Deck 11: Improving Decision Making and Managing Knowledge

Question 1

The type of decision that can be made by following a definite procedure is called a(n) ________ decision.

A) operational
B) unstructured
C) semi-structured
D) procedural
E) structured

Answer 1

E

Question 2

Deciding whether to introduce a new product line is an example of a(n):

A) semi-structured decision.
B) procedural decision.
C) nonprocedural decision.
D) operational decision.
E) unstructured decision.

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Why does improving a small value, routine decision have business value for a company?

A) A small value, routine decision may have a great economic impact on the company.
B) Even a small value, routine decision may have a "ripple" effect through a corporation.
C) Small value, routine decisions have business value because of their large number and frequency.
D) Small value, routine decisions involve important business processes.
E) Small value, routine decisions can affect the culture of the entire organization.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Operational management typically makes which type of decisions?

A) Semi-structured
B) Documented
C) Structured
D) Procedural
E) Low-level

Question 5

Which phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem?

A) Design
B) Intelligence
C) Choice
D) Implementation
E) Definition

Question 6

A bank's decision to give a customer a mortgage is an example of an unstructured decision.

Question 7

A coherent decision is one that can be rationally explained to others.

Question 8

Where there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making a decision, it is said to be:

A) undocumented.
B) unstructured.
C) documented.
D) semi-structured.
E) low-level.

Question 9

Which types of decisions are more prevalent at lower organizational levels?

A) Procedural decisions
B) Unstructured decisions
C) Structured decisions
D) Semi-structured decisions
E) Operational decisions

Question 10

In high-velocity automated decision making, humans are eliminated from the decision chain.

Question 11

Which dimension of quality means that a decision faithfully reflects the concerns and interests of affected parties?

A) Due process
B) Justice
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Accuracy

Question 12

Which of the following is an example of a high-velocity automated decision process?

A) Strategic decision making
B) Operational decision making
C) Credit granting decisions
D) Providing online search results
E) Discovering and identifying the nature of a decision problem

Question 13

You are the CIO at an insurance firm and a manager has proposed implementing expensive new project management software that would help increase the efficiency of the IT staff. The idea of improved efficiency sounds good, but is there any way you can evaluate her decision before purchasing the software? Be specific.

Question 14

Which of the following is a typical middle management decision?

A) How much of our product is selling in lower-income markets?
B) Should we close a factory?
C) Should we introduce our product to overseas markets?
D) Should we discontinue this product?
E) Which product is selling the best in overseas markets?

Question 15

Which dimension of quality means that a decision should reflect a rational process?

A) Comprehensiveness
B) Accuracy
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Due process

Question 16

A decision can be said to have improved if it is made by more than one manager.

Question 17

________ decisions are most common at higher levels of management.

A) Semi-structured
B) Unstructured
C) Structured
D) Undocumented
E) Procedural

Question 18

The use of high-velocity automated decision making eliminates the risk inherent in human decision making.

Question 19

Finding out why orders are not being filled on time at a distribution center is what kind of decision scenario?

A) Semi-structured
B) High-velocity
C) Unstructured
D) Procedural
E) Operational

Question 20

You are answering phones for a local utilities provider and are speaking with an extremely angry customer. Because your company manual advises employees to transfer hostile calls to a superior, you do this. What quality dimension of decisions does your action reflect?

A) Due process
B) Justice
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Accuracy

Question 21

Backward sensitivity analysis software is used for:

A) supply chain optimization.
B) historical what-if analysis.
C) goal seeking.
D) reverse forecasting.
E) customer analysis.

Question 22

A(n) ________ capability allows users to view more detailed views of data.

A) ad hoc
B) drill-down
C) query and reporting
D) metrics
E) VRML

Question 23

A KPI is:

A) an industry standard for measuring performance along a given dimension.
B) a measure proposed by senior management.
C) an alternative to the balanced scorecard method.
D) an analytic technique for measuring financial performance.
E) a measurement of knowledge performance.

Question 24

A restaurant client has asked you to develop a system that would provide smartphone alerts about special discounts to potential customers in the vicinity. Which of the following tools will provide the solution?

A) Genetic algorithms
B) Neural networks
C) Location analytics
D) Operational analytics
E) Big data analytics

Question 25

Which of the following types of business intelligence users is considered a power user?

A) IT developers
B) Business analysts
C) Operational employees
D) Senior managers
E) Clerical workers

Question 26

What kind of decision making tool could help you develop a recommended system for your firm's website which has 50,000 visitors a month?

A) Big data analytics
B) Sensitivity analysis
C) Goal seeking
D) Forecasting
E) Simulation

Question 27

GDSS are designed to:

A) allow meeting attendees to share their thoughts in real time with their peers.
B) manage knowledge using a global perspective.
C) enable collaboration among geographically dispersed participants.
D) enable executives to easily supervise senior management meetings.
E) implement structured methods for organizing and evaluating ideas.

Question 28

Which type of information system uses data visualization technology to analyze and display data for planning and decision making in the form of digitized maps?

A) GIS
B) DSS
C) GSS
D) TPS
E) MIS

Question 29

The business intelligence environment includes all of the following except:

A) data from the business environment.
B) cloud-based storage.
C) BI infrastructure.
D) business analytics.
E) delivery platform.

Question 30

Which of the following would be a typical parameterized report for an organization's marketing group?

A) Variability of sales by region and time
B) Marketing campaign effectiveness
C) Customer satisfaction report
D) Impressions and conversion on the firm's website
E) Sales forecast for a single product

Question 31

In a dashboard, users can:

A) drill down to more finely grained information.
B) create their own reports based on custom queries.
C) view overall firm performance data.
D) view data according to different dimensions of the data.
E) predict future outcomes according to changing circumstances.

Question 32

Describe the stages of organizational decision making.

Question 33

Why is the balanced scorecard method said to be "balanced"?

A) It uses measurable dimensions for assessing performance.
B) It assesses both the internally focused and externally focused business processes.
C) It measures performance along all major divisions of a firm, from production and manufacturing to human resources.
D) It measures performance of all levels of a firm, from executives to operational employees and data workers.
E) It measures performance of more than just financial systems.

Question 34

________ help users gain information from large amounts of geographically linked data.

A) Data visualization tools
B) GIS
C) GDSS
D) Location analytics tools
E) CAD systems

Question 35

________ is a management methodology that translates a firm's goals into operational targets.

A) BPM
B) KPI
C) Balanced scorecard
D) OLAP
E) GDSS

Question 36

A(n) ________ table is a spreadsheet feature that displays two or more dimensions of data in a convenient format.

A) pivot
B) drill-down
C) ad hoc
D) multitier
E) sensitivity

Question 37

Identify and describe the different types of decisions.

Question 38

Which of the following is not an element of the business intelligence environment?

A) User interface
B) Executive users
C) Platform
D) Business analytics toolset
E) Production reports

Question 39

What is the name of a decision support tool that asks what-if questions repeatedly to predict outcomes in a variety of situations?

A) Key performance indicators
B) Predictive analytics
C) Ad hoc query
D) Sensitivity analysis
E) Pivot table

Question 40

Which of the following BI functionalities would you use to assess the likelihood of students dropping out of a college program?

A) Parameterized reports
B) Predictive analytics
C) Ad hoc queries
D) Production reports
E) Predictive analytics

Question 41

Business intelligence and analytics are products defined by software vendors.

Question 42

Why are managerial users and methods considered an important part of the BI environment?

Question 43

Parameterized reports look at the impact of several factors to understand sales patterns.

Question 44

An inference engine is:

A) a data mining strategy used by intelligent agents.
B) the programming environment of an expert system.
C) a method of organizing expert system knowledge into chunks.
D) a set of rules used to model human knowledge in an expert system.
E) a strategy used to search through the rule base in an expert system.

Question 45

What is big data? How does it provide business value?

Question 46

Which of the following statements about neural networks is not true?

A) Neural network applications are used to address problems of control and optimization.
B) Neural networks are being used to help detect credit card fraud.
C) Neural networks are being used to screen patients for coronary artery disease.
D) Neural networks are best used as a substitute for human decision makers.
E) Neural networks are being used to predict the performance of equities.

Question 47

GDSS are designed to help groups of managers make collective decisions.

Question 48

What-if analysis allows the user to vary certain values to test results to predict outcomes when there are no changes in the value of key conditions.

Question 49

DSS primarily address structured problems.

Question 50

Expert systems:

A) solve problems too difficult for human experts.
B) are based on DO WHILE rules.
C) use rules based on human expertise.
D) share characteristics with mainframe computing.
E) are a type of machine based intelligence.

Question 51

Expert systems are used when:

A) expertise is in short supply and needs to be captured.
B) predictions for the future are required.
C) patterns of consumer behavior need to be investigated.
D) Big data needs to be analyzed.
E) senior managers need reports on overall business performance.

Question 52

What is a GIS and what is it used for?

Question 53

You are the CEO of a national apparel retail chain and want to add three new stores. Which of the following tools will best help you find the most potentially profitable new locations?

A) Pivot tables
B) Sensitivity analysis
C) GIS
D) Location analytics
E) Intelligent agent

Question 54

As discussed in the chapter opening case, eHarmony makes matching decisions based on its analysis of successful relationships among its users.

Question 55

Not all business intelligence users are managers interested in forecasting sales figures for the next quarter. What different types of users are there for a business' intelligence systems?

Question 56

You are a city transportation planner and are interested in improving the city's bus service. What types of analytic tools might help you do this, and how would you use them?

Question 57

Dashboards and scorecards are visual interfaces used to make a firm's information easier to review quickly.

Question 58

Web-based tools for videoconferencing and electronic meetings are the primary tools for GDSS.

Question 59

All of the following are intelligent agents that are able to respond to human voice commands with useful information in voice or written form except:

A) Apple's Siri.
B) Microsoft's Cortana.
C) Facebook's DeepFace.
D) Amazon's Alexa.
E) Google Now.

Question 60

How is big data being utilized by local governments?

Question 61

Genetic algorithms are used for generating solutions to problems that are too large and complex for human beings to analyze on their own.

Question 62

To automate routine tasks to help firms search for and filter information for use in electronic commerce and supply chain management, a firm would most likely use:

A) CAD systems.
B) genetic algorithms.
C) fuzzy logic systems.
D) intelligent agents.
E) neural networks.

Question 63

Shopping bots are a form of intelligent agent.

Question 64

Virtually all successful expert systems deal with problems of:

A) associative data.
B) classification.
C) logic and control.
D) unstructured decision making.
E) structured decision making.

Question 65

Because genetic algorithms produce generalized solutions, they are best used as aids or guides to human decision makers instead of substitutes for them.

Question 66

As described in the chapter case, IBM's Watson is an example of:

A) an intelligent agent.
B) genetic algorithm.
C) machine learning.
D) an expert system.
E) cloud computing.

Question 67

________ are designed to have a generalized capability to learn.

A) Knowledge-based systems
B) Neural networks
C) Fuzzy logic systems
D) Expert systems
E) Genetic algorithms

Question 68

What are neural networks and how do they work?

Question 69

Watson is being used to diagnose diseases.

Question 70

________ are intelligent techniques that parallel some aspects of the processing patterns of the biological brain.

A) Neural networks
B) Genetic algorithms
C) CBR systems
D) Fuzzy logic systems
E) Intelligent agents

Question 71

Unlike genetic algorithms, neural networks are not suited to finding patterns and relationships in massive amounts of data.

Question 72

What is the difference between a neural network and genetic algorithms? Which would be of most use to an organization of astronomers analyzing gamma ray emissions reaching Earth?

Question 73

Which of the following is a key problem in managing knowledge?

A) Sharing knowledge
B) Storing knowledge
C) Distributing knowledge
D) Locating knowledge
E) Classifying knowledge

Question 74

Genetic algorithms:

A) represent knowledge as groups of characteristics.
B) are software programs that work in the background to carry out specific, repetitive tasks.
C) develop solutions to particular problems using techniques such as mutation, crossover, and selection.
D) "learn" patterns from large quantities of data by sifting through data.
E) have a large number of sensing and processing nodes that continuously interact with each other.

Question 75

In neural networks, humans train the network by feeding it a set of known outputs.

Question 76

Google's ability to recognize the meaning and intent behind user queries rather than merely matching keywords is based on which of the following?

A) Expert systems
B) Machine learning
C) DSS
D) Neural networks
E) Parameterized reports

Question 77

Expert systems capture the knowledge of skilled employees in the form of a set of rules in a software system that can be used by others in the organization.

Question 78

________ intelligence technology consists of computer-based systems that attempt to emulate human behavior and thought patterns.

A) Neural
B) Genetic
C) Fuzzy
D) Artificial
E) Learning

Question 79

Robotics is a type of intelligent technique.

Question 80

The business value of a GDSS is improved decision making. How does a GDSS accomplish this?