Unit 7 Flashcards
Describe the rational choice paradigm of decision making
Decision making is a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. The rational choice paradigm relies on subjective expected utility to identify the best choice. It also follows the logical process of identifying problems and opportunities, choosing the best decision style, developing alternative solutions, choosing the best solution, implementing the selected alternative, and evaluating decision outcomes.
Explain why people differ from the rational choice paradigm when identifying problems/ opportunities, evaluating/choosing alternatives, and evaluating decision outcomes.
Stakeholder framing, perceptual defence, mental models, decisive leadership, and solution-focused problems affect our ability to objectively identify problems and opportunities. We can minimize these challenges by being aware of the human limitations and discussing the situation with colleagues. Evaluating and choosing alternatives is often challenging because organizational goals are ambiguous or in conflict, human information processing is incomplete and subjective, and people tend to satisfice rather than maximize. Decision makers also short-circuit the evaluation process when faced with an opportunity rather than a problem. People generally make better choices by systematically evaluating alternatives. Sce- nario planning can help to make future decisions without the pressure and emotions that occur during real emergencies. Confirmation bias and escalation of commitment make it difficult to accurately evaluate decision out- comes. Escalation is mainly caused by the self-justification effect, self-enhancement effect, the prospect theory effect, and sunk costs effect. These problems are minimized by separating decision choosers from decision evaluators, establishing a preset level at which the decision is abandoned or re-evaluated, relying on more systematic and clear feedback about the project’s success, and involving several people in decision making
Discuss the roles of emotions and intuition in decision making
Emotions shape our preferences for alternatives and the process we follow to evaluate alternatives. We also listen in to our emotions for guidance when making decisions. This latter activity relates to intuition—the ability to know when a problem or opportunity exists and to select the best course of action without conscious reasoning. Intuition is both an emotional experience and a rapid unconscious analytic process that involves both pattern matching and action scripts.
Describe employee characteristics, workplace conditions, and specific activities that support creativity.
Creativity is the development of original ideas that make a socially recognized contribution. The four creativity stages are preparation, incubation, insight, and verification. Incubation assists divergent thinking, which involves reframing the problem in a unique way and generating different approaches to the issue. Four of the main features of creative people are intelligence, persistence, expertise, and independent imagina- tion. Creativity is also strengthened for everyone when the work environment supports a learning orientation, the job has high intrinsic motivation, the organization provides a reasonable level of job security, and project leaders provide appropriate goals, time pressure, and resources. Three types of activities that encourage creativity are redefining the problem, associative play, and cross-pollination.
Describe the benefits of employee involvement and identify four contingencies that affect the optimal level of employee involvement.
Employee involvement refers to the degree that employees influence how their work is organized and carried out. The level of participation may range from an employee providing specific information to man- agement without knowing the problem or issue, to complete involvement in all phases of the decision process. Employee involvement may lead to higher decision quality and commitment, but several contingencies need to be considered, including the decision structure, source of decision knowledge, decision commitment, and risk of conflict
