1.Every organization has a unique purpose and reason for being. How and where can the stakeholders of this organization decipher this uniqueness? Elaborate your answer.

2.In the context of your understanding of the stages, model, and benefits of Strategic Management, how will you correlate the statement the "the strategic-management process is an attempt both to duplicate what goes on in the mind of a brilliant, intuitive person who knows the business and to couple it with analysis"?

3.Internal Organization theorists contend that external factors in general and the industry in which a firm chooses to compete has a stronger influence on the firm's performance than do the internal functional decisions managers make in marketing, finance, and the like. Firm performance, they contend, is primarily based more on industry properties, such as economies of scale, barriers to market entry, product differentiation, the economy, and level of competitiveness than on internal resources, capabilities, structure, and operations. The global economic recession's impact on both strong and weak firms has added credence of late to the notion that external forces are more important than internal.

a.Does this view put emphasis on a question of whether external or internal factors are more important in gaining and maintaining competitive advantage? Why?

b.What is the key to securing and keeping a competitive advantage?

4.Relationships among a firm's functional business activities can be exemplified best by focusing on organizational culture. If you are a strategist of a company, what will be your basis of determining the importance of understanding the firm as a socio-cultural system?

5.Many, if not most, organizations simultaneously pursue a combination of two or more strategies, but a combination strategy can be exceptionally risky if carried too far. What do you think is the rationale for this?