1 - Rivalry among competitors is higher if: A. The rate of growth of the industry is high B. differentiation of offer is high C. capacity utilization of plants is limited ANSWER: C 2 - Which of the following sentences do you rate as correct: A. Game theory could be useful to anticipate decisions taken by a small number of industry competitors which implement a limited set of strategies B. Competitors profiling is an analytical approach useful to evaluate the rivalry at the industry level C. Game theory is an analytical approach aimed at determining competitors’ aims, beliefs and routines ANSWER: A 3 - Customers have more bargaining power toward industry competitors if A. Are more concentrated than industry firms B. Buy highly differentiated products C. Have high switching costs ANSWER: A 4 - Imagine that you have to decide between “partnership” and “going it alone” in order to properly coordinate a new business. Which of the following factors will make you prefer to create a partnership? A. The competitive environment is stable and uncertainty about the future is low B. the level of specific investment required to address the exchange with partner is extremely high C. capabilities of the partner are rare and difficult to imitate ANSWER: C 5 - Which of the following sentences concerning partnerships do you rate as correct: A. cross-sector partnership are partnerships involving organizations belonging to business, non profit and government B. Partnerships only involve firms C. Licensing agreements and franchising are equity agreements ANSWER: A 6 - A reduction in costs per unit due to increases in efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases best defines the term _____. A. economies of scope B. economies of finance C. economies of scale ANSWER: C 7 - Taurus Inc. usually produces 5,000 handcrafted products in a day. Recently, the demand for handcrafted products drastically increased as one of its products became a popular item for home décor. Due to this increase, the company had to up its production level to 10,000 products per day. This, however, decreased the price of individual products. This scenario best illustrates _____. A. economies of wealth B. economies of scope C. economies of scale ANSWER: C 8 - MediDose Inc., a pharmaceutical company, has been studying and experimenting with a few drugs. After 10 years of conducting and standardizing tests, the company comes up with positive results that would help many patients. These drugs become popular and effective among millions of patients and enable the company to expand its operations across the globe while spreading out the cost of the studies. Which of the following is the subject of economies of scale in the described scenario? A. Research and development expenses B. Advertising expenses C. General and administrative costs ANSWER: A 9 - A product that is fundamentally different yet serves the same function or purpose as another product best defines the term _____. A. threat B. substitute C. opportunity ANSWER: B 10 - The ways of taking advantage of conditions in the environment to become more profitable most accurately defines the term _____. A. opportunities B. standardization C. strengths ANSWER: A 11 - Which of the following statements is true about concentrated industries? A. These industries have few competitors and rivalry is less intense. B. Smaller competitors usually respond aggressively to actions taken by large firms. C. If firms are approximately the same size, they tend to be able to respond, or retaliate, strongly to moves by rival firms. ANSWER: A 12 - Marble Cakes Inc., after serving a good number of customers in its home state, has set up business in three other states with additional menu options of cupcakes, donuts, and coffees to generate new customers. This has enabled the company to successfully maintain its corporate strategy. Marble Cakes Inc. is engaging in _____. A. vertical integration B. horizontal specialization C. horizontal diversification ANSWER: C 13 - Which of the following statements is true of a corporate strategy? A. It refers to a management strategy that focuses solely on the professional behavior and attitudes of a company’s employees. B. It entails competing in a core industry or business and also operating in adjacent businesses or markets. C. It refers to the overall strategy that helps a company recruit the right type of employees for the right type of job. ANSWER: B 14 - Azure LLC is a toy manufacturing company. The company has recently started manufacturing industrial wiring for construction companies. In this scenario, Azure LLC has chosen _____. A. related diversification B. unrelated diversification C. related-linked diversification ANSWER: B 15 - Fuchsia Inc., a cosmetics manufacturer, decides to change how it competes in the market. With this objective in mind, it decides to target a different market segment with its existing set of products. However, Fuchsia takes a long time to reconfigure its activities and systems to meet these changes. Which of the following is being exemplified in this case? A. Mobility barrier B. Product differentiation C. Tasks disintermediation ANSWER: A 16 - An airline service provider watches its rivals closely. It studies the potential for reliable, timely, and service-oriented international travel offered by its competitors. In this case, the firm is focusing on the competitors' _____. A. resources and capabilities B. objectives C. organizational structure ANSWER: A 17 - Which of the following statements is true about an infinitely repeated game? A. In this game, players always believe there is a future. B. In this game, each player’s best choice is to implicate the rivals. C. It removes incentive to defect in the sense that no firm can improve its payoffs. ANSWER: A 18 - Leo Inc., a U.S.-based firm, decides to enter a foreign market through offshoring. Which of the following is likely to be the primary reason for Leo to enter the new market? A. The new market is ideal to dump Leo’s excess products that cannot be sold in the United States. B. The new market has facilities for research and development that are not available in the United States. C. Labor and raw materials are available at a lower cost in the new market than in the United States. ANSWER: C 19 - Which of the following statements is true about multidomestic strategy? A. It tailors products and operations to individual markets. B. It prefers to standardize products to achieve economies of scale. C. It does not allow regional managers to make decisions on their own. ANSWER: A 20 - In the context of modes of international market entry, which of the following statements is true of a joint venture? A. It is a favored way to enter markets that are close to the home market. B. It involves cultural barriers that increase the difficulty of operations. C. It offers the least amount of control of all the various modes of entry. ANSWER: B 21 - Read the article published on Angel’s list weekly on January 2020 and try to address the following questions. It is focused on International Payment companies. Which kind of models and tools could help you to understand and address the challenges and the opportunities described in the paper? Can you briefly identify possible implications for international payment companies in addressing international markets? Is it possible to build a truly international payments company? A global Venmo, for example, that seamlessly moves money across borders? To date, it's been difficult. Payments companies face a unique regulatory environment every time they expand to a new country, which makes operating internationally a slog. As a result, some big tech companies are trying to acquire their way into foreign markets. PayPal, which owns Venmo, just purchased a majority stake in GoPay, a Chinese company that offers online payment and e-commerce solutions across Asia. The deal wasn't without its challenges. PayPal had to get the purchase approved by the Chinese government, which isn't exactly the most hospitable to requests from American companies. There are also substantial regulatory hurdles in the US. As it turns out, some of these hurdles actually generate opportunities for startups. For example: the payments world is abuzz with Visa's acquisition of Plaid. Purchase price: a whopping $5.3B. Plaid's API lets financial services apps, like Robinhood, connect to and verify bank accounts. But countries like Germany have open banking API standards, which let developers connect to bank accounts without an intermediary. So Plaid's success is in part a consequence of the US's opaque banking environment. Many other US-based payments startups are flourishing. Flywire and Remitlyhave developed interesting technologies that make it faster and cheaper to send money around the world. They've also made believers out of investors across the country, having raised $143 million and $420 million in funding respectively. With US digital payments volume set to reach $1 trillion in 2020, few startups are complaining. But for anyone hoping for a global version of Venmo, that possibility still remains out of reach. ANSWER: Comment in 25 lines of text the above article by making use of the most appropriate tool(s) to address the specific question. For example CAGE for analyzing the opportunities of international expansion, 5-force model for the analysis of the competitive environment.
