Business Driven Information Systems Study Set 5

Learning refers to the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem.

Decision making reflects relatively permanent changes in an employee's knowledge and skills that result from experience.

Learning is important because it has a significant impact on decision making.

Research shows that the difference between experts and novices is almost always a function of intelligence as opposed to the more popular view that learning makes the difference.

Explicit knowledge is what employees can typically learn only through experience.

Tacit knowledge is the kind of information that can be easily communicated during training sessions or using written manuals.

The entire process of reinforcement is a continuous cycle, and the repetition of behaviors is strengthened to the degree that reinforcement continues to occur.

For positive reinforcement to be successful, an employee needs to see a direct link between his or her behavior and the desired outcome.

Edgar has a habit of telling jokes during meetings. Others laugh, but it really does slow down the meetings. Josh, Edgar's manager, has asked other meeting members to refrain from laughing when Edgar tells a joke in future meetings. Josh is hoping Edgar will stop wasting time with the jokes. Josh is using extinction to change Edgar's behavior.

To be effective, positive reinforcement should necessarily be in the form of material rewards.

Variable interval scheduling is the simplest schedule of reinforcement and happens when a specific consequence follows each and every occurrence of a desired behavior.

Research has consistently shown that fixed reinforcement schedules lead to higher levels of performance than variable schedules.

Research shows that desired behaviors tend to disappear much more quickly when reinforcement is discontinued under fixed plans.

When employees observe the actions of others, learn from what they observe, and then repeat the observed behavior, they are engaging in cognitive modeling.

Performance-oriented individuals enjoy working on new kinds of tasks, even if they fail during their early experiences.

Those with a performance-prove orientation focus on demonstrating their competence so that others will not think poorly of them.

Because of their tacit knowledge, experts sometimes cannot put into words why they know that a problem exists, why a solution will work, or how they accomplished a task.

The rational decision-making model offers a step-by-step approach to making decisions that maximize outcomes by examining all available alternatives.

The rational decision-making model assumes that people are very rarely perfectly rational.

Andrew is under a lot of time pressure to make a decision. As a result, he chooses the first acceptable solution without considering any more possibilities. Andrew has engaged in satisficing behavior.