Creating Systemic Innovation
1. Double loop learning is where:
a. individuals learn in groups and with work colleagues.
b. individuals look back to the past to inform the future.
c. individuals carefully think through their actions.
d. individuals question taken-for-granted assumptions and ways of doing things.
2. The process of co-creation is one which involves customer input in the design and
production of the product/service. True or False?
a. True
b. False
3. Regulation is:
a. an opportunity to engage in innovation.
b. a barrier to innovation.
c. a two-edged sword ? encouraging innovation in some areas and closing of
innovation in others.
d. something which has no efect on innovation.
4. Deep-diving refers to:
a. an extreme under-water sport.
b. conducting multiple focus groups with particular groups of individuals.
c. studying what people actually do, rather than what they say they do.
d. making best use of learning technologies.
5. Corporate Venturing is where:
a. a company partners with a competitor to establish a joint-venture.
b. a company sets up a specialist unit with a particular innovation remit.
c. a company engages in a risky initiative where the return on investment is uncertain.
d. a company specialises in mergers and takeovers.
6. Kanter (1995) argues that companies have begun to realise that they possess considerable
assets in the form of:
a. People, Products and Processes
b. Concepts, Competence and Connections
c. Systems, Structures and Strategies
d. None of the above
7. A blue ocean strategy is one where firms enter an existing market with a new innovative
product. True or False?
a. True
b. False
8. Recombinant innovation is where:
a. ideas and applications which are commonplace in one part of the world are regarded
as new and innovative in another.
b. an existing process for developing products is redesigned to improve efficiency.
c. new approaches to product design are taken using old ideas.
d. previously discarded ideas are recycled and regenerated.
9. Crowd sourcing is a term which refers to the use of communities to co-create innovations
and find new ways of creating and solving problems. True or False?
a. True
b. False
10. Benchmarking is:
a. a form of graffiti by homeless people who live in public parks.
b. a waste of time.
c. a process whereby companies make structured comparisons with other companies.
d. a mechanism for ensuring companies retain their competitive advantage.
1. Given the amount of data monitoring and computer power, isn’t the world more predicatable?
a. Yes. The economic crisis is just a glitch.
b. No. This is a fallacy, since the global system can react violently to small changes.
c. Not yet, but with the next generation of computers, it will be.
d. It predicts a global economic catastrophe.
2. What are some characteristics of the 2008?2009 crisis?
a. Very few people saw it coming.
b. It affected the entire global financial structure very rapidly, regardless of the place
of origin.
c. There was a very rapid global lack of available bank credit.
d. All of the above.
3. Which areas and principles can help firms to navigate the current crisis?
a. Top management need to concentrate on cashflow and survival.
b. A comprehensive, exhaustive strategic review is called for.
c. Management needs to cut prices.
d. All of the above.
4. Which performance criterion is paramount in times of recession?
a. Liquidity: having enough cash to pay the bills.
b. Long-term strategic forecasting.
c. Market share.
d. Earnings per share.
5. What is the main problem inside many companies regarding shareholder value creation?
a. It is interpreted in such a way as to maximise executive remuneration, and thus
short-term profits.
b. It is interpreted by management to mean the management of the firm’s long-term
prospects.
c. It is interpreted by management to mean the maximisation of growth.
d. It is interpreted by management to mean the management of the firm’s market
share.
6. Which factors explain the corporate disasters of the last decade?
a. Management opting for high-risk strategies which took little account of those risks,
and which overestimated their capability.
b. The uncertainty and the turbulence of the business environment in general.
c. Top manager’s greed, the absence of any ethics, and human nature.
d. The complexity of the environment, and a misfit between the marketing strategies
of the firms involved, and their product characteristics.
7. If firms are social institutions that must identify with the values of society, then:
a. when society’s values change, the strategies and behaviours of firms must change
as well.
b. there will need to be additional members of society on the board of directors.
c. firms have no freedom to make profit.
d. shareholders will invest elsewhere if their values are not met
8. In option theory, an attractive resource is:
a. one that can be deployed in different businesses.
b. one that can support alternative strategies.
c. the one that is able to generate the largest number of capabilities.
d. Answers a and b.
9. Ultimately, the only sustainable competitive advantage which matters is:
a. the ability to perform better than rivals.
b. the ability to be flexible.
c. the ability to maintain an acceptable situation in terms of available cash.
d. the ability to create new sources of competitive advantage, although this is not
very practically helpful.
10. If a business is inherently unpredictable, then:
a. only statistical management can achieve excellent results.
b. the managerial challenge is to design a structure which is inherently flexible and
adaptable.
c. no one can act in any way to manage a firm.
d. there’s no longer any point in having a strategy
