Deck 8: 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

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

Answer 2

True

Question 3

According to bounded rationality theory,people make better decisions when their perceptions are "bounded" or framed by past experience.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

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

Question 5

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

Question 6

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

Question 7

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

Question 8

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

Question 9

The textbook argues that problem identification is usually the least important step in the rational choice paradigm.

Question 10

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

Question 11

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

Question 12

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

Question 13

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

Question 14

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 15

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

Question 16

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

Question 17

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

Question 18

If a decision maker encounters the same problem several times,he or she can increasingly rely on non-programmed decision routines to solve the problem.

Question 19

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

Question 20

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

Question 21

The highest level of employee involvement occurs when employees are asked to make recommendations to managers,who then decide whether to implement them.

Question 22

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

Question 23

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

Question 24

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

Question 25

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

Question 26

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

Question 27

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

Question 28

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

Question 29

Employee involvement potentially improves decision-making quality and commitment.

Question 30

Escalation of commitment may be corrected by ensuring that those involved in choosing decision alternatives are also responsible for evaluating the implemented solution.

Question 31

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

Question 32

Employee involvement mainly refers to controlling resources for one's own job.

Question 33

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

Question 34

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

Question 35

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

Question 36

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

Question 37

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

Question 38

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

Question 39

Intuition includes any emotional signals we experience regarding a situation.

Question 40

Intuition is the main strategy to minimize escalation of commitment.

Question 41

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

Question 42

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 43

The highest level of employee involvement should occur when the problem is structured (i.e.it is a programmed decision).

Question 44

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

Question 45

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

Question 46

People are more creative when they avoid studying the problem or issue.

Question 47

Teams are less likely to select the best decision alternative compared to the typical individual working alone.

Question 48

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 49

Creative people have a low need for achievement and a strong need to follow rules.

Question 50

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

Question 51

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

Question 52

The best level of employee involvement depends on the number of team members.

Question 53

The best level of employee involvement depends on the amount of information the leader possesses about the issue.

Question 54

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

Question 55

Creativity occurs only in a few types of decisions.

Question 56

Creative people are risk-takers and have less concern about social approval.

Question 57

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

Question 58

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

Question 59

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

Question 60

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

Question 61

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

Question 62

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

Question 63

One reason why the rational choice model doesn't fit reality is that it focuses on logical thinking and completely ignores:

A) emotions.
B) alternatives.
C) evaluation of solutions.
D) subjective expected utility.
E) opportunities.

Question 64

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

Question 65

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 these statements are true
E) All of these statements are false; emotions do not influence decision making.

Question 66

The rational choice 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 information processing machines.
D) it ignores the fact that people evaluate their decision after an alternative has been chosen and implemented.
E) all of these statements are correct.

Question 67

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

Question 68

For the past 2,500 years,scholars in most western countries have mainly followed the ______ model of decision making.

A) implicit favorite
B) bounded rationality
C) rational choice
D) prospect theory
E) programmed decision

Question 69

At what stage of the rational choice decision making model would we consider whether the decision is programmed or non-programmed?

A) Identifying the problem or opportunity.
B) Choosing the most appropriate decision style.
C) Developing alternative solutions.
D) Choosing the best alternative.
E) Evaluating decision outcomes.

Question 70

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 71

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

Question 72

The rational choice model of decision making 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 73

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

Question 74

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 non-programmed decision situations.
D) In most programmed decision-making situations.
E) Only under conditions of bounded rationality.

Question 75

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 76

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

Question 77

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 78

A nonprogrammed decision is:

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 much search for alternative solutions.
D) any decision that is clearly within the employee's job description.
E) any decision that affects the employee's performance.

Question 79

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 determine 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 80

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