational design contribute to competitive advantage? What elements in organizational design are important?
2. Describe how a strong organizational culture leads to transparency, ethics, and competitive advantage within a company.
3. How do corporations develop strategic plans for single or multidivisional structures? What are some advantages and problems in implementing a multidivisional structure?
4. How do companies implement strategies at a global level? What organizational structures help them develop a competitive advantage?