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Behavior in Organizations > Chapter 6 - Decision Making and Creativity > Flashcards

Chapter 6 - Decision Making and Creativity Flashcards

1
Q

What is the process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs?

A

Decision making

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2
Q

What is it called when people fail to become aware of the problem because they block out bad news as a coping mechanism?

A

Perceptual defense

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3
Q

What is the view that people are bounded in their decision making capabilities by their limited information and information processing?

A

Bounded rationality

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4
Q

What are the 4 problems associated with searching for, evaluating, and choosing alternatives?

A
  1. Goal-related issues
  2. Information processing
  3. Maximization
  4. Evaluating opportunities
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5
Q

List 5 information processing issues

A
  1. People develop and evaluate only a few alternatives
  2. People identify and evaluate only a few outcomes for each alternative
  3. People evaluate alternatives sequentially rather than simultaneously
  4. People have an implicit favorite that they compare other alternatives to
  5. People use biased decision heuristics that distort either the probability or the value of outcomes
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6
Q

What are the 3 most widely studied heuristics?

A
  1. Anchoring and adjustment
  2. Availability
  3. Representativeness
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7
Q

What is a preferred alternative that the decision maker uses repeatedly as a comparison with the other choices?

A

Implicit favorite

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8
Q

Which heuristic is a natural tendency for people to be influenced by an initial anchor point and to not move away from that point as new information is provided?

A

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

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9
Q

Which heuristic is a natural tendency to estimate the probability of something occurring by how easily we can recall those events?

A

Availability heuristic

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10
Q

Which heuristic is the natural tendency to pay more attention to whether something resembles something else than to more precise statistics about its probability?

A

Representativeness heuristic

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11
Q

What are 2 maximization-related issues?

A
  1. People tend to satisfice rather than maximize

2. When faced with a large number of choices, people may find it difficult to make any choice at all

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12
Q

What is the process of selecting the first alternative that is “good enough” rather than the highest value?

A

Satisficing

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13
Q

What are 2 reasons why satisficing occurs?

A
  1. Alternatives are evaluated sequentially

2. People lack the capacity and motivation to process lots of information (cognitive misers)

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14
Q

What are programmed decision routes that speed up our response to pattern matches or mismatches?

A

Action scripts

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15
Q

What effectively shorten the decision making process?

A

Action scripts

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16
Q

Is satisficing desirable or undesirable?

A

Undesirable

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17
Q

List 5 ways that we can improve the choice of alternatives

A
  1. Keep the search for and evaluation of alternatives separate
  2. Be more contemplative than decisive
  3. Systematically evaluate alternatives
  4. Balance emotions and rational influences
  5. Use scenario planning to enhance the ability to make decisions and to prepare
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18
Q

What should you use when you are systematically evaluating alternatives?

A

An objective criteria

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19
Q

What is an objective criteria?

A

A set standard for evaluations

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20
Q

What is a systematic process of thinking about alternative futures and what the organization should do to anticipate and react to those environments?

A

Scenario planning

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21
Q

What are 2 problems that decision makers have when evaluating decision outcomes?

A
  1. Confirmation bias

2. Escalation of commitment

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22
Q

What is the tendency to repeat an apparently bad decision or allocate more resources to the failing course of action?

A

Escalation of commitment

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23
Q

What are the 4 main causes of escalation of commitment?

A
  1. Self-justification effect
  2. Self-enhancement effect
  3. Prospect theory effect
  4. Sunk costs effect
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24
Q

What occurs when people engage in behaviors that convey a positive public image of themselves?

A

The self-justification effect

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25
Q

What does the self-justification effect involve?

A

Appearing to be rational and competent

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26
Q

In what 3 instances are decision makers affected by the self-justification effect?

A
  1. When they are personally identified with the project
  2. When they have staked their reputation on the project’s success
  3. When they have low self-esteem
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27
Q

What occurs when people have a natural tendency to feel good about themselves regarding things that are important to them?

A

The self-enhancement effect

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28
Q

Which 2 main causes of escalation of commitment often occur together?

A

Self-justification and self-enhancement

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29
Q

What do people with the self-enhancement effect have?

A

Perceptual blinders

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30
Q

What is the tendency to feel more dissatisfaction from losing a particular amount than satisfaction from gaining an equal amount?

A

Prospect theory effect

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31
Q

What does the prospect theory effect motivate us to avoid?

A

Losses

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32
Q

What is the value of resources already invested in the decision?

A

Sunk costs

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33
Q

What refers to the degree to which employees influence how their work is organized and carried out?

A

Employee involvement

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34
Q

What are the 4 contingencies of employee involvement?

A
  1. Low decision structure
  2. Knowledge source
  3. Decision commitment
  4. Low risk of conflict
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35
Q

When is employee involvement better in relation to the knowledge source?

A

When employees have relevant knowledge beyond leader

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36
Q

List 4 outcomes of employee involvement

A
  1. Better problem identification
  2. More/better choices generated
  3. More likely to select the best alternative
  4. Stronger commitment to the decision
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37
Q

What is a factor of low decision structure?

A

Problems are new and complex

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38
Q

What are 2 factors of low risk of conflict?

A
  1. Employee goals support firm’s goals

2. Employee agreement is likely

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39
Q

What are 2 factors of decision commitment?

A
  1. Employee commitment is needed

2. Employees would lack commitment unless involved

40
Q

What are the 5 constraints on team decision making?

A
  1. Time constrains and production blocking
  2. Evaluation apprehension
  3. Pressure to conform
  4. Overconfidence
  5. Diffusion of responsibility
41
Q

What do teams require for effective decision making?

A

Time

42
Q

What is a time constraint in team decision making due to the procedural requirement that only one person may speak at a time?

A

Production blocking

43
Q

What causes production blocking?

A

Insufficient time

44
Q

What is a decision-making problem that occurs when individuals are reluctant to mention ideas that seem silly because they believe that other team members are silently evaluating them?

A

Evaluation apprehension

45
Q

What is based on the individual’s desire to create a favorable self-presentation and need to protect self-esteem?

A

Evaluation apprehension

46
Q

When does evaluation apprehension increase?

A

When higher ups are present

47
Q

What are evaluations and feedback threatening to?

A

Creative expression

48
Q

What 3 things does pressure to conform lead to?

A
  1. People going along with dominant opinion
  2. People changing their opinions
  3. The suppression of dissenting (differing) views
49
Q

What do teams develop when they are overconfident?

A

A false sense of invulnerability

50
Q

Do overconfident teams have more positive or negative emotions?

A

Positive

51
Q

Fill in the Blank:

Overconfident teams are less _____ when making decisions

A

Vigilant

52
Q

What 3 things does overconfidence lead to?

A
  1. Consideration of fewer alternatives
  2. Reluctance to consider options and information from outside
  3. Insufficient understanding of and planning for potential negative consequences of decision
53
Q

Which type of team is overconfidence common in?

A

Highly cohesive teams

54
Q

What occurs when group members feel less personal responsibility for the group’s decisions and actions?

A

Diffusion of responsibility

55
Q

List 2 things that diffusion of responsibility reduces

A
  1. An individual’s engagement in group decision-making processes
  2. The self-justification motivation following the failure of decision
56
Q

What does the diffusion of responsibility lead to?

A

Riskier and more polarized group decisions

57
Q

List 2 process-related guidelines for team decisions

A
  1. Emphasize process quality

2. Structure the team to support decision-making

58
Q

List 6 ways to emphasize process quality

A
  1. Ensure that team norms encourage critical thinking and constructive conflict
  2. Ensure member participation and that no member dominates
  3. Get each member’s preferences in the open
  4. Generate many options, then narrow list
  5. Attempt to reach consensus but don’t get stuck on it
  6. Provide procedural justice throughout the process
59
Q

What is a team event where members try to think up as many ideas as possible?

A

Brainstorming

60
Q

What 2 things undermine creative team decision making?

A
  1. Evaluation apprehension

2. Production blocking

61
Q

List 5 practices that can improve brainstorming

A
  1. Use a trained facilitator
  2. Have members come up with their ideas beforehand
  3. Have high benchmarks for brainstorming and hold people accountable
  4. Use brainwriting
  5. Create team memories
62
Q

What is a variation of brainstorming whereby participants write and share their ideas?

A

Brainwriting

63
Q

True or False:

Brainstorming produces better-quality ideas than brainwriting

A

False

64
Q

What is a variation of brainwriting that adds a verbal element to the process?

A

Nominal group technique

65
Q

What is the development of original ideas that makes a socially recognized contribution?

A

Creativity

66
Q

What includes creativity but also includes the proposal and application of creative ideas?

A

Innovation

67
Q

What do creative people need in order to foster their creative behavior?

A

Creative work environments

68
Q

List 4 personal characteristics relating to creativity

A
  1. Cognitive and practical intelligence
  2. Persistence
  3. Knowledge and experience
  4. Independent imagination
69
Q

What is a creative person’s cognitive and practical intelligence based on?

A

Their ability to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and apply ideas

70
Q

What is the positive and negative aspect of a creative person’s knowledge and experience?

A

Their explicit and tacit knowledge is important, but their mental models may constrain creativity

71
Q

What 3 things is a creative person’s persistence based on?

A
  1. Higher need for achievement
  2. Strong task motivation
  3. Moderately high self-efficacy
72
Q

What 3 things is a creative person’s independent imagination based on?

A
  1. Higher openness to experience/change
  2. Strong self-direction value
  3. Moderately low need for affiliation
73
Q

List 3 characteristics of a creative work environment

A
  1. It provides intrinsically motivating work
  2. It promotes learning orientation
  3. It reduces extrinsic factors that undermine creativity
74
Q

True or False:

Demands of the job are aligned with the competencies and preferences of the person

A

True

75
Q

List 6 ways that organizations can promote learning orientation

A
  1. Provide learning opportunities
  2. Encourage experimentation
  3. Challenging status quo and past practices
  4. Tolerate reasonable mistakes
  5. Facilitate open communication
  6. Facilitate frequent collaboration
76
Q

List 5 ways that organizations can reduce extrinsic factors that undermine creativity

A
  1. Provide sufficient time and resources
  2. Reduce stringent rules and deadlines
  3. Provide reasonable job security
  4. Remove artificial boundaries to collaboration
  5. Focus more on intrinsic rewards than extrinsic rewards
77
Q

The recognition that decision-makers process limited and imperfect information refers to:

A. the rational choice paradigm
B. bounded rationality
C. the garbage in, garbage out model of decision making
D. intuition

A

B. bounded rationality

78
Q

Choosing an alternative that is good enough rather than one that maximizes utility is called:

A. post-decisional justification
B. satisficing
C. optimization
D. goodness-of-fit

A

B. satisficing

79
Q

A preferred alternative that the decision maker uses repeatedly as a comparison refers to:

A. an implicit favorite
B. self-justification
C. prospect theory effect
D. decision commitment

A

A. an implicit favorite

80
Q

Which of these decision-making problems is most likely to occur in the last step of the rational choice decision making process?

A. Comparing alternatives to the implicit favorite
B. Satisficing
C. Escalation of commitment
D. Confusing symptoms with root causes

A

C. Escalation of commitment

81
Q

In decision-making, self-enhancement and self-justification are:

A. reasons for satisficing
B. problems with maximization
C. explanations for stakeholder framing
D. causes of escalation of commitment

A

D. causes of escalation of commitment

82
Q

True or False:

To improve the process of evaluating various alternatives, it is often useful to evaluate alternatives one by one as soon as they are generated rather than evaluating them all at once after they have been generated.

A

False

83
Q

The use of biased decision heuristics is mainly a problem with:

A. maximization
B. information processing
C. goals
D. evaluating opportunities

A

B. information processing

84
Q

A decision maker’s need to appear rational and effective to others is most closely related to:

A. self-enhancement
B. self-justification
C. sunk costs
D. prospect theory effect

A

B. self-justification

85
Q

Separating those people who evaluate the outcomes of decisions from those who make the decisions is most useful for:

A. improving the selection of alternatives
B. improving the identification of the problem
C. reducing escalation of commitment
D. satisficing

A

C. reducing escalation of commitment

86
Q

Scenario planning improves decision making by:

A. encouraging employees to engage in satisficing
B. encouraging decision makers to think about how alternatives may have different costs and benefits under differing future conditions
C. focusing people on solutions during the process of identifying problems
D. encouraging companies to involve employees in decision making

A

B. encouraging decision makers to think about how alternatives may have different costs and benefits under differing future conditions

87
Q

True or False:

The nominal group technique is used to generate potential solutions and to select the best solution

A

True

88
Q

Brainwriting is:

A. When the facilitator writes all the ideas on a board or other medium so that all members of the group can see all the ideas
B. The practice of giving group members an opportunity to individually generate and write down new ideas after the initial ideas have been offered
C. The practice of requiring group members to bring ideas with them to the brainstorming session
D. Creating a team memory.

A

B. The practice of giving group members an opportunity to individually generate and write down new ideas after the initial ideas have been offered

89
Q

Team norms that encourage critical thinking and constructive conflict mainly pertain to which of the following:

A. Structure related aspects of team decision making
B. Process quality related aspects of team decision making
C. Constraints on team decision making
D. Contingencies for employee involvement

A

B. Process quality related aspects of team decision making

90
Q

True or False:

Diffusion of responsibility helps the team hold members accountable for their decisions and participation in decision making

A

False

91
Q

Brainstorming is used to generate many different alternative solutions to a problem without evaluating them. By separating idea generation from idea evaluation, we are helping prevent:

A. The sequential evaluation of alternatives
B. The simultaneous evaluation of alternatives
C. The likelihood of escalation of commitment
D. Cost-decisional justification

A

A. The sequential evaluation of alternatives

92
Q

Conformity pressure, overconfidence, and diffusion of responsibility are:

A. Factors that lead to satisficing
B. Factors that promote conflict in teams
C. Effective ways for teams to reduce conflict
D. Factors that can lead to defective decision making in teams

A

D. Factors that can lead to defective decision making in teams

93
Q

According to our class discussion, the main role for the manager/leader in group decision-making is:

A To play devil’s advocate
B. To define the problem and choose the alternatives
C. To facilitate the group decision-making process
D. Influence the generation of alternatives by the group

A

C. To facilitate the group decision-making process

94
Q

Production blocking and evaluation apprehension are:

A. Made-up (fake) terms used to get students to pick this answer.
B. Important parts of the brainstorming process
C. Common problems with problem identification
D. Constraints on team decision making

A

D. Constraints on team decision making

95
Q

Source of decision knowledge, decision structure, risk of conflict, and decision commitment are:

A. Determinants of creative behavior at work
B. Contingency factors of employee involvement
C. Factors that increase the likelihood of escalation of commitment
D. Ways to reduce post-decisional justification

A

B. Contingency factors of employee involvement

96
Q

When would decision commitment be less of a concern when determining how to involve employees in decision-making?

A. When the problem is complex
B. When there is likely to be disagreement among employees about the decision
C. When employees have important knowledge about the problem
D. When the employees will not be affected by the decision and will not have to implement the decision

A

D. When the employees will not be affected by the decision and will not have to implement the decision

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