Decision Making, Learning, and Creativity Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering managerial decision-making, group processes, learning organization concepts, and creativity techniques based on the lecture notes.

Decision making

The process by which managers respond to opportunities and threats by analyzing options and making decisions about specific goals and actions.

Programmed decision making

Routine, virtually automatic decision making that follows established organizational rules, norms, or guidelines based on past experience.

Nonprogrammed decision making

Nonroutine decision making that occurs in response to unusual, unpredictable, or uncertain events such as crises, recessions, or new environmental opportunities.

Intuition

Feelings, beliefs, and hunches that come readily to mind, requiring little effort or information, which managers sometimes use to make decisions.

Reasoned judgment

Decisions that require time, effort, careful consideration of gathered information, and a thorough understanding of the situation.

Classical decision-making model

A prescriptive model assuming that decision makers can identify and evaluate all possible alternatives and consequences to select the most optimal decision.

Optimum decision

The most appropriate decision made in light of all available information under the classical model.

Administrative model

An approach to decision making explaining why decision making is inherently uneasy, uncertain, and risky, leading to satisfactory rather than optimal decisions.

Bounded rationality

A concept guiding the administrative model which states that human cognitive limits restrict people's knowledge to only what they know, leaving them bounded by their conditions.

Incomplete information

Information that is restricted because the full range of alternatives is unknown and unknowable due to risk, uncertainty, ambiguity, and time constraints.

Risk

The degree of probability that possible outcomes of a particular cause of action will occur.

Uncertainty

A state where the probabilities of alternative outcomes cannot be determined and future outcomes are unknown.

Ambiguity

A quality of information that allows it to be interpreted in multiple and often conflicting ways.

Satisficing

A decision-making strategy of searching for and choosing an acceptable or satisfactory response to problems rather than attempting to optimize.

Groupthink

A pattern of faulty and biased decision making that occurs in teams when members strive for agreement among themselves at the expense of accurately assessing relevant information.

Devil's advocate

A group member appointed to criticize the team's decisions and proposed alternatives in order to prevent groupthink and costly mistakes.

Organizational learning

The process through which managers seek to improve employees' desire and ability to understand and manage the company.

Learning organization

A company in which managers maximize the ability of individuals and groups to think and behave creatively to maximize learning potential.

Personal mastery

A component of Peter Zengay's learning organization framework that involves getting to know what an individual wants to do or what the organization needs to do.

Creativity

The ability to discover original and novel ideas that lead to feasible causes of action.

Brainstorming

A face-to-face group technique where managers generate ideas and debate alternatives without evaluating options until all alternatives are listed.

Production blocking

A loss of productivity in brainstorming sessions resulting from the unstructured nature of the discussion.

Nominal group technique

A structured decision-making technique in which group members write down ideas, present suggestions to the whole group, and then discuss and rank alternatives.

Delphi technique

A decision-making technique in which group members do not meet face-to-face but respond in writing to questions posed by the group leader.

Product champion

A manager who takes ownership of a project and provides the leadership and vision needed to take a product from the idea stage to final delivery.

Skunkworks

A specialized group or team that is deliberately separated from normal operations to focus on entrepreneurial innovation.