Management Answers

Why does every organization need to consciously establish and communicate clear

objectives and strategies?

 issues unions need to discuss to stem the declining trend in union membership and how unions should manage and mitigate the declining trend. 

Although cost leadership is perhaps less relevant for firms that pursue product differentiation, costs are not totally relevant. What advice about costs would you give a firm pursuing a product differentiation strategy?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the different empirical approaches to describing the bases of product differentiation discussed in chapter? What can these empirical approaches do for a manager that more conceptual approaches cannot do? What can the conceptual approaches do for a manager that the more empirical approaches cannot do?

A firm with a highly differentiated product can increase the volume of its sales. Increased sales volumes can enable a firm to reduce its costs. High volumes can enable a firm to reduce its costs. High volumes of which the firm can use to invest in further differentiating its products. What advice would you give a firm whose competition is enjoying this product differentiation and cost leadership advantage?

How can being a cost leader enable a firm to exploit the environmental opportunities discussed in Chapter 4?

One way of thinking about organizing to implement cost leadership strategies is that firms that pursue this strategy should be highly centralized, have high levels of direct supervision, and keep employee wages to an absolute minimum. Another approach is to decentralize decision-making authority – to ensure that individuals who know the most about reducing costs make decisions about how to reduce costs. This, in turn, implies less direct supervision and somewhat higher levels of employees’ wages (why?). Which of these two approaches seems more reasonable? Under what conditions would these different approaches make more or less sense?

In your view, does Google have a sustained competitive advantage? If yes, why? If no, why not?

1.      Which is more critical to sustaining human life – water or diamonds? Why do firms that provide water to customers generally earn lower economic profits than firms that provide diamonds?

1.      Which approach to strategy formulation is more likely to generate economic profits: (a) evaluating environmental opportunities and threats and then developing resources and capabilities to exploit these opportunities and neutralize these threats; or (b) evaluating internal resources and capabilities and then searching for industries in which they can be exploited? Why?