Ensuring that policies and procedures facilitate good strategy implementation and execution is an important managerial task because a. they promote cost-effective resource allocation, quicker and more effective adoption of best practices, and enhance the ability of individual employees to act in an empowered and self-directed way, subject only to the constraint that their actions and behavior be compliant with current policy and procedures. b. well-conceived policies and procedures specify exactly what company personnel need to do to effectively implement the use of best practices and to otherwise conduct daily operations competently and cost-efficiently. c. astutely conceived policies and procedures can promote both faster adoption of best practices and faster development of the right kinds of core competencies and competitive capabilities. d. they place boundaries on independent behavior to avoid unwanted action, provide top- down guidance regarding how certain things need to be done, help enforce needed consistency in how execution-critical activities are performed in geographically scattered operating units, and promote the creation of a work climate that facilitates good strategy execution e. astutely crafted and effective policies and procedures for performing value chain activities are not easily duplicated by rival companies and can be a source of competitive advantage.