Exam 15: Decision Making and Organizational Learning

In a crisis, groupthink can protect the collective interests of the group because no one person can be made a "scapegoat" for making a poor decision.

Define escalation of commitment. Why does it occur?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of the Delphi technique?

________ is a pattern of faulty decision making that occurs in cohesive groups whose members strive for agreement at the expense of accurately assessing information relevant to the decision.

Organizational members often engage in ________; that is, they search for and choose acceptable responses to opportunities and problems.

When the nominal group technique is used only the best ideas are discussed with the whole group.

Brenda Butler, editor of the Republican, is trying to decide whether to take a job at a much larger newspaper or to become the CEO and publisher of the Republican. Brenda has to make this decision because of ________.

Groupthink occurs in cohesive groups whose members strive for agreement at the expense of accurately assessing information relevant to the decision.

Production blocking inhibits high quality brainstorming from occurring.

According to March and Simon, decision makers are constrained by ________, an ability to reason that is limited by the capabilities of the human mind itself.

An eBay seller noticed an interesting thing while listing her products on eBay. If she listed her items with a high starting bid, she would not get any bids. However, if she started her items out at a lower starting bid, she would often sell them for more money than the high starting bid she had assigned other items. This MOST LIKELY reason for this is ________ .

Identify the two group decision-making techniques included in total quality management (TQM).

Individuals seldom make decisions as quickly as groups can.

What is organizational learning and what are the two principal types of organizational learning strategies proposed by James March?

Satisficing is the process of making acceptable responses to opportunities and problems based on limited information available.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of group decision making?

Describe March and Simon's administrative model of decision making.

Because recurring problems and opportunities require very little thought for response, nonprogrammed decisions are used to handle them.

One of the advantages of group decision making is the availability and diversity of members' skills, knowledge, and expertise.

According to the classical model of decision making people should choose the easiest option possible.