Deck 11: Improving Decision Making and Managing Knowledge

Question 1

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

A) Procedural decisions
B) Unstructured decisions
C) Structured decisions
D) Semistructured decisions
E) Operational decisions

Answer 1

C

Question 2

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

A) semistructured decision.
B) procedural decision.
C) nonprocedural decision.
D) operational decision.
E) unstructured decision.

Answer 2

E

Question 3

________ decisions are most common at higher levels of management.

A) Semistructured
B) Unstructured
C) Structured
D) Undocumented
E) Procedural

Answer 3

B

Question 4

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 5

As discussed in the chapter opening case, the Match Insights software allowed German soccer coaches to target performance metrics for specific players based on vast amounts of video data and give them feedback through mobile devices.

Question 6

Operational management typically makes which type of decisions?

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

Question 7

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

Question 8

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 9

A coherent decision is one that reflects reality.

Question 10

A decision can be said to have improved if it can be made more quickly.

Question 11

Which is the second step in Simon's four different stages of decision making?

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

Question 12

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 13

Which phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem?

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

Question 14

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) semistructured.
E) low-level.

Question 15

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

A) operational
B) unstructured
C) semistructured
D) procedural
E) structured

Question 16

Estimating the number of direct goods to reorder falls into which category of decision making?

A) Structured
B) Documented
C) Unstructured
D) Procedural
E) Operational

Question 17

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

A) A small decision may have a great economic impact on the company.
B) Even a routine decision may have a "ripple" effect through a corporation.
C) A small decision has business value when added with all the other small decisions made in the company.
D) Small, routine decisions typically do not have any business value for a company.
E) Even small decisions affect the culture of the organization.

Question 18

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

Question 19

Which of the following is a typical middle management decision?

A) How much of our product is selling in lower-income markets?
B) Why are sales of our product decreasing on the west coast?
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 20

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

Question 21

You are developing a customer recommendation system for a department store's e-commerce site. Which of the following tools will provide the most accurate recommendations?

A) Genetic algorithms
B) Fuzzy logic
C) Location analytics
D) CBR
E) Big data analytics

Question 22

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 23

Identify and describe the different types of decisions.

Question 24

In a parameterized report, 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 25

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 26

All of the following are analytic functionalities that BI systems deliver except:

A) ad hoc queries.
B) dashboards.
C) production reports.
D) drill-down ability.
E) user interface.

Question 27

________ 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 28

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 29

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) multi-tier
E) sensitivity

Question 30

________ 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 31

Which of the following BI functionalities would you use to assess how customers would respond to a price change in your product?

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

Question 32

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 33

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 34

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 35

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 36

All of the following are dimensions of a firm's performance that are measured in the balanced scorecard method except:

A) resources.
B) business process.
C) customer.
D) learning and growth.
E) financial.

Question 37

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 38

Describe the stages of organizational decision making.

Question 39

What type of model asks what-if questions repeatedly to determine the impact on outcomes of changes in one or more factors?

A) Mathematical
B) Sensitivity analysis
C) Goal seeking
D) Forecasting
E) Simulation

Question 40

Which of the following would be a typical production report for an organization's financial division?

A) Variability of sales by region and time
B) Projected income
C) Supplier information
D) Cash flow
E) Customer models

Question 41

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 42

Expert systems:

A) solve problems too difficult for human experts.
B) are based on DO WHILE rules.
C) work in very limited domains.
D) share characteristics with mainframe computing.
E) are a type of case-based reasoning.

Question 43

How is big data being utilized by local governments?

Question 44

Parameterized reports are predefined production reports.

Question 45

According to your reading of the text, Procter & Gamble's use of intelligent agent technology in its supply chain illustrates the use of information systems to implement which of the main generic business strategies?

A) Product differentiation
B) Focus on market niche
C) Strengthen customer intimacy
D) Strengthen supplier intimacy
E) Low-cost leadership

Question 46

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

Question 47

What is a GIS and what is it used for?

Question 48

GDSS are designed to display data in the form of digitized maps.

Question 49

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

Question 50

You are the CEO of a national shoe store 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) CBR
D) Location analytics
E) Intelligent agent

Question 51

What-if analysis works forward from known or assumed conditions.

Question 52

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 53

Neural network applications in medicine, science, and business address problems in all of the following except:

A) pattern classification.
B) prediction.
C) control and optimization.
D) generalization.
E) financial analysis.

Question 54

Business intelligence and analytics are products defined by software vendors.

Question 55

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

Question 56

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's intelligence systems?

Question 57

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 58

Expert systems model human knowledge as a set of rules that collectively are called the ________ base.

A) knowledge
B) data
C) inference
D) experience
E) rationale

Question 59

DSS primarily address structured problems.

Question 60

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

Question 61

Fuzzy logic is a type of intelligent technique.

Question 62

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 63

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 64

In ________, descriptions of past experiences of human specialists, represented as cases, are stored in a database for later retrieval when the user encounters a new case with similar parameters.

A) expert systems
B) DSS
C) CBR
D) intelligence networks
E) knowledge work systems

Question 65

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

Question 66

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 67

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

Question 68

________ 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 69

________ 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 70

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 71

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

Question 72

Shopping bots are a form of intelligent agent.

Question 73

Case-based reasoning describes a particular phenomenon or process linguistically and then represents that description in a small number of flexible rules.

Question 74

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

Question 75

CBR is used in diagnostic systems in medicine.

Question 76

________ 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 77

What is case-based reasoning and how does it work?

Question 78

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

Question 79

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 80

Decision making is enhanced by a diverse group of ________, such as data mining and fuzzy logic.

A) intelligent techniques
B) expert systems
C) DSS
D) intelligent models
E) parameterized reports