Internal Scanning

Question 1

A name that identifies a particular company’s product in the mind of the consumer.

Answer 1

Brand

Question 2

The mix of activities a company performs to earn a profit.

Answer 2

Business model

Question 3

A corporation’s ability to exploit its resources.

Answer 3

Capability

Question 3

The process of analyzing and ranking possible investments in terms of the additional outlays and additional receipts that will result from each investment.

Answer 3

Capital budgeting

Question 4

The part of the industry value chain that is most important to the company and the point where the company’s greatest expertise and capabilities lay.

Answer 4

Center of gravity

Question 4

A cross-functional integration and coordination of capabilities.

Answer 4

Competency

Question 5

A collection of beliefs, expectations, and values learned and shared by a corporation’s members and transmitted from one generation of employees to another.

Answer 5

Corporate culture

Question 6

A widely held perception of a company by the general public.

Answer 6

Corporate reputation

Question 7

A process in which specialists from various functional areas work side by side rather than sequentially in an effort to design new products.

Answer 7

Concurrent engineering

Question 8

An assemblage of legally independent firms (subsidiaries) operating under one corporate umbrella but controlled through the subsidiaries’ boards of directors.

Answer 8

Conglomerate structure

Question 9

Production organized in lines on which products can be continuously assembled or processed.

Answer 9

Continuous systems

Question 10

A representation that indicates how durable and imitable an organization’s resources and capabilities are.

Answer 10

Continuum of sustainability

Question 11

A work team composed of people from multiple functions.

Answer 11

Cross-functional work teams

Question 12

The extent to which units throughout an organization share a common culture.

Answer 12

Cultural integration

Question 13

The degree to which members of an organizational unit accept the norms, values, or other culture content associated with the unit.

Answer 13

Cultural intensity

Question 14

A firm’s competencies that are superior to those of competitors.

Answer 14

Distinctive competencies

Question 15

A collection of corporate capabilities that cross divisional borders and are widespread within a corporation, and is something that a corporation can do exceedingly well.

Answer 15

Core competency

Question 16

An organizational structure in which employees tend to be functional specialists organized according to product/market distinctions.

Answer 16

Divisional structure

Question 17

The rate at which a firm’s underlying resources and capabilities depreciate or become obsolete.

Answer 17

Durability

Question 18

Capabilities that are continually being changed and reconfigured to make them more adaptive to an uncertain environment.

Answer 18

Dynamic capabilities

Question 19

A process in which unit costs are reduced by making large numbers of the same product.

Answer 19

Economies of scale

Question 20

A process in which unit costs are reduced when the value chains of two separate products or services share activities, such as the same marketing channels or manufacturing facilities.

Answer 20

Economies of scope

Question 21

A conceptual framework that states that unit production costs decline by some fixed percentage each time the total accumulated volume of production in units doubles.

Answer 21

Experience curve

Question 22

Knowledge that can be easily articulated and communicated.

Answer 22

Explicit knowledge

Question 23

An information network within an organization that is available to key suppliers and customers.

Answer 23

Extranet

Question 24

The ratio of total debt to total assets.

Answer 24

Financial leverage

Question 25

A type of manufacturing that permits the low-volume output of custom-tailored products at relatively low unit costs through economies of scope.

Answer 25

Flexible manufacturing

Question 26

An organizational structure in which employees tend to be specialists in the business functions important to that industry, such as manufacturing, sales, or finance.

Answer 26

Functional structure

Question 27

A mix of people from different races, cultures, and backgrounds in the workplace.

Answer 27

Human diversity

Question 28

A table that organizes internal factors into strengths and weaknesses and how well management is responding to these specific factors.

Answer 28

IFAS (Internal Factor Analysis Summary) table

Question 29

The rate at which a firm’s underlying resources and capabilities can be duplicated by others.

Answer 29

Imitability

Question 30

A method of manufacturing in which an item is normally processed sequentially, but the work and the sequence of the processes vary.

Answer 30

Intermittent system

Question 31

An information network within an organization that also has access to the Internet.

Answer 31

Intranet

Question 32

Refers to the selection of specific areas for marketing concentration and can be expressed in terms of market, product, and geographical locations.

Answer 32

Market position

Question 33

The division of a market into segments to identify available niches.

Answer 33

Market segmentation

Question 34

The particular combination of key variables (product, place, promotion, and price) that can be used to affect demand and to gain competitive advantage.

Answer 34

Marketing mix

Question 35

The low-cost production of individually customized goods and services.

Answer 35

Mass customization

Question 36

A company that has significant assets and activities in multiple countries.

Answer 36

Multinational corporation (MNC)

Question 37

A manufacturing firm’s corporate value chain, including inbound logistics, operations process, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and service.

Answer 37

Primary activity

Question 37

A graph showing time plotted against sales of a product as it moves from introduction through growth and maturity to decline.

Answer 37

Product life cycle

Question 38

Research and development concerned with product or product-packaging improvements.

Answer 38

Product R&D

Question 39

The ability of competitors to duplicate resources and imitate another firm’s success.

Answer 39

Replicability

Question 40

A company’s physical, human, and organizational assets that serve as the building blocks of a corporation.

Answer 40

Resources

Question 41

A structure for new entrepreneurial firms in which the employees tend to be generalists and jacks-of-all-trades.

Answer 41

Simple structure

Question 42

A division or group of divisions composed of independent product-market segments that are given primary authority for the management of their own functions.

Answer 42

Strategic business unit (SBU)

Question 43

A comprehensive plan that states how a corporation will achieve its mission and objectives.

Answer 43

Strategy

Question 44

The formation of networks for sourcing raw materials, manufacturing products or creating services, storing and distributing goods, and delivering goods or services to customers and consumers.

Answer 44

Supply-chain management

Question 44

Knowledge that is not easily communicated because it is deeply rooted in employee experience or in a corporation’s culture.

Answer 44

Tacit knowledge

Question 45

A corporation’s proficiency in managing research personnel and integrating their innovations into its dayto-day operations.

Answer 45

Technological competence

Question 46

The displacement of one technology by another.

Answer 46

Technological discontinuity

Question 47

The process of taking a new technology from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Answer 47

Technology transfer

Question 48

The ability of competitors to gather the resources and capabilities necessary to support a competitive challenge.

Answer 48

Transferability

Question 49

The speed with which other firms can understand the relationship of resources and capabilities supporting a successful firm’s strategy.

Answer 49

Transparent

Question 50

A linked set of value-creating activities that begins with basic raw materials coming from suppliers and ends with distributors getting the final goods into the hands of the ultimate consumer.

Answer 50

Value chain

Question 51

A group of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers that are assembled using a combination of telecommunications and information technologies to accomplish an organizational task.

Answer 51

Virtual team

Question 52

Barney’s proposed analysis to evaluate a firm’s key resources in terms of value, rareness, imitability, and organization.

Answer 52

VRIO framework

Question 53

A term used to describe the evolution of the Internet into wikis, blogs, RSS, social networks, podcasts, and mash-ups.

Answer 53

Web 2.0

Question 54

is a principal means of gaining market share in global competition.

Answer 54

R&D intensity

Question 55

(internal scanning) is concerned with identifying and developing an organization’s resources and competencies.

Answer 55

organizational analysis

Question 55

the impact of a specific change in sales volume on net operating income.

Answer 55

operating leverage