MGMT 3000 UGA Lyons Test 1

contextual intelligence

The ability to understand the impact of environmental factors on a firm and the ability to understand how to influence those same factors.

management

The act of working with and through a group of people to accomplish a desired goal or objective in an efficient and effective manner.

leadership

The ability to drive change and innovation through inspiration and motivation.

bureaucratic organization structure

A clear differentiation of tasks and responsibilities among individuals; coordination through a strict hierarchy of authority and decision rights; standardized rules and procedures; and the vertical separation of planning and execution so that plans are made in the upper ranks of an organization and executed in the lower ranks.

scientific management

A focus on how jobs, work, and incentive schemes could be designed to improve productivity using industrial engineering methods.

human relations movement

The belief that organizations must be understood as systems of interdependent human beings who share a common interest in the survival and effective functioning of the firm.

contingent view

A view of the firm where effective organizational structure is based on fit or alignment between the organization and various aspects in its environment.

business environment

The combination of all contextual forces and elements in the external and internal environments of a firm.

managerial view

A business framework where the firm is seen as a mechanism for converting raw materials into products to sell to customers.

shareholder view

A business framework where the job of top managers is to produce the highest possible stock market valuation of the firm's assets.

stakeholder view

A business framework that identifies and analyzes multiple groups that interact with the firm and attempts to align organizational practices to satisfy the needs of these various groups.

strategic review process

The process by which senior leaders of a corporation meet with business unit managers to review progress toward specific goals.

environmental scanning

A tool that managers use to scan the business horizon for key events and trends that will affect the business in the future.

scenario building

Forecasting the likely result that might occur when several events and stakeholders are linked together.

contingency planning

The systematic assessment of the external environment to prepare for a possible range of alternative futures for the organization.

trend analysis

A tool where key variables are monitored and modeled to help predict a change that might occur in the environment.

VUCA

An acronym for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous that captures the context in which today's organizations compete.

employees

The people who make the products and provide the services that allow a firm to exist.

Globalization

The integration and interdependence of economic, technological, sociocultural, and political systems across diverse geographic regions.

comparative advantage

An economic theory that proclaims countries should specialize in producing goods for which they have the lowest opportunity cost of production.

external environment

Represents all of the external forces that affect the firm's business.

general environment

Includes the technological, economic, political/legal, and sociocultural dimensions that affect a firm's external environment.

task environment

Includes entities that directly affect a firm on a constant basis and include competitors, suppliers, and customers

technological dimension

The processes, technologies, or systems that a firm can use to produce outputs.

economic dimension

The general economic environment (e.g., GDP, inflation, and unemployment) in the markets where the firm performs activities.

political dimension

Refers to the political events and activities in a market that affect a firm.

legal dimension

The regulations and laws that a firm encounters in its markets.

sociocultural dimension

Demographic characteristics as well as the values and customs of a society.

social values

The deeply rooted system of principles that guide individuals in their everyday choices and interactions

competitor

Any organization that creates goods or services targeted at a similar group of customers.

supplier

A company that provides resources or services for a firm to help in its creation of products and services.

customers

The people or organizations that buy a firm's products and services.

internal environment

A group of parties or factors that directly impact a firm, including owners, the board of directors, employees, and culture.

owners

The people or institutions that maintain legal control of an organization.

board of directors

A group of individuals elected by shareholders and charged with overseeing the general direction of the firm.

Kantianism

An ethical philosophy claiming that motives and universal rules are important aspects in judging what is right or wrong.

Corporate social responsiveness

The practice of businesses responding to pressure from society to engage in socially responsible ways.

strategic CSR

Corporate social responsibility activities that are directly related to business activities so that they can combine social welfare with financial welfare.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

A business's obligation to pursue policies, decisions, and actions that align with the objectives and values of society.

virtue ethics

An ethical philosophy claiming that morality's primary function is to develop virtuous character.

Justice

An ethical philosophy that provides the framework for society to judge what is morally right or wrong, fair or unfair, and establishes ways to evaluate or punish those who behave in immoral ways.

Distributive justice

A subset of justice that deals with the distribution of wealth among members of a society.

Procedural justice

A subset of justice claiming that rules should be clearly stated, consistently obeyed, and impartially enforced.

fiduciary

A person who is entrusted with property, information, or power to act on behalf of a beneficiary.

Privacy

A person's right to determine the type and extent of information that is disclosed about him or her.

conflict of interest

occur when employees or managers engage in activities on behalf of the company and have a personal interest in the outcome of those activities.

insider trading

occurs when a manager uses inside information to bet for or against a company's stock before that information is publicly available.

trade secret

Any type of information used in conducting business that is not commonly known by others. It often provides a strategic advantage for a company over its competitors.

Whistle-blowing

The release of evidence by a member of an organization that proves illegal or immoral conduct to executives in a company or regulating agencies outside a company.

CSR

A business's obligation to pursue policies, decisions, and actions that align with the objectives and values of society.

Economic responsibilities

A business's duty to make a profit and increase shareholder value.

legal responsibilities

A business's duty to pursue its economic responsibilities within the boundaries of the law.

ethical responsibilities

A business's duty to meet the expectations of society beyond its economic and legal responsibilities.

ethics

The study of moral standards and their effect on behavior and conduct.

Morality

The standards that people use to judge what is right or wrong, good or evil.

Utilitarianism

The ethical philosophy claiming that behaviors are considered moral if they produce the greatest good, or utility, for the greatest number of people.

Procedural justice

A subset of justice claiming that rules should be clearly stated, consistently obeyed, and impartially enforced.

fiduciary

A person who is entrusted with property, information, or power to act on behalf of a beneficiary.

Procedural justice

A subset of justice claiming that rules should be clearly stated, consistently obeyed, and impartially enforced.

Alliances

A structure where partners come together by contract to engage jointly in activities in a market.

strategy

Pursuing a set of unique activities that provide value to customers; making tradeoffs about which businesses to pursue, what products to produce, and which customers to serve; and aligning resources to achieve organizational objectives.

competitive advantage

A firm achieves a competitive advantage when it creates more economic value than competitors by engaging in a strategy that is difficult or impossible for others to duplicate.

conglomeration

The act of growing through unrelated diversification, essentially by acquiring companies in different industries.

core competencies

A network of unique activities that strategically fit together and are difficult to replicate.

mission statement

A statement that defines a firm's reason for existence.

objectives

Series of quantifiable milestones or benchmarks by which a firm can assess its progress.

strategy formulation

The process of identifying how a firm can best align its resources to carve out a defensible position in the marketplace.

strategic position

A place in an industry that a firm occupies by way of the products or services it offers and the methods it uses to deliver them.

business-level strategy

The determination of how a company will compete in a given business and position itself among its competitors

corporate-level strategy

The way a company seeks to create value through the configuration and coordination of multimarket activities.

multinational strategies

Strategies in which the parent company organizes local subsidiaries and gives them autonomy to develop products tailored to local tastes.

Global strategies

Strategies that focus on developing overall scale economies and global efficiency instead of catering to local tastes.

International strategies

Strategies that combine elements of multinational and global strategies by using foreign subsidiaries to produce and distribute products.

transnational strategy

Strategies that balance a firm's international activities among efficiency, local responsiveness, and organizational learning.

exporting

Shipping a firm's products from its domestic home base to global markets.

Licensing

A contractual arrangement whereby the licensor (selling firm) allows its technology, patents, trademarks, designs, processes, know-how, intellectual property, or other proprietary advantages to be used for a fee by the licensee (buying firm).

franchising

Common arrangements in many retail businesses where a firm contracts with individual owners to operate its retail units. This arrangement typically involves a corporation sharing management and marketing techniques with the owner in exchange for a fee and some percentage of the unit's revenues.

joint venture

A structure where two firms come together to form a new company in a market.

alliance

A structure where partners come together by contract to engage jointly in activities in a market.

wholly owned subsidiary

A fully operational, independent entity that a firm sets up in a foreign country to conduct business in that market.

Transnational strategies

Strategies that balance a firm's international activities among efficiency, local responsiveness, and organizational learning.

goal

An organizationally desired result, product, or end state.

vision

A concept or picture of what a firm wants to achieve.

mission

The activities a firm performs for its customers.

Tactics

The actions that a firm takes to enact its strategy.

focus

A strategy in which a company "focuses" its sales efforts on a specific geographical region, a specific group of purchasers, or a specific product type.

barriers to entry

Obstacles a firm may face while trying to enter a market or an industry.

first-mover advantage

A competitive advantage that occurs when a firm is first to offer desirable products or services that secure customer loyalty.

bargaining power

The pressure that a supplier or buyer can exert on a company.

resource-based view of the firm

A theory that a firm can develop a competitive advantage through the collection and harvesting of resources.

value chain analysis

A systematic way of examining all of the activities a firm performs and determining how they interact to form a source of competitive advantage.

primary activities

The activities involved in the physical creation of the product and its sale and transfer to the buyer.

support activities

Activities that provide the support necessary for the primary activities to occur.

SWOT analysis

A tool that allows managers to take a snapshot of their firm's internal strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats that are evident in the external environment.

strategic flexibility

The capability to identify and react to changes in the external environment and to mobilize internal resources to deal with those changes.

Value

The amount consumers are willing to pay for a product or service. It comes from offering a lower price than that of competitors or providing a unique product whose benefits outweigh a higher potential cost.

cost leadership

economies of scale

Cost savings achieved when the volume of a product produced by a firm enables it to reduce per unit costs.

differentiation

A strategy in which a firm seeks to be unique in its industry along a dimension or a group of dimensions that are valued by consumers.

outsourcing

Contracting with a firm outside the corporation to perform certain tasks or functions that the corporation used to do on its own.