Full Name: Nguyen Thi Viet Huong

Class: Advanced Finance 56 B

EXAM CRAFTING & EXECUTING STRATEGY

Chapter 12

Results Reporter

Out of 10 questions, you answered 10 correctly with a final grade of 100%

10 correct (100%)
0 incorrect (0%)
0 unanswered (0%)
Your Results:
The correct answer for each question is indicated by a
1
CORRECT

Which one of the following is not something that shapes and helps define a
company's culture?
A) The core values and business principles that executives espouse
together with the operating practices and behaviors that define "how
we do things around here"
B) The company's standards of what is ethically acceptable and what is
not, along with the legends and stories that people repeat to illustrate
and reinforce the company's core values, traditions, and business
practices
C)
A company's approach to people management and its style of
operating
D)
The strategy and business model that the company has adopted
E)

The "chemistry" and "personality" that permeates its work

environment

Answer
:D
2
CORRECT

Which one of the following is not something to look for in identifying a

company's culture?

A) The company's approach to people management and the official

policies, procedures, and operating practices that paint the white
lines for the behavior of company personnel
B)
The company's track record in meeting or beating its financial and
strategic performance targets
C)
How managers and employees interact and relate to each other
D)
The spirit and character that pervades the work climate
E)

The strength of peer pressures to do things in particular ways and

conform to expected norms

Answer
:B
3
CORRECT

Answer
:A

Which of the following statements about a strong-culture company is false?

A) Decisive leadership on the part of top executives, an industryleading market share, and strict enforcement of long-standing
company policies are all important traits of a strong culture
company.
B) In strong culture companies, senior managers make a point of
reiterating key principles and core values to organization members;
more importantly, they make a conscious effort to display these
principles and values in their own actions and behaviorthey walk
the talk.
C) Continuity of leadership, small group size, stable group
membership, geographic concentration, and considerable
organizational success all contribute to the emergence and
sustainability of a strong culture.
D) In a strong-culture company, culturally-approved behaviors and
ways of doing things are nurtured while culturally-disapproved
behaviors and work practices get squashed.
E) Senior managers insist that company values and business principles
be reflected in the decisions and actions taken by all company
personnel; moreover, individuals encounter strong peer pressures
from co-workers to observe culturally-approved norms and
behaviors.

4
CORRECT

The characteristics of a weak company culture include

A)
deep hostility to change and to people who champion new ways of
doing things.
B)

no code of ethics or statement of core values, a highly centralized

managerial hierarchy, and a big corporate bureaucracy.

C) a lack of values and principles that are consistently preached or

widely shared, little co-worker peer pressure to do things in
particular ways, and no strong employee allegiance to what the
company stands for or to operating the business in well-defined
ways.
D) no strong sense of empowerment among company members, little or
no top management commitment to a clearly-defined competitive
strategy, and a poor track record in producing good financial results.
E)
All of the above are traits of a weak company culture.
Answer
:C
5
CORRECT

Which of the following is not one of the four types of unhealthy company
cultures?
A)
Bureaucratic cultures
B)
Change-resistant cultures
C)
Unethical and greed-driven cultures
D)
Politicized cultures
E)
Insular, inwardly-focused cultures

Answer
:A
6

CORRECT

Companies with insular, inwardly-focused cultures

A)
are typically opposed to performance-based incentive compensation
and employee empowerment.
B) are prone to be preoccupied with avoiding risks, are unlikely to
pursue bold actions to capture emerging opportunities, are
frequently lax when it comes to product innovation and continuous
improvement in performing value chain activities, and prefer
following rather than leading market change.
C)
are typically gung-ho about adapting to changing market conditions
so as to protect the company's culture from shareholder criticism.
D) tend to resist recruiting people who can offer fresh thinking and
outside perspectives and typically refrain from looking outside the
company for best practices, new managerial approaches, and
innovative ideas.
E) are typically run by empire-building managers who jealously guard
their decision-making prerogatives; they have their own agendas and
operate the work units under their supervision as autonomous
"fiefdoms," and the positions they take on issues is usually aimed at
protecting or expanding their turf.

Answer
:D
7
CORRECT

The hallmarks of a high performance corporate culture include

A) a shared willingness to adapt core values and ethical standards to fit
the changing requirements of an evolving strategy, use of a balanced
scorecard approach to tracking company performance, and a gungho approach to discovering best practices.
B) considerable political infighting that typically consumes a great deal
of organizational energy, often with the result that what's best for the
company takes a backseat to political maneuvering.
C) a "can-do" spirit, pride in doing things right, no-excuses
accountability, and a pervasive results-oriented work climate where
people go the extra mile to meet or beat stretch objectives.
D)
charismatic managerial leadership, a lean management bureaucracy,
and a must-be-invented-here mindset.
E) strong inclinations to adopt a wait-and-see posture, carefully analyze
several alternative responses, learn from the missteps of early
movers, and then move forward cautiously and conservatively with
initiatives that are deemed safe.

Answer
:C

8
CORRECT

Adaptive cultures are characterized by such traits as

A) willingness on the part of organizational members to accept change
and take on the challenge of introducing and executing new
strategiescompany personnel share a feeling of confidence that
the organization can deal with whatever threats and opportunities
come down the pike; they are receptive to risk taking,
experimentation, innovation, and changing strategies and practices.
B) orchestrating organizational changes in a manner that (1)
demonstrates genuine care for the well-being of all key
constituencies (customers, employees, shareowners, suppliers, and
the communities where the company operates) and (2) tries to
satisfy all their legitimate interests simultaneously.
C) a proactive approach to identifying issues, evaluating the
implications and options, and quickly moving ahead with workable
solutions.
D) a willingness to change operating practices and behaviors to adapt to
new market and competitive conditions so long as the changes
do not compromise core values and long-standing business
principles
E)
All of these.

Answer
:E
9
CORRECT

Which of the following is not one of the leadership roles that senior
managers have to play in pushing for good strategy execution and operating
excellence?
A)
Learning the obstacles in the path of good execution and clearing the
way for progress
B) Weeding out managers who are consistently in the ranks of the
lowest performers (the bottom 10%) and who are not enthusiastic
about the strategy or how it is being executed
C)
Staying on top what is happening and closely monitor progress.
D)

Putting constructive pressure on the organization and initiate

corrective actions.

E) Delegating authority to middle and lower-level managers and

creating a sense of empowerment among employees to move the
implementation process forward.
Answer
:B
10
CORRECT

The task of top executives in making corrective adjustments includes

A)
deciding when adjustments are needed and what adjustments to
make.
B)
C)

knowing when to continue with the present corporate culture and

when to shift to a different and better corporate culture.
being good at figuring out whether to arrive at decisions quickly or
slowly in choosing among the various alternative adjustments.

D) deciding whether to try to fix the problems of poor strategy

execution or simply shift to a strategy that is easier to execute
correctly.
E)
deciding how to identify the problems that need fixing.
Answer: E