Assessing the Internal Environment of the Firm

Question 1

a strategic analysis of an organization that uses value-creating activities

Answer 1

3.1. Value-chain analysis

Question 2

sequential activities of the value chain that refer to the physical creation of the product or service, its sale and transfer to the buyer, and its service after sale, including inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service.

Answer 2

3.2. Primary activities

Question 3

activities of the vale chain that either add value by themselves or add value through important relationships with both primary activities and other support activities, including procurement, technology development, human resource management, and general administration.

Answer 3

3.3. Support activities

Question 4

– receiving, storing, and distributing inputs of a product.

Answer 4

3.4. Inbound logistics

Question 5

all activities associated with transforming inputs into the final product form.

Answer 5

3.5. Operations

Question 6

collecting, storing, and distributing the product or service to buyers.

Answer 6

3.6. Outbound logistics

Question 7

activities associated with purchases of products and services by end users and the inducements used to get them to make purchases.

Answer 7

3.7. Marketing and sales

Question 8

actions associated with providing service to enhance or maintain the value of the product.

Answer 8

3.8. Service

Question 9

– the function of purchasing inputs used in the firm’s value chain, including raw materials, supplies, and other consumable items as well as assets such as machinery, laboratory, equipment, office equipment, and buildings.

Answer 9

3.9. Procurement

Question 10

activities associated with the development of new knowledge that is applied to the firm’s operations.

Answer 10

3.10. Technology development

Question 11

activities involved in the recruiting, hiring, training, development, and compensation of all types of personnel.

Answer 11

3.11. Human resource management

Question 12

– general management, planning, finance, accounting, legal and government affairs, quality management, and information systems; activities that support the entire value chain and not individual activities.

Answer 12

3.12. General administration

Question 13

collaborative and strategic exchange relationships between value-chain activities either (a) within firms or (b) between firms. Strategic exchange relationships involve exchange of resources such as information, people, technology, or money that contribute to the success of the firm.

Answer 13

3.13. Interrelationships

Question 14

– perspective that firms’ competitive advantages are due to their endowment of strategic resources that are valuable, rate, costly to imitate, and costly to substitute.

Answer 14

3.14. Resource-based view (rBV) of the firm

Question 15

organizational assets that are relatively easy to identify, including physical assets, financial resources, organizational resources, and technological resources.

Answer 15

3.15. Tangible resources

Question 16

organizational assets that are difficult to identify and account for and are typically embedded in unique routines and practices, including human resources, innovation resources, and reputation resources

Answer 16

3.16. Intangible resources

Question 17

the competencies and skills that a firm employs to transform inputs into output.

Answer 17

3.17. Organizational capabilities

Question 18

a characteristic of resources that is developed and/or accumulated through a unique series of events.

Answer 18

3.18. Path dependency

Question 19

a characteristic of a firm’s resources that is costly to imitate because a competitor cannot determine what the resource is and/or how it can be re-created.

Answer 19

3.19. Causal ambiguity

Question 20

a characteristic of a firm’s resources that is costly to imitate because the social engineering require is beyond the capability of competitors, including interpersonal relations among managers, organizational culture, and reputation with suppliers and customers.

Answer 20

3.20. Social complexity

Question 21

• a method of evaluating a company’s performance and financial well-being through ratios of accounting values, including short-term solvency, long-term solvency, asset utilization, profitability, and market value ratios.

Answer 21

3.21. Financial ratio analysis

Question 22

a method of evaluating a firm’s performance using performance measures from the customer, internal, innovation and learning, and financial perspectives.

Answer 22

3.22. Balanced scorecard –

Question 23

measures of firm performance that indicate how ell firms are satisfying customers’ expectations.

Answer 23

3.23. Customer perspective

Question 24

measures of firm performance that indicate how well firms’ internal processes, decisions, and actions are contributing to customer satisfaction.

Answer 24

3.24. Internal business perspective

Question 25

measures of firm performance that indicate how ell firms are changing their product and service offerings to adapt to changes in the internal and external environments.

Answer 25

3.25. Innovation and learning perspective

Question 26

measures of firms’ financial performance that indicate how well strategy, implementation, and execution are contributing to bottom-line improvement.

Answer 26

3.26. Financial perspective