Deck 7: Decision Making and Creativity

Question 1

The rational choice paradigm states that effective decision makers begin at any step in the model.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Decision making is an unconscious process of moving toward a desirable state of affairs.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

According to almost all organizational behavior research, intuitive decision making is a myth that should not be taken seriously.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The rational choice paradigm assumes that decision makers have limited information-processing capabilities and engage in a limited search for alternatives.

Question 5

Satisficing occurs when people continue on a failing course of action.

Question 6

Intuition allows us to draw on our tacit knowledge to guide our decision preferences.

Question 7

One reason why the problem identification stage is imperfect is that various stakeholders try to "frame" the decision maker's view of the situation.

Question 8

Bounded rationality adopts the main assumptions of the rational choice paradigm of decision making.

Question 9

Decision makers typically look at alternatives sequentially and compare each alternative to an implicit favorite.

Question 10

Our mental models of the world can prevent us from recognizing emerging problems in the workplace.

Question 11

Subjective expected utility refers to how much the selected alternative benefits or satisfies the decision maker.

Question 12

The decision-making process is more effective when problems are defined in terms of their solutions.

Question 13

Decision makers have a need to reduce uncertainty, so they tend to focus on solutions before fully understanding the problem.

Question 14

Decision makers can discover blind spots in problem identification by discussing the situation with other people.

Question 15

To choose the best solution, decision makers need clear organizational goals that do not conflict with each other.

Question 16

The decision maker's emotions play an important role in his or her identification of a problem or opportunity.

Question 17

One of the reasons people use satisficing when making decisions rather than maximization is that it takes more information processing capacity than people possess or are willing to use to choose the best alternative.

Question 18

The last step in the rational decision-making model is to evaluate the decision outcomes.

Question 19

Ill-defined problems require a non-programmed decision process.

Question 20

According to Bounded Rationality Theory, people make better decisions when their perceptions are "bounded" or framed by past experience.

Question 21

When making important decisions, we "listen in" on our emotions to guide our preference among the decision alternatives.

Question 22

Scenario planning is a structured process that helps decision makers explore potential problems and choose the best solutions under different future conditions.

Question 23

The higher the level of employee involvement, the more influence people have over the decision process.

Question 24

Intuition is the main strategy to minimize escalation of commitment.

Question 25

Escalation of commitment occurs when employees increase their support for a decision because most of their colleagues also support that decision.

Question 26

Whether or not the emotions we experience in a situation represent intuition depends largely on our level of experience in that situation.

Question 27

Prospect theory and self-justification are the main causes of satisficing.

Question 28

Intuition includes any emotional signals we experience regarding a situation.

Question 29

When in a positive mood, people pay more attention to details and follow a nonprogrammed decision routine.

Question 30

Post-decisional justification gives people an excessively optimistic evaluation of their decisions, until they receive very clear and undeniable information to the contrary.

Question 31

Employee involvement tends to weaken synergy in the decision-making process.

Question 32

Employees are more likely to be committed to implementing a solution when they are involved in making the decision.

Question 33

Employee involvement potentially improves decision-making quality and commitment.

Question 34

Two contingencies of employee involvement are decision commitment and risk of conflict.

Question 35

Systematic evaluation of alternatives helps to increase the use of implicit favorites and satisficing in the decision process.

Question 36

Escalation of commitment is more likely to occur when the perceived costs of terminating the project are high or unknown.

Question 37

Post-decisional justification causes decision makers to forget what decision they made.

Question 38

Intuition is based on mental templates or models representing tacit knowledge about a situation.

Question 39

The emerging emotional view of decision making states that people form preferences toward alternatives as soon as they receive information about those alternatives.

Question 40

To make the best decisions, the number of employees involved should be minimized.

Question 41

Knowledge and experience can undermine creativity because it can lead to routinization of that knowledge.

Question 42

Creative people tend to have a high need for social approval.

Question 43

Incubation is the stage of creativity in which the problem is simmering at the back of your mind while you are doing something else.

Question 44

Employees tend to be less creative in organizations that punish failure.

Question 45

Creativity tends to suffer during times of downsizing and corporate restructuring.

Question 46

Task significance and autonomy are important conditions for creativity in organizations.

Question 47

Typically, creative people possess less knowledge and experience on the subject than experts in the field.

Question 48

Employees should not make the final decision alone when conflict is likely among employees.

Question 49

The ideas that appear during the insight stage of creativity are quickly forgotten unless documented.

Question 50

Creative ideas can emerge when asking people unfamiliar with the problem to explore the problem with you.

Question 51

Creativity is related to both the characteristics of creative people and the situation in which they work.

Question 52

Creative people value self-direction, but also have a strong need to follow rules.

Question 53

Divergent thinking occurs when the individual has a fleeting inspiration that is usually forgotten before it can be written down.

Question 54

Creativity occurs by redefining the problem, not just by finding a unique solution to the existing problem.

Question 55

People are creative because they work in creative environments, not because of any differences in their ability or personality.

Question 56

Creativity occurs only in a few types of decisions.

Question 57

The ideas that form during the insight stage of creativity need to be verified through conscious evaluation and experimentation.

Question 58

Creative people have a high degree of non-conformity and have less concern about social approval.

Question 59

People are the most creative when management puts intense pressure on them to produce creative ideas.

Question 60

The incubation stage of creativity is more effective when the decision maker sets aside all other activities and focuses attention on the issue or problem.

Question 61

The concept of bounded rationality holds that:

A)our perception of a rational reality is bounded by non rationality.
B)decision makers process limited and imperfect information and therefore rarely select the best choice.
C)decision makers are "bounded" by organizational limitations.
D)decision makers are bound to project images of themselves as rational thinkers.
E)our realities are bounded by our own perceptions so that everyone's reality is different.

Question 62

Mental models have what effect on the decision-making process?

A)They perpetuate assumptions that make it difficult to see new opportunities.
B)They cause production blocking in decision making.
C)They make it unnecessary to develop alternative solutions to the problem.
D)They cause decision makers to maximize rather than satisfice.
E)They help people to be more creative in decision making.

Question 63

A potentially useful creative practice is to list different dimensions of a system and the elements of each dimension, then think through the potential commercial usefulness of each combination.

Question 64

The tendency to define problems in terms of a preferred solution occurs because:

A)people form preferences for alternatives as soon as they are identified.
B)people want to quickly understand and resolve problems.
C)this avoids the escalation of commitment problem.
D)all of the above.
E)only 'A' and 'B'.

Question 65

When should decision makers bypass the search for alternative solutions and development of new solutions?

A)Never; bypassing these stages results in poorer decisions.
B)When the decision has ethical implications.
C)In most nonprogrammed decision situations.
D)In most programmed decision-making situations.
E)Only under conditions of bounded rationality.

Question 66

A nonprogrammed decision is applicable in:

A)any routine situation where the company has a ready-made solution.
B)any decision that does not relate directly to the employee's job description.
C)any nonroutine situation in which employees must search for alternative solutions.
D)any decision that is clearly within the employee's job description.
E)any decision that effects the employee's performance.

Question 67

Morphological analysis is a test to identify people with a creative personality.

Question 68

Selecting the best decision alternative tends to be more difficult when organizational goals are:

A)unknown.
B)ambiguous.
C)in conflict with each other.
D)not fully agreed upon by those participating in the decision.
E)all of the above.

Question 69

Perceptual defense causes us to:

A)defend the solutions we propose.
B)defend those who agree with us when we identify a problem.
C)defend the perception we have after making a decision.
D)block out bad news or information that threatens our self-concept.
E)justify our actions to defend our position.

Question 70

The rational decision making model begins with:

A)evaluating alternatives.
B)recognizing and defining the problem.
C)searching for alternatives.
D)implementing the solution.
E)searching for information about outcomes to each alternative.

Question 71

The purely rational model of decision making is rarely practiced in reality because:

A)it ignores the fact that problems must be defined before alternatives are chosen.
B)it assumes that human beings make decisions based on their emotions.
C)it assumes that people are efficient and logical in their information processing.
D)it ignores the fact that people evaluate their decision after an alternative has been chosen and implemented.
E)None of the above.

Question 72

During a meeting, senior executives of a consumer products company tackled the problem that they were late in detecting several consumer trends, such as the trend towards using see-through plastics in kitchenware.While trying to determine the source of this problem, one executive said: "The main problem here is that we need to find a better industrial design firm to design our products." Which of the following best describes the decision-making problem that this executive is exhibiting?

A)The executive is engaging in escalation of commitment.
B)The executive is being too creative.
C)The executive is acting as a devil's advocate when the situation calls for consensus.
D)The executive is engaging in groupthink.
E)The executive is defining the problem in terms of a solution.

Question 73

Which of the following best describes how emotions influence the problem identification process?

A)Emotions have no effect on how people identify problems.
B)The emotional brain center classifies incoming perceptual information as bad or good, which then influences the rational brain center's evaluation about whether that situation is a problem.
C)Emotions mainly signal us to follow either a programmed or nonprogrammed decision process.
D)If the rational brain center determines that the situation is a problem, it transmits this evaluation to the emotional center, which then energizes the decision maker to act without choosing alternatives.
E)Emotions ensure that we rely on the rationality and avoid intuition in the decision making process.

Question 74

Cross-pollination is recommended in the textbook as a way to encourage creativity in organizations.

Question 75

Art classes and improvisational theatre are two creative activities of associative play.

Question 76

_______ is a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs.

A)Decision making
B)Bounded rationality
C)Divergent thinking
D)Prospect theory
E)Scenario planning.

Question 77

In what stage of the decision-making process do emotions influence human decision making?

A)Identifying problems.
B)Identifying alternatives.
C)Choosing alternatives.
D)All of the above.
E)None of the above; emotions do not influence decision making.

Question 78

Which of these represent the final step in the rational choice decision making process?

A)Identifying problems
B)Implement the selected alternative
C)Choose the best alternative
D)Evaluate decision outcomes
E)None of the above.

Question 79

The tendency to define problems in terms of a preferred solution occurs because:

A)it reduces ambiguity of the situation.
B)decision makers prefer ambiguity rather than decisiveness.
C)this avoids the escalation of commitment problem.
D)it avoids problems of bounded rationality.
E)all of these statements are correct.

Question 80

In organizational settings, creativity usually occurs alone rather than with other people.