EngManagement Flashcards
The act of choosing one (the best) alternative
from among a set of alternatives.
Decision Making
–A decision that is relatively structured
or recurs with some frequency (or both).
–Example: Starting your car in the morning
Programmed Decision
–A decision that is relatively unstructured
and occurs much less often than a
programmed decision.
–Example: Choosing a vacation destination.
Nonprogrammed Decision
–The decision maker knows with reasonable certainty
what the alternatives are and what conditions are
associated with each alternative.
Decision Making Under Certainty
–The availability of each alternative and its potential
payoffs and costs are all associated with risks.
Decision Making Under Risk
–The decision maker does not know all the alternatives,
the risks associated with each, or the consequences
of each alternative.
Decision Making Under Uncertainty
selecting the alternative that offers the
best combination (balance) of feasibility, satisfactoriness,
and affordability suited to the situation.
Optimization
–A positive or negative political force in decision
making which consists of an informal alliance of
individuals or groups formed to achieve a goal.
Coalition
–The concept that decision makers are limited by their
values and unconscious reflexes, skills, and habits
Bounded Rationality
–The tendency to search for alternatives only until one
is found that meets some minimum standard of
sufficiency to resolve the problem.
* Personal motives and biases
* Expediency (degree of impact alternative choice will have)
* Cost of continuing to search for alternatives
Satisficing
–An innate belief about something
without conscious consideration.
Intuition
A decision maker’s staying with
a decision even when it appears
to be wrong.
Escalation of Commitment
–The extent to which a decision maker is
willing to gamble when making a decision.
Risk Propensity
–Individual ethics (personal beliefs about right and
wrong behavior) combine with the organization’s
ethics to create _________ ______.
Managerial Ethics
Consists of an existing group or newly formed team
interacting and then making a decision.
Interacting groups or teams
Developing a consensus of expert opinion from a panel of
experts who individually contribute through a moderator.
Delphi groups
Generating ideas through the individual contributions of alternatives that are winnowed down to reach a decision.
Nominal groups
–The overall set of structural elements that can
be used to configure the total organization.
–A means to implement strategies and plans to
achieve organizational goals.
Organization Structure and Design
The degree to which the overall task of the
organization is broken down and divided into
smaller component parts.
Job Specialization (Division of Labor)
The perceived importance of the task by the worker
Task Significance
The number of tasks a person does in a job
Skill Variety