Explain your answers to each of the following questions.

Chapter 7 – Formulating Plans and Strategies

1. In terms of the generic competitive strategies model, which of the four strategies is your organization following? Do the strategies support the vision, mission, and goals? Does the organization have critical strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that will help them or hurt them in reaching their goals? Be sure to fully explain your answers.  

As an alternative, if you are not currently employed, you may use a previous employer or the employer of a close friend or relative.

2. Prepare a SWOT (stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of your organization answering the following questions: What are your organization's strengths and weaknesses? What are several of the potential opportunities and threats facing your organization?  You should have at least 2- 4 items for each of these areas (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).  You can put these in the paper in bullet format if you choose, but be certain to give explanations for each of them.

Chapter 8 – Fundamentals of Decision-Making

3. Identify two adaptive or innovative decisions that you have made during the past year or so. Describe how you made them.

4. Give three examples of “personal” or business problems that you have encountered: one that involved the condition of certainty, one that involved risk, and one that involved uncertainty. What process did you use to resolve these problems?

Chapter 9 – Using Planning and Decision Aids

5. In what ways has an organization for which you have worked or with which you are familiar used or failed to use KM? Explain.

6. Describe a personal or business situation that occurred within the past six months for which Osborn’s creativity model would have been useful. Explain why it would have been useful.

7. Describe how bench marking is used in your organization. Is it effective? Why or why not?

Chapter 10 – Achieving Control in Organizations

8. Give three examples of organizational control in an organization in which you have worked or are now working. Within the same organization, give three examples of group and/or individual self-control that were present.  

9. Review the mechanistic and organic control methods in Table 10.2 (335). Based on the organization you identified in the previous question, what was the relative emphasis on mechanistic vs. organic control methods? Was this relative emphasis effective? Why or why not?