Question Details

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Multiple Choice Questions
1. The makeup of goods and services in the Gross Domestic Products of developed
countries has changed over the last decade. More than 50% of the value of GDP of
developed countries is based on
a. Clothing and apparel
b. Capital accumulation
c. Financial management
d. Knowledge
2. As the competitive environment changes, strategic management must focus on
different aspects of the organization. Recently, strategic management has moved from
focusing on
a. Intangible resources to tangible resources
b. Tangible resources to intangible resources
c. Working capital to fixed capital
d. Fixed capital to working capital
3. Changes in our economy have forced firms to be more concerned with protecting
their
a. Knowledge workers
b. Social capital
c. Intellectual capital
d. All of the above
4. In the knowledge economy, if a large portion of a firm's value is in intellectual and
human assets, the difference between the company's market value and book value
should ___________ a company with mostly physical and financial assets.
a. Be equal to
b. Be smaller than
c. Be larger than
d. Not be correlated with
5. According to the text, intellectual capital is the difference between the market value
and the book value of a firm. Intellectual capital can be increased by
a. Increasing retention of below average workers
b. Attracting and retaining knowledgeable workers
c. Decreasing labor costs
d. Increasing the turnover of employees
6. Human capital includes
a. An individual's capabilities, knowledge, and skills
b. The relationships between people
c. The output from assembly line employees
d. An improved product
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7. __________ includes creativity and problem solving ability.
a. Physical capital
b. Human capital
c. Social capital
d. Emotional capital
8. __________ can be defined as the "network of relationships that individuals have
throughout the organization."
a. Human capital
b. Social capital
c. Intellectual capital
d. Tacit knowledge
9. Tacit knowledge
a. Is the same as explicit knowledge
b. Is found mostly at the lower levels of the organization
c. Can be codified but not reproduced
d. Can be accessed only with the consent of the employees because it is in the minds
of the employees
10. New knowledge involves the continual interaction between __________ and
__________ knowledge.
a. Intellectual; pragmatic
b. Theoretical; practical
c. Tacit; explicit
d. Detailed; tacit
11. Recently, a knowledge worker's loyalty to his or her employing firm has __________
compared to his or her loyalty to his or her profession and colleagues.
a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Remained the same
d. No correlation when
12. The text discusses three areas a firm must be concerned with in order to keep their best
and brightest employees from leaving. These include all of the following except
a. Hiring/selecting
b. Sorting/absorbing
c. Developing
d. Retaining
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13. Managing a knowledge intensive workforce is very challenging. The best way for a
firm to manage their workforce is to
a. Retain knowledge workers 1
b. Attract the brightest employees 3
c. Balance efforts in the attraction, selection, and retention of top talent 2
d. Ensure that it pays higher salaries than its rivals
14. Firms must compete for top talent. When attracting and selecting employees, firms
must strive to select the best fit for both the employee and the firm. In an effort to
reduce wasted time and effort in interviewing too many candidates while assuring a
good candidate pool, a firm should
a. Run employment ads in the newspaper
b. Use a pre-interview quiz or "bozo filter" (e.g., Cooper Software)
c. Only let lower level employees interview job candidates
d. Refrain from hiring by referrals from present employees
15. Many companies use referrals by current employees as a source for new hiring and
even monetarily reward them for the following reasons:
a. It is less expensive than the fees paid to headhunters
b. Current employees are normally very careful in recommending someone because
their credibility is on the line
c. It is a good test of employee loyalty
d. A and B above
16. ABC, Incorporated desires to have the most qualified people in every position
throughout its organization. This is an example of a concern for
a. Developing human capital
b. Developing social networks
c. Decreasing labor intensive training
d. Leveraging organizational structure
17. Developing human capital is essential to maintaining a competitive advantage in
today's knowledge economy. Efforts and initiatives to develop human capital should
be directed
a. At top managers
b. At human resource departments
c. At the employees themselves
d. Throughout the firm at all levels
18. Maintaining a competitive workforce is very challenging in today's economy. The role
of evaluating human capital, in recent years, has
a. Increased
b. Decreased
c. Become less important
d. Remained the same
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19. In a 360-degree evaluation and feedback system, __________ rate a person's skill and
performance.
a. Superiors
b. Direct reports
c. Colleagues
d. All of the above
20. Attracting and retaining human capital is a challenge for many firms today. Firms
experiencing high turnover should
a. Focus on increased recruiting
b. Decrease money spent on human capital
c. Make their work environment less stimulating
d. Adopt effective retention strategies
21. In order to take advantage of investment in human capital, a firm should
a. Rotate workers through functions in the company as quickly as possible
b. Refrain from training individual employees
c. Establish practices that will enhance employee retention
d. None of the above
22. The least effective way to retain human capital is
a. Encouraging employee identification with organizational mission and goals
b. Requiring employees to sign agreements that prevent them from working for
competitors in the future
c. Providing employees with a challenging and stimulating work environment
d. Providing employees with financial and nonfinancial rewards and incentives
23. Generally, employees are most likely to stay with an organization if
a. The employer provides high salaries to technology professionals
b. The organization's mission and values align with the employee's mission and values
c. The firm is in a high tech industry
d. The mission and values of the organization change often
24. Many successful firms use internal labor markets. The most important reason they do
this is because
a. They want to encourage job rotation
b. If an employee is in the same department for too long, he/she would become
indispensable
c. They want to keep highly mobile employees motivated and challenged
d. An employee who moves too much can be identified as unreliable and eliminated
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25. All of the following are the benefits of diversity in a firm's workforce except:
a. Creativity Argument
b. Problem-Solving Argument
c. Resource Acquisition Argument
d. Similarity in Perspectives Argument
26. Human capital and social capital are vital for superior firm performance. If a firm has
strong human capital, the firm may exploit this by building social capital. This can be
accomplished through
a. Requiring workers to work independently of each other
b. Decreasing the interaction of departments within the firm
c. Encouraging the sharing of ideas between employees in the firm
d. Structuring the firm with rigid departmental and employee divisions
27. Many Microsoft employees have left to start other companies. In general, when such
employees leave, they take with them
a. Social capital
b. Human capital
c. Intellectual capital
d. All of the above
28. In an effort to capture key employees from competitors, firms may attract the
symbolic leader of a group within a competing firm and hope others will follow. This
has been termed
a. The "Columbus effect."
b. The "Pied Piper effect."
c. Strategically competitive hiring
d. Knowledge integration
29. Social capital is a source of strength to many firms. Firms leverage their social capital
in an effort to create competitive advantages. A firm's social capital is based on
a. An employee's individual abilities
b. The relationships among a firm's employees
c. A firm's allocation of financial resources
d. An individual's knowledge
30. Sharing knowledge within an organization helps to build social capital. This can be
accomplished through the use of
a. Email
b. One-on-one conversations
c. Office memos
d. All of the above
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31. Social network analysis is helpful because the configuration of group members' social
ties within and outside the group affects the extent to which members connect to
individuals who do all of the following except:
a. Convey needed resources
b. Ensure that everyone has the same perspective on strategic and operational issues
c. Have the opportunity to exchange information and support
d. Have the motivation to treat each other in positive ways
32. In social network analysis __________ stress(es) the importance of ties connecting
heterogeneous people—helping to ensure a wide range of diversity in information and
perspective.
a. Closure
b. Redundancy
c. Bridging relationships
d. Social supports
33. Among the downsides of social capital is/are:
a. High social capital may breed "groupthink," i.e., a tendency not to question shared
beliefs
b. Socialization processes whereby individuals are socialized into the norms and
values of the organization may become expensive
c. Individuals may become less willing to collaborate on joint projects
d. A and B
34. Social capital has many potential benefits. However, according to the text, social
capital
a. Is always beneficial to a firm
b. May or may not be beneficial to a firm
c. Usually restricts the productivity of employees
d. Always hurts firm performance
35. The use of information technology (e.g., e-mail) has increased in recent years in many
organizations. This has helped to
a. Communicate information efficiently
b. Make more effective use of time in every situation
c. Restrict social network growth
d. Create smaller social networks
36. The creation of knowledge assets is typically characterized by
a. High upfront costs and subsequent high variable costs
b. High fixed costs and high variable costs
c. Low upfront costs and high variable costs
d. High upfront costs and low variable costs
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37. Bruce Strong, CEO of Context Integration, invested half a million dollars in a software
package to help his consultants share their ideas. After the program was unveiled, few
people were motivated to use it. This may have been caused by
a. Consultants not seeing value in the software
b. Consultants being protective of their ideas
c. The software not being a part of the company's culture
d. All of the above ??
38. Mary Stinson was required to take over a project after the entire team left the
company. She was able to reconstruct what the team had accomplished through
reading e-mails exchanged by the previous team's members. This is an example of
a. Using explicit knowledge
b. Inefficient use of information management
c. Using tacit knowledge
d. All of the above
39. The management of intellectual property involves all of the following except
a. Patents
b. Contracts with confidentiality and noncompete clauses 2
c. Converting explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge
d. Copyrights and trademarks
40. Dynamic capabilities include all of the following except:
a. Learning and innovating
b. The ability of an organization to challenge the conventional industry in its industry
and market
c. Becoming more efficient in operational processes
d. Continuously adopting new ways of serving the evolving needs of the market