Deck 8: Decision Making and Creative Problem Solving

Question 1

As long as people differ in terms of backgrounds, perceptions, aspirations, and values, there will be disagreement over what is right or wrong, and ethical and unethical.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Subjective probabilities are derived mathematically from reliable historical data.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Given the emphasis on quality improvement, the pace of decision making has slowed.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

As the degree of uncertainty increases, decision confidence tends to decline.

Question 5

When a manager has no doubt about the factual basis of a decision and its outcomes, in other words, the manager has complete and reliable information, a condition of risk exists.

Question 6

Seeking interdisciplinary input in decision making is a time-consuming process.

Question 7

When making decisions, the act of choosing implies that alternative courses of action must be weighed and weeded out.

Question 8

Managers must have complete and reliable information to cope with risk.

Question 9

A single manager is typically responsible for a given decision from beginning to end.

Question 10

When making a decision, a number of often-conflicting criteria representing the interests of different groups must be satisfied.

Question 11

The idea of comparing decision making to floating in a stream helps people understand that organizational decision making is a smooth-flowing and orderly process.

Question 12

By definition, decision making is the process of understanding uncertainty.

Question 13

Two basic types of probabilities are objective and subjective.

Question 14

Given the accelerated pace of change in today's business environment, identifying stakeholders and balancing their conflicting interests is no longer important for decision makers.

Question 15

A part of organizational decision making today involves intangibles, such as customer goodwill.

Question 16

As Boeing learned the hard way, outsourcing is not universally good.

Question 17

Boeing's outsourcing disaster stemmed from the fact that they did not fully understand the conditions required for success and they did not recognize the high level of complexity involved with integrating disparate subcomponents.

Question 18

When little or no reliable factual information is available, a condition of uncertainty exists.

Question 19

Unintended consequences and long-term impacts of managers' decisions should be ignored.

Question 20

Managers with a "thinking" information-processing style are more logical than those with an "intuitive" style.

Question 21

When making programmed decisions, "if-then" decision rules are often used.

Question 22

Prejudice and bigotry thrive on framing error.

Question 23

Knowledge management software has proved very useful and cost-effective in large organizations for sharing both explicit and tacit knowledge.

Question 24

Escalation of commitment involves throwing good money after bad.

Question 25

The decision-making error of overconfidence is represented by the argument of "too much time and money invested to quit now."

Question 26

The first step in the general decision-making model is determining whether this is a routine decision.

Question 27

Being overconfident can lead managers to take unreasonable risks.

Question 28

The "thinking" style of information processing tends to prevail in traditional pyramid work organizations.

Question 29

Given high levels of uncertainty and accelerated pace of change, most decisions made by the typical manager on a daily basis are of the nonprogrammed variety.

Question 30

Knowledge management is defined as the development of tools, processes, systems, structures, and cultures to improve the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge critical for decision making.

Question 31

Having employees with "thinking" and "intuitive" information-processing styles on the same committee is counterproductive.

Question 32

Nonprogrammed decisions are more common in today's businesses than programmed decisions.

Question 33

To avoid escalation of commitment, managers should compare actual progress with goals and timetables to conduct reality checks.

Question 34

The flow of constructive tacit knowledge between coworkers is a top priority of knowledge management.

Question 35

Deciding whether to merge with another company is an example of a nonprogrammed decision.

Question 36

Bonnie, Reitz, a senior vice president for sales at Continental Airlines is an example of a highly effective manager who embraces both the thinking style and the intuitive style.

Question 37

There are two types of knowledge: implicit knowledge and strategic knowledge.

Question 38

Programmed decisions are repetitive and routine.

Question 39

One way to sharpen your intuition is to use imagery.

Question 40

According to on-the-job research, managers do not necessarily follow a logical sequence of steps when making decisions.

Question 41

According to Peter Drucker, emphasis on finding the right questions, rather than the right answers, is the most common source of mistakes in management decisions.

Question 42

Forgetting how to play can stifle creativity.

Question 43

An advantage of group-aided decision making is "logrolling."

Question 44

According to a recent survey, groupware is typically plagued by low quality implementation.

Question 45

"Discovery" is the most relevant domain of creativity to management.

Question 46

Groupware is also known as collaborative computing.

Question 47

Humor is one of the three domains of creativity.

Question 48

The two domains of creativity are inspiration and application.

Question 49

The most common problem-solving difficulty lies in the identification of problems.

Question 50

One of the mental locks on creativity is "Always trying to be logical."

Question 51

Most daily problem solving is done on a haphazard, intuitive basis.

Question 52

A group should always make decisions with legal ramifications.

Question 53

One of the most common mental locks to creativity is overlooking logic and relying on ambiguity and contradictions.

Question 54

The main advantage of group involvement in decision making is that the group actually makes the final decision.

Question 55

To be called creative, something must be a radical departure from the past.

Question 56

The beginning of the four-step problem-solving process is identifying the problem.

Question 57

Groupthink is a potential disadvantage of group-aided decision making.

Question 58

Creativity is an inborn trait; it cannot be learned.

Question 59

According to recent field research, creative people are extreme nonconformists.

Question 60

Creative work is not necessarily the result of creative self-expression through unconventional dress and strange behavior.

Question 61

The creative leap approach to creativity involves listing of ideal characteristics of a given object.

Question 62

When an original situation is changed so that a problem no longer exists, the problem has been dissolved.

Question 63

Which one of the eight sources of decision complexity is likely to create conflict over ethical issues?

A) Interdisciplinary input
B) Risk and uncertainty
C) Intangibles
D) Value judgments
E) Long-term implications

Question 64

What is the meaning of the analogy of decision making is like floating in a stream?

A) The decision maker is a swimmer going upstream
B) Information flows in a smooth and steady order
C) Information flows in random order and it doesn't stop
D) Solutions are the boats
E) Decisions are the bridges

Question 65

The key to successful brainstorming is throwing out bad ideas right from the beginning.

Question 66

By definition, decision making involves

A) choosing.
B) leadership.
C) eliminating uncertainty.
D) worry.
E) fear.

Question 67

A problem is defined as any sort of deficiency.

Question 68

____ is(are) not one of the contributors to decision complexity covered in the text.

A) Long-term implications
B) Risk and uncertainty
C) Government regulation
D) Multiple criteria
E) Interdisciplinary input

Question 69

Which of these is a contributor to decision complexity, according to the author?

A) Culture
B) Politics
C) Leadership
D) Interdisciplinary input
E) Government regulation

Question 70

Managers are said to "idealize" when they systematically research alternative solutions and select the one with the best combination of benefits through scientific observation and quantitative measurement.

Question 71

Marjorie is the manager of a small, family-owned restaurant. Increasingly, she has had to diversify her menu to cater to customers' nutritional and dietary requirements. Which source of decision complexity is Marjorie facing?

A) Intangibles
B) Risk and uncertainty
C) Long-term implications
D) Multiple criteria
E) Interdisciplinary input

Question 72

According to the author, ____ is not a tough challenge decision makers must face today.

A) second-guessing by others
B) information-processing styles
C) uncertainty
D) complex streams of decisions
E) perceptual and behavioral decision traps

Question 73

Managers are said to be "satisficing" if they select a solution to a problem that is "good enough."

Question 74

One of the most important lessons learned from Boeing's outsourcing of the design and build of the airplane sections for the 787 Dreamliner is that __________________________.

A) outsourcing is universally good.
B) outsourcing design and build is not ideal to use when the product requires complex integration of disparate subcomponents.
C) outsourcing should never be used with the "build-to-print" model calling for suppliers to receive confidential blueprints.
D) outsourcing is a proven model for always saving companies time and money.
E) outsourcing is never good.

Question 75

According to the eight sources of decision complexity, managers must cope with ____ criteria and ____ decision making.

A) subjective; programmed
B) vague; high-level
C) intangible; individual
D) vague; rapid
E) multiple; pooled

Question 76

Boeing, the world's largest airplane manufacturer, outsourced the design and build of airplane sections for the 787 Dreamliner rather use the old "build-to-print". This new program, designed to reduce assembly time to one-tenth the normal time was a _____________.

A) huge success.
B) substantial time and money saver.
C) disaster.
D) historical milestone in go-to-market assembly.
E) strategic success because of the comprehensive understanding of the conditions.

Question 77

The Edisonian approach is a creativity technique involving trial-and-error experimentation.

Question 78

A creativity technique that involves thinking up an idealistic solution is the scientific method.

Question 79

Diagnosing problems in terms of their symptoms is a stumbling block for problem finders.

Question 80

The "head" of a fishbone diagram represents the cause(s) of the problem while the "bones" provide a description of the problem.