Questions and Answers of Strategic Management 5th

(a) What problem(s) might managers face under this new pay approach and how could they use knowledge about employee motivation to help them deal with those problem(s)?(b) What about ethical concerns?
What are the pros and cons of unlimited vacation policies for both employees and for organizations?
Why do you think some companies are moving to unlimited vacation policies? Is it feasible in small companies? Discuss.
What impact might managers/team leaders have on whether employees actually take advantage of an unlimited vacation policy?
Do you think there might be generational differences in how employees feel about unlimited vacation? Explain your answer.
How might unlimited vacation affect employee motivation? In answering this question, discuss any relevant motivation theories (early and contemporary) as they relate to this organizational approach.
What would it be like to work at Patagonia? What’s your assessment of the company’s work environment?
What do you think might be Patagonia’s biggest challenge in keeping employees motivated?
In your assigned group, discuss this: If you were managing a team of Patagonia employees in the retail stores, how would you keep them motivated?
Define leader and leadership, and discuss why managers should be leaders.
Why is trust the essence of leadership?
What do you think the term “success theater” refers to? Why is it a problem of (and for) a leader in charge?
What kind of organizational culture did Jeffrey Immelt foster at GE? What are the advantages of such a culture? What are the disadvantages?
Jeffrey Immelt did provide leadership to a very large, very complex company. How would you describe his leadership style?
When we say that trust is the essence of leadership, what does that mean for leading in the real world? Look at the five dimensions that make up the concept of trust, and discuss them in light of
What ethical issues arise when a leader loses trust? What leadership lesson(s) can you take away from this story?
Why do you think that there’s a huge gap in theory (what we know we should do) and practice (what we’re actually doing) of leadership development?
What are some reasons that companies might not be addressing Gen Y leadership development programs?
Would any of those six leadership attributes be appropriate for any of the other companies mentioned? Explain.
Three different types of organizations are described here: 3M is primarily a manufacturing organization. Ernst & Young and Deloitte are professional services organizations. Facebook is a tech
Is information technology helping managers communicate more efficiently and effectively? Explain your answer.
Research the characteristics of a good communicator. Write up your findings in a bulleted list report. Be sure to cite your sources.
For one day, track nonverbal communication that you notice in others. What types did you observe? Was the nonverbal communication always consistent with the verbal communication taking place?
What purposes does communication serve?
Describe three barriers to communication and how managers can overcome those barriers.
What are the advantages and drawbacks of universities using social media to communicate with various stakeholders— students, potential students, alumni, donors, etc.?
Do you think there are more or fewer communication barriers when using social media? Discuss.
What should managers do to be sure they communicate effectively when using social media?
What have been your experiences—both positive and negative —with social media? From your experiences, what guidelines could you suggest for managers and organizations?
How do you balance an individual’s “right” to use social media as he or she pleases, with the ethical challenges of being on social media? How does ethical communication come into play here?
What do you think of this? Do you agree that e-mail and voice mail can be unproductive in the workplace?
What role should customer service play in choosing which organizational communication methods to use?
Write a memo that you would send to your employees telling them that you’re declaring a no e-mail day once a month. In that memo, be sure to explain why you’re doing it and what benefits you hope
Would you like to work in a competitive environment like this? Why or why not?
Does the culture described in this story fit into the idea of a culture of civility and respectfulness? In your assigned group, discuss this and come up with some suggestions that you might pass on
Can business management be called a profession? Why or why not? Do some external research in answering this question.
Discuss the pros and cons of managers using technology to help make decisions.
What do you think of the defendants’ arguments that “no one was hurt and no law was broken?” Do you agree? Disagree? Discuss.
In your assigned group, discuss the potential effects there would be for the various stakeholders in this situation?
“Because managers have so many powerful decision-making tools to use, they should be able to make more rational decisions.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why?
Why do you think organizations have increased the use of groups for making decisions and when would you recommend using groups to make decisions?
Why does a decision maker need to be creative? In which steps of the decision-making process is creativity likely to be most important?
What is big data? How can managers effectively use big data to improve their decision making? Should managers be cautious in using big data?
Today’s world is chaotic and fast-paced. How does time pressure affect managerial decision making? What can managers do to still be good decision makers under such conditions?
Why is efficiency and safety so important to UPS?
Would you characterize a driver’s route decisions as structured or unstructured problems? Programmed or nonprogrammed decisions? Explain.
How would ORION technology help drivers make better decisions? (Think of the steps in the decision-making process.)
How is UPS being a sustainable corporation?
Describe how baseball front office executives—maybe even college baseball coaches—could use each of the following to make better decisions: (a) rationality, (b) bounded rationality, and (c)
Can there be too much information in managing the business of baseball? In your answer to this question, be sure to explain both sides of the issue and state YOUR conclusion.
Decision making starts with a problem and ends with a solution to solve the problem. Did that happen in this story? Explain your answer.
Creativity and design thinking are two contemporary decisionmaking issues that we introduced in the chapter. Were creativity and design thinking illustrated in this story? Discuss.
What could other companies learn about decision making from Panera’s story? In your “assigned” group, talk about this and then create a list with some suggestions for helping you be better
Discuss why planning is beneficial.
Do a personal SWOT analysis. Assess your personal strengths and weaknesses (skills, talents). What are you good at? What are you not so good at? What do you enjoy doing? Not enjoy doing? Then,
What role does, and should, technology play in planning?
What competitive advantage do you think Zara is pursuing? How does it exploit that competitive advantage?
Has Zara met its obligations to the workers who create their garments that are sold in their stores? In your assigned group, discuss the social responsibility issues that Zara (and other fast fashion
As the new CEO, why would you want to spend time—valuable time—gathering information? Is this similar to SWOT analysis? Discuss.
Communicating these new goals, strategies, and plans to employees is obviously important for guiding employee behaviors and actions. Whose responsibility is it to communicate these things? What do
What types of plans would be needed in an industry such as this one (for instance, long-term or short-term, or both)? Explain why you think these plans would be important.
What organizational development (OD) efforts might work at VW? Explain your choice(s). What challenges will managers face in making these changes?
Is an innovative culture always going to be at odds with an ethical culture? Or is an innovative and ethical culture possible? Gather your thoughts on this and then in your assigned group, come up
What do you think UA’s culture might be like in regards to innovation?
How might design thinking help UA improve its innovation efforts?
In your assigned group, pretend you’ve been invited to make a presentation to the executive team at one of these Swiss watch companies on ways you might get younger customers to give these special
How can environmental opportunities be identified?
Describe some of the personality characteristics that researchers have identified about entrepreneurs.
How can entrepreneurs be successful and balance the demands of their work and personal lives?
What characteristics do you think Brandon Chrostowski possesses that have helped him make this business a success?
According to the research cited in this case story, what challenges do female entrepreneurs face?
If you were a venture capitalist (male or female), what steps would you take to avoid asking biased questions that disadvantage female entrepreneurs?
Can you think of any other possible solutions to prevent this type of bias from taking place? Be creative as you think about this.
What is an organization and what characteristics do organizations share?
What similarities and differences do you see among the four management functions?
Do all organizations need managers? Explain.
Explain how the 4 functions approach is better than the roles approach and the skills and competencies approach for describing what managers do.
Why would a company want employees in lower-level management positions to be more successful in their careers?
What benefits and challenges do you see to a training program such as this?
What additional managerial topics might you suggest be covered in the Walmart Academy training program? Think in terms of the three ways to look at what managers do.
Many college graduates are reluctant to pursue a career in a retail organization...even at the world’s largest. Discuss how a company like Walmart could attract talented graduates.
Does an organization have an ethical responsibility to assist new managers transition into their positions? Why or why not?
What is a holacracy?
Write a paragraph explaining holacracy to someone not familiar with management.
In addition to the challenges of “fixing” the flaws, what other issues are Intel’s top managers going to have to address?
Look at the timeline of how these flaws were discovered. Do you think Intel should have done anything differently? Explain.
In your “assigned” team, discuss Intel’s disclosure about the computer security flaws to Chinese companies before disclosure to U.S. government agencies and officials. What potential ethical
What are the six external environment components and why is it important for managers to understand these components?
Why is it important for managers to pay attention to demographic trends and shifts?
Is organizational culture an asset to an organization? Explain. Can it ever be a liability? Explain.
How is an organization’s culture formed and maintained?
How can managers best deal with environmental uncertainty?
Explain how an organization’s culture can help it be successful AND how it can keep it from being successful.
What role does a CEO play in an organization’s culture? What role do other leaders/managers play and what role should they play?
Which view of management do you see played out here? The omnipotent or the symbolic? Explain.
What advice about organizational culture would you give the new CEO?
From an ethics perspective, what part of this situation disturbs you the most? What career advice, as far as ethical behavior, could you take away from this story?
According to the case, what external trends are managers at the movie theater chains having to deal with?
How do you think these trends might constrain decisions made by managers at the movie theater chains?
What stakeholders do you think might be most important to movie theater chains? What interests might these stakeholders have?

Showing 300 - 400 of 452