Free WGU Principles-of-Management Practice Exam with Questions & Answers

Total Quality Management (TQM) has the benefits of group problem solving, information sharing, and cooperation across business functions. TQM focuses on continuous improvement in all aspects of an organization’s operations and involves all employees from top management to front-line workers. It encourages participation in decision-making and emphasizes collaboration and teamwork across different functions​​.

The customer relationship concept that emphasizes the relationship between the company, the competition, and the customer is the Strategic Triangle. This model highlights the importance of balancing these three elements to achieve competitive advantage. It involves understanding customer needs, monitoring competitor actions, and leveraging company strengths to deliver superior value to customers​​.

Equal employment opportunity laws are designed to ensure that people are considered for employment without regard to certain protected traits.

Race, Religion, and Ethnic Background(Answer D): These traits are protected under equal employment opportunity laws, ensuring that individuals are not discriminated against based on these characteristics​​.

Criminal Record(Answer A),Education(Answer B), andAbilities(Answer C): These are not protected traits under equal employment opportunity laws.

To stimulate conflict and get a different perspective, bringing in outsiders is the most appropriate technique.

Bringing in Outsiders(Answer A): This technique involves introducing new individuals who have different viewpoints, which can stimulate conflict and provide new perspectives that might be overlooked by the current team. It helps in shaking up the status quo and encouraging innovative thinking​​.

Appointing a Devil's Advocate(Answer B): While also effective in stimulating conflict, this technique involves someone within the group challenging ideas to ensure thorough evaluation. However, it might not provide as fresh a perspective as bringing in outsiders.

Authoritative Command(Answer C) andCompromise(Answer D): These are more about resolving conflict rather than stimulating it.

When a company does something especially well in comparison to its competitors, this is evident through its core capabilities. Core capabilities refer to a firm's resources and skills that are fundamental to its business and competitive advantage. These capabilities enable the firm to differentiate itself from competitors, achieve better performance, and maintain a strong market position​​.

The type of cross-cultural communication barrier experienced by the executive who did not understand the meaning of "lift" is a barrier caused by semantics. Semantics barriers arise from differences in the meaning of words and phrases used in different cultures or regions. In this case, "lift" is a British English term for what is known as an "elevator" in American English, leading to confusion​​.

An effective diversity training program commonly includes building awareness among employees. This involves educating employees about the importance of diversity, the benefits it brings to the workplace, and how to recognize and appreciate differences among colleagues. Awareness-building helps in creating a more inclusive and respectful work environment, which is essential for the success of diversity initiatives.

Building Awareness(Answer A): Effective diversity training programs focus on increasing cultural competencies, valuing differences, and understanding how diversity enhances business decisions​​.

Completing a Skills Inventory(Answer B),Analyzing Feedback(Answer C), andIdentifying Informal Networks(Answer D): While these activities may support diversity efforts, they are not core elements of diversity training programs as described in the textbook.

The type of organizational design used when a company groups employees according to the tasks they perform is a functional structure. In a functional structure, employees are organized based on their specific roles or functions within the organization, such as marketing, finance, production, or human resources. This allows for specialization and efficiency within each functional area​​.

Religious preference inappropriately affects decision making when a real estate agent uses her religious background as a basis for accepting bids on property that is for sale. This situation reflects discrimination and bias, as decisions are being influenced by personal religious beliefs rather than objective criteria. Such actions can lead to unethical practices and violate principles of fair treatment and equality​​.

The purpose of value chain analysis is to enable a company to understand the various activities involved in producing and delivering a product or service and to identify opportunities to gain a competitive advantage. The concept of the value chain was introduced by Michael Porter and involves examining all activities a firm performs and how they interact to create a competitive advantage.

Definition and Purpose:

A value chain describes the series of activities that an organization carries out to create value for its customers.

The primary purpose is to systematically identify and analyze these activities to understand where value is added to the final product or service, which can then be leveraged to gain a competitive advantage​​.

Components of Value Chain:

Primary Activities: These include inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and services. Each of these activities adds value directly to the production and delivery of the product.

Support Activities: These include procurement, technology development, human resource management, and firm infrastructure. These activities support the primary activities and add value indirectly​​.

Systematic Approach:

By analyzing each activity in the value chain, a firm can identify areas where efficiencies can be improved or where innovation can be introduced.

This systematic approach helps the firm to focus on optimizing these activities to reduce costs, improve quality, and differentiate its products from competitors, thus developing a competitive advantage​​.

In summary, value chain analysis allows a company to use a systematic approach in developing a competitive advantage by identifying and optimizing the activities that create value​​.