Strategic Management Theory An Integrated Approach 9th Edition Charles W. L. Hill, Gareth R. Jones - Solutions

Unlock the full potential of your strategic management studies with comprehensive resources tailored for "Strategic Management Theory: An Integrated Approach, 9th Edition" by Charles W. L. Hill and Gareth R. Jones. Access an extensive collection of online answers key, providing solutions to complex textbook problems. Our solution manual offers detailed, step-by-step answers, ensuring a thorough understanding of each concept. Dive into the test bank for a full array of questions and answers, perfect for exam preparation. Explore chapter solutions and instructor manuals, available for free download, to enhance your learning experience with solved problems and solutions in PDF format.

In what main ways has Ford changed its global structure to allow it to coordinate the production and sale of its products more effectively around the world? In particular, what different forms of organizational structure has it adopted?
What kind of global strategy did Ford pursue at the beginning? What kind of global strategy does it pursue now?
Assess how well your company has implemented its multibusiness (or business) model.
In what ways does your company use IT to coordinate its value chain activities?
Does your company have a particular entry mode that it has used to implement its strategy?
Can you suggest ways of altering the company’s structure or control systems to strengthen its business model? Would these changes increase or decrease bureaucratic costs?
What kind of international strategy does your company pursue? How does it control its global activities? What kind of structure does it use? Why?
What are your company’s corporate-level strategies? How do they affect the way it uses organizational structure, control, and culture?
Does your company use a multidivisional structure? Why or why not? What crucial implementation problems must your company manage to implement its strategy effectively? For example, what kind of integration mechanisms does it employ?
What are the problems associated with implementing a strategy of related diversifi cation through acquisitions?
How would you design a structure and control system to encourage entrepreneurship in a large, established corporation?
What prompts a company to change from a global standardization to a transnational strategy, and what new implementation problems arise as it does so?
If a related company begins to buy unrelated businesses, in what ways should it change its structure or control mechanisms to manage the acquisitions?
When would a company decide to change from a functional to a multidivisional structure?
Search the Internet to fi nd out how Dell has been trying to increase its performance and how its competitors such as Apple and HP have also been working to improve theirs.
Has Dell’s performance been improved?
Why has Dell moved to different kinds of organizational structures over time?
Based on this analysis, would you say your company is coordinating and motivating its people and subunits effectively? Why or why not? What changes (if any) would you make to the way your company’s structure operates? What use could it make of restructuring or reengineering?
How does your company’s culture support its business model? Can you determine any ways in which its top management team infl uences its culture?
How does it design its structure and control systems to strengthen its business model? For example, what steps does it take to further cross-functional integration? Does it have a functional, product, or matrix structure?
What are the sources of your company’s distinctive competencies? Which functions are most important to it? How does your company design its structure, control, and culture to enhance its (a) effi ciency, (b) quality,(c) innovativeness, and (d) responsiveness to customers?
What role does the top management team play in creating the culture of your organization? Can you identify the characteristic norms and values that describe the way people behave in your organization? How does the design of the organization’s structure affect its culture?
What are the main kinds of control systems your company is using? What kinds of behaviors is the organization trying to (a) shape and(b) motivate through the use of these control systems?
What kind of integration or integration mechanisms does your company use?
Why did your company choose this structure?In what ways is it appropriate for its business model? In what ways is it not?
Draw an organizational chart showing the main way in which your company groups its activities. Based on this chart, decide what kind of structure (functional, product, or divisional) your company is using.
What changes (if any) would you make to the way the company allocates authority and responsibility?
How large is the company as measured by the number of its employees? How many levels in the hierarchy does it have from the top to the bottom? Based on these two measures and any other information you may have, would you say your company operates with a relatively tall or fl at structure? Does your
What kind of structure, controls, and culture would you be likely to fi nd in (a) a small manufacturing company, (b) a chain store, (c) a high-tech company, and (d) a Big Four accounting fi rm?
For each of the structures discussed in the chapter, outline the most suitable control systems.
When would a company choose a matrix structure? What are the problems associated with managing this structure, and why might a productteam structure be preferable?
What kind of structure best describes the way your (a) business school and (b) university operate? Why is the structure appropriate? Would another structure fi t better?
What is the relationship among organizational structure, control, and culture? Give some examples of when and under what conditions a mismatch among these components might arise.
Why do you think Kozlowski and Swartz, both bright successful businessmen, engaged in the behavior that they did? What motivated them to take such risks? How risky do you think they thought their behavior was?
During the period when Tyco’s profi ts were apparently overstated to the tune of $1.5 billion, its accounts were audited every year by a major independent accounting fi rm that signed off on them. Why do you think that the accounting fi rm did not catch the manipulations at Tyco?
What do you think leads top managers to engage in accounting manipulations to pad earnings, as apparently happened at Tyco?
Under the leadership of Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco grew rapidly for a decade. Why do you think Kozlowski pursued his growth through acquisition strategy? How did it benefi t Tyco? How did it benefi t Kozlowski?
Pick a major strategic decision made by your company in recent years and try to think through the ethical implications of that decision. In the light of your review, do you think that the company acted correctly?
Try to establish whether the governance mechanisms that operate in your company do a good job of aligning the interests of top managers with those of stockholders.
Evaluate the performance of the CEO of your company from the perspective of (a) stockholders, (b) employees, (c) customers, and(d) suppliers. What does this evaluation tell you about the ability of the CEO and the priorities that he or she is committed to?
Identify the main stakeholder groups in your company. What claims do they place on the company? How is the company trying to satisfy those claims?
Is it ethical for a fi rm faced with a shortage of labor to employ illegal immigrants as labor?
Under what conditions is it ethically defensible to outsource production to producers in the developing world who have much lower labor costs when such actions involve laying off longterm employees in the fi rm’s home country?
In a public corporation, should the CEO of the company also be allowed to be the chairman of the board (as allowed for by the current law)?What problems might this give rise to?
How might a company confi gure its strategymaking processes to reduce the probability that managers will pursue their own self-interest at the expense of stockholders?
Why is maximizing ROIC consistent with maximizing returns to stockholders?
How prevalent has the agency problem been in corporate America during the last decade? During the late 1990s, there was a boom in initial public offerings of Internet companies (dotcom companies). The boom was supported by sky-high valuations often assigned to Internet start-ups that had no
Would the people with whom I have a signifi cant personal relationship, such as family members, friends, or even managers in other businesses, approve of the decision?
Am I willing to see the decision communicated to all stakeholders affected by it—for example, by having it reported in newspapers or on television?
Does my decision fall within the accepted values or standards that typically apply in the organizational environment (as articulated in a code of ethics or some other corporate statement)?
Responsiveness to customers can be measured by the number of repeat customers, customer defection rates, level of on-time delivery to customers, and level of customer service.
Innovation can be measured by the number of new products introduced, the percentage of revenues generated from new products in a defi ned period, the time taken to develop the next generation of new products versus the competition, and the productivity of R&D (how much R&D spending is required to
Quality can be measured by the number of rejects, the number of defective products returned from customers, and the level of product reliability over time.
Effi ciency can be measured by the level of production costs, the productivity of labor (such as the employee hours needed to make a product), the productivity of capital (such as revenues per dollar invested in property, plant, and equipment), and the cost of raw materials.
Collect some recent information on the current performance of the three new companies that were created in 2007. What corporate strategies does each pursue? How well are they currently performing?
In what ways has Tyco’s multibusiness model changed over time? Why did its top managers make these changes?
In general, do you think that exiting from this industry has been in the company’s best interest?
Identify the strategy used to exit from this particular industry. Do you think that this was the best exit strategy to use? Why?
Pick one industry that your company has exited from during the past 10 years.
Identify the rationale for pursuing a restructuring strategy.
What kinds of changes would you make to its multibusiness model to boost its profi tability?
Has GE’s multibusiness model been changing? Has its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, announced any new strategic initiatives?
Review GE’s portfolio of major businesses.What multibusiness model is this portfolio of business based on? How profi table has that model been in past?
Identify Honeywell’s (www.honeywell.com)portfolio of businesses that can be found by exploring its Web site. How many different industries is Honeywell involved in? Would you describe Honeywell as a related or unrelated diversifi cation company? Has Honeywell’s diversifi catio?
Under which conditions are joint ventures a useful way to enter new industries?
Imagine that IBM has decided to diversify into the telecommunications business to provide online “cloud computing” data services and broadband access for businesses and individuals. What method would you recommend that IBM pursue to enter this industry? Why?
What factors make it most likely that (a) acquisitions or (b) internal new venturing will be the preferred method to enter a new industry?
When is a company likely to choose (a) related diversifi cation and (b) unrelated diversifi cation?
What are the advantages and disadvantages associated with these strategies?
What kind of corporate-level strategies did HP and Dell pursue to strengthen their multibusiness models?
What steps would you recommend that a company take to build mutually benefi cial long-term cooperative relationships with its suppliers?
What value-creation activities should a company outsource to independent suppliers? What are the risks involved in outsourcing these activities?
Why was it profi table for GM and Ford to integrate backward into component-parts manufacturing in the past, and why are both companies now buying more of their parts from outside suppliers?
What is the difference between a company’s internal value chain and the industry value chain? What is the relationship between vertical integration and the industry value chain?
Under what conditions might horizontal integration be inconsistent with the goal of maximizing profi tability?
What must MTV do, in terms of its management and organization, to implement its current strategy?
Why strategy does MTV pursue today? What are the benefi ts of this strategy? What are the costs?
What strategy did MTV pursue when it initially started to expand internationally? What assumptions were managers at MTV making about foreign markets at the time?
What foreign market might your company enter, and what entry mode should it use to enter this market? Justify your answer.
On the international level, what are the cost pressures and pressures for local responsiveness in the industry in which your company is based? What implications do these pressures have for the strategy that your company might pursue if it chose to expand globally?
What potential does your company have to add value to its products or lower the costs of value creation by expanding internationally?
What major foreign market does your company serve, and what mode has it used to enter this market? Why is your company active in these markets and not others? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using this mode? Might another mode be preferable?
What strategy is your company pursuing to compete globally? In your opinion, is this the correct strategy, given cost pressures and pressures for local responsiveness?
What are the cost pressures and pressures for local responsiveness in the industry in which your company is based?
How responsive is your company to differences among nations? Does it vary its product and marketing message from country to country? Should it?
Is your company creating value or lowering the costs of value creation by realizing location economies, transferring distinctive competencies abroad, or realizing cost economies from the economies of scale? If not, does it have the potential to?
What kind of companies stand to gain the most from entering into strategic alliances with potential competitors? Why?
Licensing proprietary technology to foreign competitors is the best way to give up a company’s competitive advantage. Discuss.
Discuss how the need for control over foreign operations varies with the strategy and distinctive competencies of a company. What are the implications of this relationship for the choice of entry mode?
Are the following global standardization industries or industries where localization is more important: bulk chemicals, pharmaceuticals, branded food products, moviemaking, television manufacturing, PCs, airline travel, and fashion retailing?
Plot the position of the following companies on Figure 8.3: Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemicals, Pfi zer, and McDonald’s. In each case, justify your answer.
What are the risks associated with fi ghting a format war like this?
The companies that developed fi rst generation DVD technology decided not to compete on technology, instead harmonizing their technology under the auspices of the DVD Forum. Why do you think they chose a different approach this time around?
What might Toshiba have done that might have led to a different outcome?
What strategies and assets enabled Sony to win this format war?
Why did both Sony and Toshiba perceive it to be so important to get an early lead in sales?
Are intellectual property rights important to your company? If so, what strategies is it adopting to protect those rights? Is it doing enough?
Where is the dominant technology in your industry on its S-curve? Are alternative competing technologies being developed that might give rise to a paradigm shift in your industry?
Did the dominant technology in your industry diffuse rapidly or slowly? What drove the speed of diffusion?
What are the attributes of the majority of customers purchasing the product of your company (e.g., early adopters, early majority, late majority)? What does this tell you about the strategic issues that the company is likely to face in the future?

Showing 1 - 100 of 2197

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Last

Strategic Management Theory An Integrated Approach 9th Edition Charles W. L. Hill, Gareth R. Jones - Solutions

Step by Step Answers