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Foundations-Of-Planning MCQS
Foundations-Of-Planning MCQS
Foundations-Of-Planning MCQS
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter students should be able to:
1. Discuss the nature and purposes of planning.
2. Explain what managers do in the strategic planning process.
3. Compare and contrast approaches to goal setting and planning.
4. Discuss contemporary issues in planning.
Opening Vignette—Building a Future
SUMMARY
Atlanta-based Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry whose mission
is to “eliminate poverty and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of
conscience and action.” The organization was founded by Millard and Linda Fuller in 1976 in Americus,
Georgia. More than 300,000 Habitat houses have been built, sheltering more than 1.5 million people
around the world. These houses can be found in all 50 states of the United States, the District of
Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and more than 90 countries around the world. “Thousands of low-income
families have found new hope in this form of affordable housing.” And Habitat’s approach is simple.
Families in need of decent housing apply to local Habitat affiliates. The organization just received $100
million from a donor and they have an opportunity to make a deep impact in many lives. Thorough and
effective planning will be essential to determine how, when and where the funds should be distributed.
Teaching Notes:
1. If you were a Board member, how would you disseminate the monies?
2. Who would be the recipients?
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Teaching Notes
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c) Management must select a competitive strategy that will give it a distinct advantage
by capitalizing on the strengths of the organization and the industry it is in.
d) These three strategies are: cost-leadership, differentiation, and focus.
9. The low-cost producer in its industry is following a cost-leadership strategy.
a) Success requires that the organization be the cost leader; the product or service being
offered must be perceived as comparable to rivals, or at least acceptable to buyers.
b) A firm typically gains a cost advantage by efficiency of operations, economies of
scale, technological innovation, low-cost labor, or preferential access to raw materials.
(1) Examples, Wal-Mart, Texas Instrument, and Southwest Airlines.
10. A differentiation strategy is followed when a firm seeks to be unique in its industry in
ways that are widely valued by buyers.
a) It might emphasize high quality, extraordinary service, innovative design,
technological capability, or an unusually positive brand image.
b) The key is that the attribute chosen must be different from those offered by rivals and
significant enough to justify a price premium that exceeds the cost of differentiating.
c) For examples, 3M (product quality and innovative design), Coach (design and brand
image), and Nordstrom (customer service).
11. The first two strategies sought a competitive advantage in a broad range of industry
segments.
12. The focus strategy aims at a cost advantage (cost focus) or differentiation advantage
(differentiation focus) in a narrow segment.
a) Select a segment or group of segments in an industry (such as product variety, type of
end buyer, distribution channel, or geographical location of buyers) and tailor the
strategy to serve them to the exclusion of others.
b) The goal is to exploit a narrow segment of a market.
c) Feasibility depends on the size of a segment and whether it can support the additional
cost of focusing.
(1) Example, Denmark's Bang & Olufsen - high end audio equipment.
13. Strategy choice depends on the organization’s strengths and its competitors’ weaknesses.
a) The organization should put its strength where the competition isn’t.
b) Success depends on selecting the strategy that fits the complete picture of the
organization and its industry.
14. What if an organization cannot use one of these three strategies to develop a competitive
advantage?
a) Porter uses the term “stuck in the middle” to describe that situation.
b) Organizations that are stuck in the middle find it difficult to achieve long-term
success.
15. Sustaining a competitive advantage
a) Long-term success requires that the advantage be sustainable.
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b) It must withstand both the actions of competitors and evolutionary changes within the
industry.
c) Managers need to create barriers that make imitation by competitors difficult.
(1) The use of patents, copyrights, or trademarks may assist in this effort.
d) When there are strong efficiencies from economies of scale, reducing price to gain
volume is a useful tactic.
e) “Tie up” suppliers with exclusive contracts.
f) Encourage and lobby for government policies that impose import tariffs designed to
limit foreign competition.
g) The one thing that management cannot do is become complacent.
16. The final strategy for managers are the strategies used by an organization’s various
functional departments to support the competitive strategy.
E. What Strategic Weapons do Managers Have?
1. To the degree that an organization can satisfy a customer’s need for quality, it can
differentiate itself from the competition and attract and hold a loyal customer base.
2. Constant improvement in the quality and reliability of an organization’s products or
services can result in a competitive advantage others cannot steal.
a) Product innovations are not sustainable because they can be quickly copied by rivals.
3. Incremental improvement is something that becomes an integrated part of an
organization’s operations and can develop into a considerable cumulative advantage.
4. Benchmarking can help promote quality because it involves the search for the best
practices among competitors and non-competitors that lead to superior performance.
5. Management can improve quality by analyzing and then copying the methods of the
leaders.
a) It is a very specific form of environmental scanning.
6. In 1979, Xerox undertook the first benchmarking effort in the United States.
a) Until then, the Japanese had been aggressively copying the successes of others.
b) Xerox’s head of manufacturing took a team to Japan to make a detailed study of its
competition’s costs and processes at its own joint venture, Fuji-Xerox.
(1) Its Japanese rivals were light-years ahead of Xerox in efficiency.
(2) Benchmarking those efficiencies marked the beginning of Xerox’s recovery.
7. Illustrating benchmarking’s use in practice, Ford Motor Company.
a) Ford used benchmarking in early 2000 in developing its highly promising Range
Rover line.
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Teaching Notes
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2. Breadth:
a) Strategic plans apply to the entire organization, establish the organization’s overall
objectives, and seek to position the organization in terms of its environment.
b) These plans drive the organization’s efforts to achieve its goals.
c) They serve as a basis for forming the tactical plans.
d) Tactical plans (operational plans) specify the details of how to achieve the overall
objectives.
3. Timeframe:
a) Short term covers less than one year.
b) Any time frame beyond three years is classified as long term.
4. Specificity:
a) It appears intuitively correct that specific plans are always preferable to directional, or
loosely guided, plans.
b) Specific plans have clearly defined objectives.
c) Specific plans require clarity and a predictability that often does not exist.
d) When uncertainty is high, and management must maintain flexibility in order to
respond to unexpected changes, directional plans may be preferable.
e) Directional plans, on the other hand, identify general guidelines.
f) They provide focus but do not lock managers into specific objectives or specific
courses of action.
5. Single-Use and Standing Plans:
a) A single-use plan is used to meet the need of a particular or unique situation.
b) Standing plans are ongoing, providing guidance for repeatedly performed actions.
6. Developing plans:
a) Contingency factors affect the choice of plans: organizational level, degree of
environmental uncertainty, and length of future commitments.
7. Approaches to planning:
a) Formal planning department
b) Planning by organizational members
Teaching Notes
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Teaching Notes
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To check your understanding of outcomes 4.1 – 4.4, go to mymanagementlab.com and try the chapter
questions.
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capability, or an unusually positive brand image. The key is that the it can support the additional cost
of focusing.
7. “The primary means of sustaining a competitive advantage is to adjust faster to the
environment than your competitors do.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Explain
your position.
Answer: Key to this answer is the following facts. Long-term success requires that the advantage be
sustainable. It must withstand both the actions of competitors and the evolutionary changes. Managers
need to create barriers that make imitation by competitors difficult or reduce the competitive
opportunities.
8. First we had the bird flu. Now, the H1N1 flu pandemic has been in the news recently. How
could organizations be prepared for an outbreak of H1N1 flu or some new unknown flu strain
or medical crisis? What types of planning would they need to do? Now, take a specific
organization (your college or university, your place of employment, or some business
organization) and describe all the possible organizational areas that might be impacted and the
plans that organization would need to have in place to be prepared.
Answer: Student answers will vary. Preparation however, requires a strategic plan like a pandemic
preparedness plan that accounts for contingency plans including absent employees. Monitoring and
consulting the CDC and other medical authorities would help. You may need a formal plan for short-
term challenges and long-term.
Colleges would need to increase medical staff at the health center, attempt to secure additional
supplies of vaccines, etc.
9. Do a personal SWOT analysis. Assess your personal strengths and weaknesses (skills, talents,
abilities). What are you good at? What are you not so good at? What do you enjoy doing? Not
enjoy doing? Then, identify career opportunities and threats by researching job prospects in
the industry you’re interested in. Look at trends and projections. You might want to check out
the information the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides on job prospects. Once you have all this
information, write a specific career action plan. Outline five-year career goals and what you
need to do to achieve those goals.
Answer: Responses will be specific to the respective student.
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UNDERSTAND YOURSELF
What Are My Course Performance Goals?
INSTRUMENT Using the following scale, select the answer for each of the 12 statements
that best expresses why you study for a course.
1 = Never
2 = Rarely
3 = Sometimes
4 = Often
5 = Always
I study because:
1. I want to be praised by my professors and parents. 12345
2. I want to be noticed by my friends. 12345
3. I don’t want my classmates to make fun of me. 12345
4. I don’t want to be disliked by a professor. 12345
5. I want people to see how smart I am. 12345
6. I wish to get better grades than my peers. 12345
7. I want to get good grades. 12345
8. I want to be proud of getting good grades. 12345
9. I don’t want to fail final exams. 12345
10. I wish to be admitted to graduate school. 12345
11. I want to get a good job in the future. 12345
12. I want to attain status in the future. 12345
SCORING KEY Total up the number of 4 and 5 responses. This will be between zero and 12.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION What drives you to study? What goals are you trying to
achieve? This questionnaire measures goal orientation as related to your course work. There are no
“right” goals. But having clear goals can help you better understand your studying behavior. If you had no
responses in the 4 or 5 categories, your course performance is likely to suffer because you have no strong
reasons for studying. This suggests a need for you to reassess your goals and consider what you want
from your course work. If you had a number of responses in the 4 or 5 categories, you appear to have
specific goals that will motivate you to study and achieve high performance.
Overview
Goal-setting theory states that intentions—expressed as goals—can be a major source of work motivation.
We can say, with a considerable degree of confidence that specific goals lead to increased performance;
that difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than easy goals; and that feedback leads
to higher performance than no feedback.
Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than a generalized goal of “do your best.” The
specificity of the goal itself acts as an internal stimulus. For instance, when a trucker commits to making
eighteen round-trip hauls between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., each week, this intention gives him a
specific objective to reach for. We can say that, all things being equal, the trucker with a specific goal
will outperform his counterpart who operates either with no goals or with the generalized goal of “do your
best.”
If factors such as ability and acceptance of the goals are held constant, we can also state that the more
difficult the goals, the higher the level of performance. Of course, it is logical to assume that easier goals
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are more likely to be accepted. However, once an employee accepts a hard task, he or she will exert a
high level of effort to try to reach it.
People will do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals because
feedback helps to identify discrepancies between what they have done and what they want to do; that is,
feedback acts to guide behavior. However, not all feedback is equally potent. Self-generated feedback—
for which the employee is able to monitor his or her own progress—has been shown to be a more
powerful motivator than externally generated feedback.
Teaching Notes
If employees have the opportunity to participate in the setting of their own goals, will they try harder?
The evidence is mixed regarding the superiority of participation over assigned goals. In some cases, goals
that have been set participatively have elicited superior performance; in other cases, individuals have
performed best when assigned goals by their boss. A major advantage of participation may be in
increasing acceptance of the goal itself.
Studies testing goal-setting theory have demonstrated the superiority of specific, challenging goals, with
feedback, as motivating forces. Therefore, if students actively participate in this process and commit to it,
the research would predict that they would do better than their counterparts who do not do it.
Exercises
1. Success Takes More Than Luck! Have the students prepare a document laying out what their
specific course goals are. They should bring this to class and be prepared to discuss in small groups
what these goals are. Optional: set up a future meeting of the small group to see how well each
member is progressing toward his or her course goals.
Learning Objective(s): To illustrate the effectiveness of goal setting.
Preparation/Time Allotment: Give the students about a week to prepare the goals. Then, give them
about 30-minutes in small groups to discuss what their goals are, and how they are going to achieve
them.
Advantages/Disadvantages/Potential Problems: The effectiveness of this exercise will vary depending
upon the degree to which the students actually accept the goals. Use this as a teaching tool to relate it
to real world goals. Just because something is on paper, that does not mean that performance will
automatically go up. It is just clear from the research that specific, challenging goals increase
performance more than if goals had not been set. You might also point out that simply setting goals
does not guarantee success, but rather, it increases chances of success, and will most likely increase
performance.
2. Have Goals Worked? In a class discussion, talk about the power of goals and objectives in one’s
life. Have students relate times when they have set a goal and achieved it. Why did they achieve it?
How did goal setting help in this achievement? How will they use this in the future?
Learning Objective(s): To illustrate the power of goal setting across multiple life activities.
Preparation/Time Allotment: This should be about a 20-minute discussion.
Advantages/Disadvantages/Potential Problems: Students do not necessarily have had to write
something down in order to call it a goal. They should be able to recall times in their lives in which
they set goals, even if they were not on paper. Have them recall athletic events that they participated
in, weight loss goals, or even material goals from their youth. Note the power that visualizing
something specific has on the achievement of outcomes.
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Case Application
Managing the Magic
The difficult business climate in 2008 and 2009 challenged Disney financially.
As one of the world’s largest entertainment and media companies, Disney has had a long record of
successes.
Although Disney is a U.S.-based company, its businesses span the globe with operations in North
America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. The president of Walt Disney International says, “We
believe there is vast growth to come out of this market, despite the near-term economic turmoil.”
When Bob Iger was named CEO in 2005, analysts believed that the Disney brand had become dated. The
perception: too much Disney product in the marketplace lacking the quality people expected. Iger said,
“That combination, lack of quality and too much product—was really deadly.” At that time also, the
Disney brand was more tied to its history than it was to being contemporary and innovative. And, there
was this sense that Disney’s target audience was young and that its products couldn’t possibly be of
interest to older kids. Iger, who views himself as the steward of the entire Disney brand, immediately
recognized the importance of leveraging the company’s vast media content on different platforms. His
strategic approach—the Disney Difference—had been working well until the economy slowed. Now, Iger
and his management team will have to use all the strategic tools they have to guide the company and keep
the magic coming.
Discussion Questions
1. What is the Disney Difference and how will it affect the company’s corporate, competitive, and
functional strategies?
Answer: The Disney Difference was the strategic approach or plan for the company, utilizing the
Disney brand and its vast media on different platforms. This approach or blueprint will guide Disney
on all fronts. Even though the economy is tight, so the plan and strategies may need revised, the core
mission remains the same. The quality and creative content of the Disney's trademark will help them
during this downturn.
2. What challenges do you think Disney might face in doing business in Russia? How could Iger
and his top management team use planning to best prepare for those challenges?
Answer: Disney will face cultural differences in Russia, so they must adapt with innovative
platforms. Iger and the top management team must do their homework and due diligence before
expanding into this country. An extensive strategic and business plan with specific goals will help
this expansion succeed.
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3. With the announced expansion of Disney’s Hong Kong Disneyland, what goals might the
company set? What type of planning will be necessary?
Answer: Disney will set economic and financial goals for a return on their massive investment.
Since the creative work has been completed, the management will set short and long-term goals.
Clearly, they have some work to do in marketing as well, since amusement parks are not a necessity,
but rather from consumer's discretionary money.
4. How might Iger and his top management team use the strategic management process to “keep
the magic coming” in the current economic climate?
Answer: All of the steps of the strategic management process will be implemented as part of the
overarching plan.
(1) Identify the organization’s current mission, goals, and strategies;
(2) Do an external analysis;
(3) Do an internal analysis;
(4) Formulate strategies;
(5) Implement strategies; and
(6) Evaluate results.
The SWOT analysis will provide critical information regarding the strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats facing Disney. This assessment is essential for every company, especially in
an economic downturn.
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