INFO2501

Which of the following statements about organizations is not true?

• An organization is a stable, formal social structure that takes resources from the environment and processes them to produce outputs.

• An informal group can be considered to be an organization.

• An organization is a collection of people and other social elements.

• An organization is a formal, legal entity with internal rules and procedures that must abide by laws.

Under Mintzberg's classification of organizational structure, knowledge-based organizations fall under the category of:

• Professional bureaucracies.

• Machine bureaucracies.

• Entrepreneurial structures.

• Divisionalized bureaucracies.

The primary production input that the organization uses to create products and services known as:

• Culture

• Structure

• Labor

• Politics

When a firm buys on the marketplace what it cannot make itself, the costs incurred are referred to as:

• Network costs

• Switching costs

• Agency costs

• Transaction costs

According to research on organizational resistance, the four components that must be changed in an organization in order to successfully implement a new information system are:

• Costs, tasks, structure, and management.

• Tasks, technology, people, and structure.

• Technology, people, culture, and structure.

• Organization, culture, management, and environment.

All of the following are competitive forces in Porter's model except:

• External environment.

• Substitute products.

• New market entrants.

• Suppliers.

Amazon's use of the Internet as a platform to sell books more efficiently than traditional bookstores illustrates which of the following strategies?

• Focusing on market niche.

• Developing synergies.

• Marketing effectiveness.

• Low-cost leadership.

Which of the following best illustrates the use of information systems to focus on market niche?

• A bookseller selling an e-book reader that reads only the bookseller's books.

• A clothes manufacturer expanding its offerings to new styles.

• A department store creating specialized products for preferred customers.

• A restaurant chain analyzing local sales figures to determine which menu items to serve.

Which of the following statements about network economics is not true?

• The marginal cost of adding new members to the network is higher than the marginal gain.

• The law of diminishing returns does not always apply to every situation.

• The value of a community of people grows as the number of participants in the community increases.

• Information technology can be strategically useful from a network economics perspective.

Information systems enhance core competencies by:

• Fostering synergies among departments.

• Encouraging the sharing of knowledge across business units.

• Allowing operational employees to interact with management.

• Creating educational opportunities for management.