Integrated Management Principles and Practice

Question Bank

Two Mark Questions

1. What is Globalisation?
- the process where the entire world considered as a single village where people, goods and
services interact, move and communicate using technology in efficient and effective ways.

2. What is environmental scanning?

- In strategic planning, is the process where an organization survey and interpret data to
identify opportunity and threat where the firm is doing business or considering doing
business. E.g. competitors, technology, political, demographic and consumer data

3. What is Multinational Company?

- Is the company that is operating business in two or more country other than home country
where such company usually has offices or/and factories in different county and head office
in one country where they coordinate global management.

4. Give six popular global brands of Tanzania?

- Azam
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5. What is joint venture?
- Is a method entering the global markets where companies agree to work together in a
particular market or products or service where they equally share risk and profits e.g.
Sony/Ericsson Cell Phone. Reasons: access new market, shared risk, access skills and
capability
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6. What is collaboration?
- Is where two or more people or organizations work together to realize or achieve a goal or
project successfully.
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7. What is Greenfield investments?
- Is where you buy the land, build the facility and operate the business on an ongoing basis in
a foreign market. It is certainly the most costly and holds the highest risk but some markets
may require you to undertake the cost and risk due to government regulations, transportation
costs, and the ability to access technology or skilled labour.

8. What is Turnkey projects?

- An agreement under which a contractor completes a project, then hands it over in fully
operational form to the client, which needs to do nothing but ""turn a key"", as it were, to set
it in motion
- One of the special modes of carrying out international business is a turnkey project. It is a
contract under which a firm agrees to fully design, construct and equip a manufacturing/
business/ service facility and turn the project over to the purchaser when it is ready for
operation for a remuneration.
- A turnkey project is where the facility is built from the ground up and turned over to the client
ready to go – turn the key and the plant is operational. This is a very good way to enter
foreign markets as the client is normally a government and often the project is being financed

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 by an international financial agency such as the World Bank so the risk of not being paid is
eliminated.

9. What is wholly owned subsidiaries?

- Is a company that is completely owned by another company. The company that owns the
subsidiary is called the parent company or holding company. The parent company will hold
all of the subsidiary's common stock.
- Is a company whose common stock is 100% owned by another company, the parent
company.

10. What is Merger?

- Is an agreement that unites two existing companies into one new company
- usually involves combining two companies into a single larger company
- In practice, both companies surrender their stock and issue new stock as a new company.
- Commonly done to expand a company’s reach, expand into new segments, or gain market
share.

11. What is Acquisition?

- Buying a Company
- Reasons: company has substantial market share, buying direct competitor, government
regulations, and this is the only option enter the market

12. What is franchise?

- Arrangement where one party (the franchiser) grants another party (the franchisee) the right
to use its trademark or trade-name as well business systems and processes, to produce and
market a good or service according to certain specifications. e.g. McDonald restaurants
- The franchisee advantages gain:
o immediate name recognition,
o tried and tested products
o standard building design and décor,
o detailed techniques in running and promoting the business
o Training of employees and
o Ongoing help in promoting and upgrading of the products.

13. What do you mean by critical success factor?

- Is a management term that defines elements that are necessary for an organization or project
to achieve its mission.
- Also known as Key Results Areas (KRAs), refer to the activities that must be completed to a
high standard of quality in order to achieve the goals of your project.

14. What is market segmentation?

- Is the process of dividing a population or consumers into subgroups based on shared
characteristics to align the product or services to the specific consumers e.g. age, geographic
location, education etc.

15. What is task environment?

- External environment of an organization, which affects its ability to reach business goals.
- Events and influence that comes from outside the company.
- Examples of task environment sectors include competitors, customers, suppliers and labour
supply.

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16. What is market share
- The portion of a market controlled by a particular company or product.
- A percentage of total sales volume in a market captured by a brand, product, or company.
- Is proportion of customers or sales a company or product possess in a market

17. What is Direct Investing?

- Refers to an investment in a business enterprise in a country other than the investor's country
designed to acquire a controlling interest in the foreign business enterprise.

18. What are the four P’s of marketing?

- Products: quality and packages, uniqueness and benefits offered by the product
- Price: How a product is priced will directly affect how it sells
- Promotion: advertising, sales promotions, special offers and public relations.
- Place: Distribution channel

19. What is strategic management?

- The process of determining an organization’s basic mission and long-term objectives, then
implementing a plan of action for pursuing the mission and attaining objectives.
- Is the management of an organization’s resources to achieve its goals and objectives.
- Strategic management involves setting objectives, analyzing the competitive environment,
analyzing the internal organization, evaluating strategies and ensuring that management
rolls out the strategies across the organization.
- At its heart, strategic management involves identifying how the organization stacks up
compared to its competitors and recognizing opportunities and threats facing an
organization, whether they come from within the organization or from competitors.

20. What is Human Resource Information System?

- Is a systematic ways of storing, processing, retrieving and distribution of data and information
of each employees to aid planning and decision making.
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21. Give a note on the following: (Approaches to Job Design)
i) Job Rotation ii) Job Engineering iii) Job Enlargement iv) Job Enrichment
- Job Rotation - refers to moving employees from job to job to add variety and reduce
boredom by allowing them to perform a variety of tasks.
- Job Engineering - focuses on the tasks to be performed, methods to be used, workflows
among employees, layout of the workers, performance standards, and interdependence
among people and machines
- Job Enlargement - refers to the expansion of the number of different tasks performed by an
employee in a single job.
- Job Enrichment – refers to adding a few more motivators to existing job to make it more
rewarding, exciting, challenging and creative, or gives the job holder more decision-making,
planning and controlling power

22. What is MBO, MBE?

- Management by Objective (MBO) is the is a management model that aims to improve
performance of an organization by clearly defining objectives that are agreed to by both
management and employees
- Management by Objectives (MBO) is a personnel management technique where managers
and employees work together to set, record and monitor goals for a specific period.

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 - Organizational goals and planning flow top-down through the organization and are translated
into personal goals for organizational members.
- Management by Exceptions (MBE) is a policy by which management devotes it’s time to
investigate only those situations in which actual results differ significantly from planned
result.
- Practice whereby only the information that indicates a significant deviation of actual results
from the budgeted or planned results is brought to the management's notice
- Is a practice where only significant deviations from a budget or plan are brought to the
attention of management

23. Give a note on 360 Degree appraisal.

- This is also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, or multi-source
assessment. It utilizes data collected from 'all around’ an employee to include his or her
peers, subordinates, supervisors, and sometimes, from internal and external customers

24. What is locus of control?

- The extent to which a person feels able to control his/her own life.
- In personality psychology, locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they
have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond
their control.
- The extent to which people believe they have power over events in their lives.
- How do we determine our successes and failures?
- The concept has two categories: internal locus of control and external locus of control
- A person has an internal locus of control, that person attributes success to his or her own
efforts and abilities.
- A personal with external locus of control believe that they are not in control of their lives
and tend blames outside forces for everything.
- For example, when receiving exam results, people with an internal locus of control tend to
praise or blame themselves and their abilities while people with a strong external locus of
control tend to praise or blame external factors such as the teacher or the exam

25. What is Machiavellianism?

- Machiavellianism in psychology refers to a personality trait, which sees a person so focused
on their own interests they will manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their goals.
- People with high- Machiavellianism characteristics:
o are skilled to influence others,
o try to exploit loosely constructed situations,
o are capable of lying to archive personal goals
- People with high- Machiavellianism characteristics:
o Accept direction exposed by others in a loosely structured situation,
o Work hard to do well in highly structured situation
o Are strongly guided by ethical considerations
o Are unlikely to lie or cheat

26. Define perception.

- Is the process of recognizing and interpreting sensory stimuli.
- Is a process of interpretation of a present stimulus on the basis of past experience”
- Is the process by which individual organize and interpret their sensory impression in order ti
give meaning to their environment.

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 27. What is attitude?
- Are likes and dislikes
- Is the hypothetical construct that represent and individual’s degree of like or dislike for an
item

28. Define Personality.

- Is the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.
- Is the overall profile or combination of characteristics that capture unique nature of a pernal
as that personal interact and react with others

Five Mark Questions

1. Describe the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation.

Globalization Disadvantages:
- Increases of Free Trade: reduce barriers such tariffs, value added taxes, subsidies, and other
barriers between nations
- Free movement of people and technology.
- Gives larger market of good and services. You can sell more goods and make more money.
You can create more jobs.
- Lower price of good and service: consumers also profit from globalization. Products become
cheaper and you can get new goods more quickly
- Eradicates Cultural Barriers: countries joining together economically through politics and
education have reduced and can even eradicate cultural barriers, and increase the global
village effect

Globalization Disadvantages:
- Globalization causes unemployment in industrialized countries because firms move their
factories to places where they can get cheaper workers.
- Globalization may lead to more environmental problems. A company may want to build
factories in other countries because environmental laws are not as strict as they are at home.
Poor countries in the Third World may have to cut down more trees so that they can sell
wood to richer countries.
- Globalization can ruin local economies. There is a movement that wants to buy local -
especially organic foods
- Exploitation of natural resource of developing country

2. What is environmental scanning? Explain its significance in global marketing?

- In strategic planning, is the process where an organization survey and interpret data to
identify opportunity and threat where the firm is doing business or considering doing business

Significant in global market:

o competitors
o technology
o political
o demographic
o consumer data

3. Describe the significant forces influencing global environment.

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4. Describe Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture
- The theory of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions constitutes a framework revolving around
cross-cultural communication developed by Geert Hofstede.
- Hofstede Dimensions help to understanding Cultures & People

- Power Distance: explains the extent to which members who are less powerful in a society
accept and expect that the distribution of power take place unequally.
- Uncertainty Avoidance: describes the extent to which people in society are not at ease with
ambiguity and uncertainty.
- Individualism vs. Collectivism: the focus of this dimension is on the question regarding
whether people prefer being left alone to look after themselves or want to remain in a closely
knitted network.
- Masculinity vs. Femininity: Masculine cultures stress the importance of achievement,
heroism, assertiveness, and material success while Feminine cultures value relationships,
modesty, caring for the weak, and quality of life.
- Time Orientation – focus long-term vs. short-term orientation: Long-term orientation
describes the inclination of a society toward searching for virtue. Short-term orientation
pertains to those societies that are strongly inclined toward the establishment of the absolute
truth.

5. What is task environment? What are the factors to be considered in task environment
before a global company enters a new market?
- External environment of an organization, which affects its ability to reach business goals.
- Events and influence that comes from outside the company.
- Examples of task environment sectors include competitors, customers, suppliers and labour
supply.

- Competitors: try to create differentiation

- Customers: customers decide the fate of any company and hence companies try their level
best to lure them.
- Suppliers: it is important to hold on the suppliers and maintain good relationship with them.
Acting intelligently, companies often maintain more number of suppliers to reduce risk of
deserting by anyone
- Distributors
- Government regulations

6. Brief the role of Human Resource Management in Performance Management.

- Performance Management is the continuous process of identifying, measuring and
developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the
strategic goals of the organization
- Two main components in the definition: “continuous process” and ensures that employees’
activities and outputs are linked to the organization’s goals

o Participate in strategic planning.

o Conduct job analysis.
o Support performance management.
o Design appraisal system.
o Train and support managers.
o Maintain documents.

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 o Provide employee due process
o Ensure integrity of the system
o Ensure compliance with nondiscrimination laws

7. What are the benefits of HR audit?

- HR audit is the process of examine policies, procedures, documentation, system, and
practices with respect of an Organization’s HR function
- The identify weakness and strength of Organization HR system and any issue needing
resolution

- Benefits of HR Audit
o Create HR business plan
o Streamline HR work processes
o Monitor compliance with established regulations and procedures
o Develop user-friendly HR system
o Identify the contribution of personnel departments to the organization
o Find critical personnel problem
o Encourage greater responsibility and professionalism among HR members
o Clarification of HR duties and responsibility
o Reduce HR cost though more effective personnel procedures

8. What is off the job training? What are its merits and demerits
- Off the job training occurs when employees are taken away from their place of work to be
trained

- Advantages:
o A wider range of skills or qualifications can be obtained
o can learn from outside specialists or experts
o employees can be more confident when starting job
o make employee concentrate on training

- Disadvantage
o More expensive – e.g. transport and accommodation
o lost working time and potential output from employee
o new employees may still need some induction training
o employees now have new skills/qualifications and may leave for better jobs

9. Give a note on five-factor model of personality.

- Many contemporary personality psychologists believe that there are five basic dimensions
of personality, often referred to as the "Big 5" personality traits

- Extraversion: gregarious, assertive, sociable, talkativeness and high amounts of emotional

expressiveness
- Agreeableness: corporate, warm, trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other prosocial
behaviors
- Conscientiousness: hardworking, organized, and dependable
- Emotion stability (Neuroticism): calm, self-confident and cool
- Openness: creative, curious and cultured

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 Part – C and Part D
1. Describe the opportunities and scope for Globalisation

2. What is environmental scanning? Explain its significance in global marketing?

3. Why is necessary for an MNC to study the marketing environment in Tanzania? Illustrate with an
example.

4. Explain the various methods of training with relative merits and demerits.
- Vestibule Training: involve creation of a separate training centre within the plant itself for
the purpose of providing training to the new employees
- Induction training
- On-the-job Training: employees receive training whilst remaining in the workplace eg
methods included Demonstration / instruction, coaching, job rotation, projects
- Off-the-job Training

5. Describe the challenges in managing cross-cultural team.

6. Explain the opportunities in exploring the base of the pyramid for global brands.
7. Explain the role of management function in strategy implementation.
8. Discuss the approaches of strategy implementation.
9. What is SWOT Analysis? Describe in detail with a specific global brand.
10. Explain the various methods of training with relative merits and demerits.
11. Describe the methods by which a firm enters international market.
12. Discuss the retention strategies adopted by Corporates.
13. Describe the applications of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory.
14. Explain the variables influencing individual behaviour.
15. Explain the common perceptual distortions? How should it be managed?

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