1. Strategy's concern is to match a firm's resources and capabilities to the opportunities emerging from its environment. True or False?

Select one:

True

False

2. The resource-based view focuses on:

Select one:

a. The interface between corporate strategy and business strategy.

b. The interface between strategy and the resources of a firm.

c. The interface between strategy and the internal environment of a firm.

d. The interface between resources and capabilities within a firm.

3. The perceived importance of resources and capabilities to firms' strategies became prominent because:

Select one:

a. Top managers have understood the importance of competitive advantages from major academic papers published at the time.

b. The general environment has become more unstable and the structure of industries has evolved towards simultaneously more cooperation and more competition.

c. The planning school of strategy has been heavily criticized and planning departments in large firms have almost disappeared.

d. It became increasingly apparent that competitive advantage was more important to profit generation than mere characteristics of the industry as a whole.

4. One implication of the resource-based perspective is that:

Select one:

a. Firms tend to adopt similar or close strategies.

b. Firms focus on being different from competitors in ways which matter to their competitiveness and to customers.

c. Firms focus on building a stronger portfolio of capabilities than the average portfolio of their rivals.

d. Firms focus on understanding their resources and capabilities in regards to their weaknesses.

5. Fundamentally, the resource based view is useful for determining strategy by:

Select one:

a. Selecting a strategy that exploits a firm's resources and capabilities.

b. Hiring the best talent for the top level of management.

c. Benchmarking rivals.

d. Exploiting a firm's technological prowess and intangible assets.

6. What's the difference between a resource and a capability?

Select one:

a. A resource is a productive asset of the firm whereas a capability refers to what the firm can do.

b. A resource is an immobile asset whereas a capability is a dynamic concept.

c. A resource is a weak source of competitive advantage whereas a capability is a strong one.

d. It is very difficult to elucidate.

7. A firm's resources and capabilities are:

Select one:

a. Such that one resource means one capability.

b. Associated but not linked.

c. Such that one capability may rest upon several resources.

d. Not directly related to each other at all.

8. Examples of reputational assets are:

Select one:

a. Corporate culture, organisational culture, and trademarks.

b. Reputation of a firm's top managers within the industry, and corporate culture.

c. Brand names, trademarks, and customers' confidence in the firm.

d. Brand names, and a firm's employee turnover rate.

9. Functional analysis and value-chain analysis are both a basis for:

Select one:

a. Classifying a firm's core competencies.

b. Classifying and disaggregating a firm's activities.

c. Understanding a firm's technology, human resources, and product-market combinations, and its organisational structure and culture.

d. Benchmarking with a firm's customers, suppliers, and complementary product suppliers.

10. The ability of a firm achieving a good level of profit thanks to its resources and capabilities depends on:

Select one:

a. Many factors in addition to the firm's competences.

b. The ability of top managers to effectively and efficiently guide the firm through the strategic management process.

c. Its ability to use them to establish and to sustain, competitive advantage and to appropriate the returns by deploying its competitive advantage.

d. Its ability to perform better than its rivals, to extract more value than similar firms in the same strategic group, and to distribute the value to its stakeholders.