Chapter 13: Strategic Considerations for the Triple Bottom Line in High-Tech Companies

Mohr, Sengupta, Slater (3/e, 2010)

Test Bank

13-1 What is meant by the phrase, the triple bottom line?

a.  Profits, people and planet, which captures the way a company incorporates the
two domains of corporate social responsibility (social and environmental issues)
into its business decisions.
b.  Product, price, and promotion, which captures the profit impact from the major
decision variables in the marketing mix.
c.  Financial, managerial, and environmental accounting methods.
d.  The use of marketing metrics to capture customer satisfaction, loyalty, and
lifetime value.
e.  Sustainability, social marketing, and societal impacts.

Answer a p. 430 Easy

13-2 According to your text, what are the key trends supporting a company’s focus on the
triple bottom line?
A. Primarily sociocultural and natural resources
B. Climate change and economics
C. Poverty and the decline of government support
D. Gen Y/Millenials and technology
E. Progressive business and global warming

Answer A p. 430 Hard

13-3 Which of the following best capture(s) the concept of CSR as a corporate strategy?
A. A way for a company to position itself as environmentally friendly
B. A company’s commitment to addressing social problems and environmental issues,
while remaining economically viable
C. A way to grow additional revenue for a company
D. A company’s explicit consideration of the impact of its activities on all stakeholders
affected by business decisions
E. B and D only

Answer E p. 28, 433 Hard

13-4 Which of the following is NOT an example of corporate social responsibility?

A. Establishing a company’s environmental footprint and taking measures to reduce it.
B. Establishing living wage payment for factory workers in the Mexico manufacturing
plant.
C. Offering employees the opportunity to volunteer at local not for profit organizations
for 1% of their work time.
D. Offering shareholders the potential for greater returns.
E. Offering products to base-of-pyramid markets that improve standard of living.
Answer D p. 433 Moderate

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13-5 The United Nation’s Global Compact goals include:
A. Engaging companies in partnership projects and policy dialogue.
B. Assisting small, local businesses find markets in more affluent countries.
C. Streamlining supply chains that cross multiple borders.
D. Penalizing companies for breaking environmental laws in areas of foreign operation.
E. Calling attention to companies that do NOT commit to ethical business practices up
and down their supply chain.

Answer A p. 433 Easy

13-6 Which of the following is an argument in favor of a business engaging in socially-

responsible behaviors (i.e., those that benefit society or address social concerns)?
A. It can be a source of competitive advantage with customers.
B. It can facilitate employee loyalty and morale.
C. It can potentially be a source of additional revenue for a company.
D. It can cultivate a less hostile business environment.
E. All of the above

Answer: E Page: 434 Easy

13-7 Which of the following is an argument in favor of socially-responsible business

practices?
A. Socially-responsible business practices can detract from a company’s efforts in
developing break-through innovations.
B. Companies that are socially responsible can build a stronger connection with
customers.
C. Companies that address social problems may earn lower returns, but this allows it to
pay lower taxes.
D. Social responsibility focuses media attention on companies that can be controversial,
but any publicity benefits long-term equity.
E. All of the above are arguments that demonstrate how socially-responsible business
practices support the long-term viability of a company’s core business.

Answer: B p. 434-436 Moderate

13-8 Which of the following is NOT one of the criticisms leveled against CSR?
A. Socially-responsible business practices distract it from the true mission of serving
stockholders and increasing profits.
B. CSR is simply PR, designed to polish a corporate image but without doing any real
good for society.
C. Companies that address social problems may earn lower returns, but this allows it to
pay lower taxes.
D. CSR is merely a “cover-up” for new ways to make profit, while calling it social
responsibility.
E. All of the above are criticisms against CSR

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Answer: C p. 434 Hard
13-9 Companies’ choices of corporate philanthropy initiatives are influenced by stakeholders
in which order:
A. Suppliers, creditors, customers, employees
B. Customers, creditors, suppliers, employees
C. Employees, local communities, customers, board of directors
D. Board of directors, local communities, customers, employees
E. Executive staff, customers, employees, suppliers

Answer C p. 437 Moderate

13-10 Which of the following methods to developing a CSR agenda would most likely have a
successful outcome?
A. A company’s marketing team invents a creative slogan to emphasize the company’s
interest in and general support of “green” initiatives.
B. The board of directors decides to offer 1% of after tax profits to an orphanage in
Africa.
C. The company’s primary supplier reduces packaging by 10% and tells customers by
printing this fact on the labels.
D. The employees hold a company-wide meeting and brainstorming session, devise an
internal and external waste reduction plan and a program to measure their results.
E. The company executives hire a “green consultant” to come and evaluate the
company’s impact and suggest a plan for improvement.

Answer D p. 437 Hard (based on the idea that employees are the most influential of
all stakeholder groups on CSR)

13-11 The definition of sustainability developed by the UN’s Brundtland Commission refers to:
A. Business practices that utilize the triple bottom line for valuation.
B. Business practices that meet the needs of the current generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
C. Business practices that support communities in the developing world.
D. Businesses practices that engage in corporate social responsibility regardless of
whether they communicate this with their customers or add profit.
E. Business practices that institute a CSR plan.

Answer B p. 437 Easy

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13-12 What does it mean when a company uses “cradle-to-grave” (or cradle-to-cradle)
thinking?
A. Business practices that utilize the triple bottom line for valuation.
B. Business practices that meet the needs of the current generation without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
C. Business practices that conduct a life cycle assessment of products to determine their
true environmental cost, from growth/harvesting of raw materials to manufacture,
distribution, and eventual disposal.
D. Businesses practices that take responsibility for ultimate disposal of products that
create waste problems.
E. C and D only

Answer E p. 439 Moderate

13-13 This approach to CSR is driven by creating positive business results. Companies
following this approach are often responding to other external drivers, such as the threat
of regulation.
A. The shareholder model
B. The business case model
C. The social values model
D. The syncretic stewardship model
E. Both the social values and the business models

Answer B p. 439 Easy

13-14 When considering whether or not a company should engage in CSR, it is important to
look at the company values. Some companies believe providing a return to shareholders
is the sole purpose for the existence of the business. In these companies, believers in
CSR will best convince company non-believers with which of the following arguments:
A. “CSR is the new trend; in order to keep up in business, we must implement a CSR
plan.”
B. “We can use CSR to build a stronger relationship with our customers.”
C. “It is simply the right thing to do.”
D. “CSR initiatives, for example reducing the company’s environmental footprint, is
shown to reduce costs and add to the bottom line.”
E. “We should generate an ad campaign that shows that our company thinks ‘green.’”

Answer D p. 434, 437 Moderate

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13-15 Which of the following accurately captures differences between the social values led
model and the syncretic stewardship model of CSR?
A. The social values led model is focused primarily on solving societal problems, while
the syncretic stewardship model balances economic and noneconomic interests.
B. The social values led model approaches CSR initiatives with “evangelical zeal,”
while syncretic stewardship models recognize inherent complexities and trade-offs in
meeting a variety of stakeholders’ needs.
C. Employees of companies following the social values model are attracted to the
company because of the societal issue it focuses on, while employees of companies
following the syncretic stewardship model are typically more removed from the CSR
issues.
D. Social values led model companies welcome competitive firms’ adopting their
models, but syncretic stewardship model companies like to maintain their approach to
CSR as a point of differentiation.
E. A and B are both true

Answer E pp. 440-441 Hard

13-16 What is the syncretic stewardship model of CSR?

A. A belief in harmonizing all channel partners to focus on the CSR initiative.
B. A small, privately-held company focused on social entrepreneurship.
C. A combination of base-of-the-pyramid market and environmental CSR strategies.
D. CSR that is focused on stewardship of the environment and conservation initiatives.
E. An approach to CSR that recognizes interdependencies, contradictions, and paradoxes
in a company’s business decisions.

Answer E pp. 440-441 Moderate

13-17 Which of the following capture complications in measuring a company’s triple-bottom

line performance?
A. Revenue and cost metrics do not capture the impact of CSR on the social/
environmental causes to which the company gives.
B. A company’s profitability and financial performance is only weakly correlated with
investments in CSR
C. Some companies don’t have a business case approach to their CSR initiatives, and so,
assessing financial metrics seems spurious.
D. There is no standard approach to measuring a company social and environmental
performance.
E. All of the above capture measurement complexities.

Answer E p. 442, 444 Easy

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13-18 Which of the following answers best captures the idea of social accounting?
A. It is a way to measure a company’s greenwashing efforts.
B. It assesses customer loyalty that arises from CSR initiatives.
C. It measures strategy, governance, stakeholder involvement, and follow-through in a
company’s CSR strategies.
D. It develops a set of reporting guidelines and standards to assess a company’s impact
on social and environmental concerns.
E. All of the above

Answer D p.443 Moderate

13-19 Which of the following is NOT included in Best Practices of CSR for high-tech
companies:
A. Embed CSR in senior management and in organizational rewards
B. Measure the impactof CSR
C. Incorporate creative opportunities for giving that fall outside of the core competencies
of the business
D. Link CSR to business strategy and innovation strategy
E. Balance competing shareholder interests.

Answer C p. 446 Easy

13-20 Which of the following captures the four domains that facilitate the likelihood that a
business will benefit strategically from its investments in CSR?
A. Core competencies, industry cluster, employee training, government lobbying
B. Supply, demand, competitive context, supporting infrastructure
C. Education, capital, business culture, and taxes
D. Supply, demand, clusters, intellectual property rights
E. Government infrastructure, distribution infrastructure, technology infrastructure, and
social capital

Answer: B Page: 446-447 Easy

13-21 By working with local groups to identify the ways in which technology can be used to
solve problems, HP has worked to bring the benefits of technology to the world’s poor in
developing countries such as:
 India – assist the rural poor with access to government records, schools, health
information, crop prices and the like;
 Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic – establish telecenters in remove villages
to allow villagers to surf the Internet, email relatives overseas, and watch health and
agricultural training videos
 Senegal – Train people to use the Internet to help them develop future businesses
that leverage the Net.

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 Which of the four domains in evaluating corporate philanthropy are HP’s efforts
primarily focused on?
A. Investments to develop supply/inputs
B. Investments to develop demand/customer conditions
C. Investments to facilitate a fair competitive context
D. Investments to build supporting infrastructure
E. All of the above

Answer: B Page: 446 Hard

13-22 In terms of evaluating investments in corporate philanthropy, which of the following

would be considered a Demand Condition?
A. Presence of sophisticated and demanding local customers
B. Presence of resources used in production, such as infrastructure or human resources
C. Presence of clusters instead of isolated industries
D. Presence of educational facilities and related nonprofits
E. Presence of regulations supporting a competitive marketplace

Answer: A p. 446 Easy

13-23 The BOP represents huge market opportunity because:

A. It is 4 billion strong.
B. It is easily reachable with inside connections.
C. It is relatively easy to make a high volume of sales.
D. It has relatively high purchasing power parity.
E. The primary distribution channels are already in place.

Answer A p. 449 Easy

13-24 When a business is considering how to implement a CSR plan, why is it important to
make a distinction between addressing problems that are precipitated by a crisis and
problems that are chronic?
A. Properly addressing chronic problems involves high-level strategy in capacity
building.
B. A business must collect and store goods to donate to chronic problems.
C. The best way to address crisis problems is volunteering time.
D. It is difficult for a business to build a strategic plan around addressing problems that
are chronic.
E. Both chronic and crisis problems are best addressed by a similar strategy of
volunteering and donations.

Answer A p.450 Hard

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13-25 Enlightened CSR/ social entrepreneurship (BoP 2.0) refers to:
A. Ranking in the top 10% of corporations that institute CSR.
B. The transition from merely ‘giving’ to capacity building and empowerment.
C. Supporting aid programs that have a wide global reach.
D. Creating programs that directly aid humanity’s most basic needs: food, shelter and
safety
E. Faith-based CSR agendas.

Answer B p. 449 Moderate

13-26 Which of the following best describes the “disruptive” nature of social entrepreneurship?
A. An employee from the mailroom who comes up with a brilliant idea, shares it with
the CEO, and is promoted to a VP position.
B. A group of entrepreneurs who raise $1 million dollars to continue funding AIDS
research in Africa.
C. A group of entrepreneurs who design a product that will be powered by solar energy,
require a 4th grade education to fix, will cost $10 and will provide safe drinking water
to villages all across Asia.
D. A group of scientists who create a cure for malaria in a lab and decide to hold on to
the idea until the time is right for them to release it independent of their current
employers.
E. A group of young business people spend $100,000 of borrowed capital to develop a
fuel-efficient car, and then donate the car and the design plans to the Smithsonian.

Answer C p.454 Moderate

13-27 A social entrepreneur is:

A. Someone who is always aware of and plays by the “rules.”
B. Someone who takes risks by seeking to solve seemingly intractable problems by
applying business principles.
C. Someone who carefully plots and plans before making a move.
D. Someone who looks first at credentials and then considers an applicant’s future
capacity to deliver.
E. Someone who travels a lot, is a “do gooder,” and wants to solve entrenched
environmental problems.

Answer B p. 441, 453-455 Easy

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13-28 Social entrepreneurship might be pursued through a non-profit model when:
A. “the air is too thin to think of business ventures”
B. The non-profit is expected to do good work.
C. The ability to attract people who already believe in serving public and environmental
needs exists.
D. All of the above
E. None of the above: Social entrepreneurship does not follow a non-profit business
model.

Answer A p. 455-456 Moderate

13-29 The book states that BOP strategies often fail. There are as many reasons for failure as
there are reasons for success. The book explicitly states to “fail early and fail fast.” Why
is this advice important for social entrepreneurs?
A. It offers an “escape route” for risky ventures.
B. It suggests that BOP strategies are destined for failure and therefore a success is a real
“win.”
C. It suggests that a lot can be learned from failures, lessons that sow the seed of success
for the next venture.
D. It means the faster you fail, the more the investors will get back out of the venture.
E. It suggests that if you think you might fail, get out early and recover your losses.

Answer C p. 458 Hard

13-30 The term “digital divide” refers to:

A. the transition in the entertainment industry from analog content/formats to digital
content/formats.
B. differences with respect to government policy with respect to phone lines, electricity
grids, interstate highways, and access to computer technology.
C. the use of technology to build necessary firewalls (or security barriers) between
different companies’ computer systems.
D. the disparity in access to technology between different groups of people in society.
E. the negative impacts of some types of technology (i.e., spam) arising from
technological developments (email technologies).

Answer D p. 459 Easy

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13-31 Which of the following is not identified by the text as a possible consideration in bridging
the digital divide?
A. Technological developments
B. Government policies to facilitate access
C. Companies’ efforts towards corporate philanthropy to facilitate access
D. Efforts to enhance vulnerable population’s willingness and ability to embrace
technology in their lives
E. All of the above are identified by the text as possible considerations in bridging the
digital divide.

Answer E p. 459 Easy

13-32 Which of the following is not an example of the digital divide?

A. The higher adoption rates of Internet usage by Caucasians relative to Hispanics.
B. Large companies’ greater ability (relative to smaller companies) to implement more
sophisticated technologies to overcome negative consequences, such as spam,
hackers, and monitoring of on-line behaviors of their employees.
C. The limited availability of broadband access in more rural areas compared to more
urban areas.
D. The relative lack of technology in less developed countries of the world, compared to
more developed countries.
E. The lower penetration rates of Internet technology in poorer urban inner cities
compared to wealthier suburbs.

Answer B p. 459 Moderate

13-33 The use of cellular phones and wireless technology aids rural, poor populations in many
ways. The growth of cell phone use among this population is most attributed to:
A. Literacy not required.
B. Expensive legacy infrastructure not required.
C. Inexpensive phones made available through multinational companies and more
recently local providers.
D. The market advantages reaped by cell phone users.
E. All of the above illustrate reasons for the growth of cell phone use in rural, poor
populations.

Answer E p. 462 Easy

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13-34 In order to address climate change effectively, analysts and consultants recommend
thinking of climate changes as a:
A. CSR/ philanthropy level issue.
B. Supply chain issue.
C. Customer spending issue.
D. Business strategy issue.
E. Climate change is not affecting the way most companies do business.

Answer D p. 464 Easy

13-35 What is the Kyoto Protocol?

A. A four-step model to implement a best-practices environmental strategy
B. A way to incorporate natural capitalism into a company’s business thinking
C. A way to bring environmental thinking to BOP markets
D. A method to measure sustainability of high-tech products
E. An international treaty that places limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Answer E p. 465 Easy

13-36 The cap and trade approach to climate change has validity because:
A. Polluters pay.
B. The market decides the outcome.
C. Companies tend to take seriously everything identifiable that effects the bottom-line.
D. It avoids a system of taxation.
E. All of the above make a strong case for cap-and-trade systems

Answer E p. 465-466 Moderate

13-37 Companies who measure their carbon footprint as a baseline for an internal
environmental plan are often given accolades for taking the first step, but then they do
nothing more about it. What would be the best second step for a company after
completing the carbon footprint?
A. Work with suppliers to reduce energy output.
B. Meet with employees and have them draft a plan for reducing the company’s
footprint.
C. Buy carbon offsets for all company-related travel.
D. Assess risks and opportunities that arise from environmental issues.
E. Set a date to re-take the carbon footprint test in order to measure results.

Answer D, p. 467 Easy

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13-38 Natural capitalism includes all of the following strategies, except:
A. Changing manufacturing practices to reduce energy consumption by 30%.
B. Creating a new material based on the strength-to-weight ratio of a spider web.
C. Reorganizing a supply chain based on the principles of ecology.
D. Preserving an acre of pristine wetlands for every acre a business occupies.
E. All of the above are examples of strategy inspired by natural capitalism.

Answer E p. 469 Moderate (all match the 4 bullets on p. 469)

13-39 A box of crackers claiming to be made of 100% natural ingredients that actually contains
artificial color and preservatives is committing which of the following “greenwashing”
sins:
A. Sin of the Hidden Trade Off
B. Sin of Vaugeness
C. Sin of Irrelevance
D. Sin of Fibbing
E. Sin of Lesser of Two Evils

Answer B p.471 Moderate

13-40 Which of the following is not a step in the framework for addressing ethical dilemmas?
A. Identify all stakeholders who are affected by the decision.
B. Identify each stakeholder’s needs and concerns from both sides of the ethical
dilemma.
C. Prioritize the stakeholder groups and perspectives.
D. Stimulate a thorough debate over people versus profits.
E. Make and implement/communicate the decision.

Answer: D Page: 471 Moderate

13-41 Which of the following is not one of the benefits of the framework for addressing ethical
dilemmas?
A. It makes explicit the issues underlying the ethical dilemma.
B. It highlights the various stakeholders’ perspectives.
C. It aids in communicating the decision to others.
D. It avoids the classic Catch-22 that companies can find themselves caught in when
resolving ethical dilemmas (“damned if you do and damned if you don’t”).
E. It allows a company to justify its decision regarding people versus profits.

Answer: E Page: 470-471 Moderate

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