Decision Making, Learning, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship

These flashcards cover key concepts related to decision making, learning, and creativity within management.

Decision Making

The process by which managers respond to opportunities and threats by analyzing options and making determinations about specific organizational goals and courses of action.

Programmed Decision Making

Routine, virtually automatic decision making that follows established rules or guidelines.

Nonprogrammed Decisions

Nonroutine decision making that occurs in response to unusual, unpredictable opportunities and threats.

Intuition

Feelings, beliefs, and hunches that come readily to mind, requiring little effort and information gathering.

Reasoned Judgment

Decisions that take time and effort to make and result from careful information gathering, generation of alternatives, and evaluation of alternatives.

Classical Decision-Making Model

A prescriptive model assuming the decision maker can identify and evaluate all possible alternatives rationally.

Optimum Decision

The most appropriate decision in light of what managers believe to be the most desirable consequences for the organization.

Administrative Model

An approach to decision making that explains why decision making is inherently uncertain and risky.

Bounded Rationality

Cognitive limitations that constrain one’s ability to interpret, process, and act on information.

Incomplete Information

Happens because the full range of decision-making alternative is unknowable in most situations.

Risk

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

Satisficing

A strategy of searching for and choosing an acceptable, or satisfactory, response to problems and opportunities.

Group Decision Making

A process where group members collaborate to make decisions, which can lead to improved outcomes.

Groupthink

A pattern of faulty and biased decision making that occurs in groups striving for consensus.

Devil’s Advocate

A role played to challenge a preferred alternative and defend opposing alternatives for the sake of argument.

Learning Organization

An organization in which managers maximize the ability of individuals and groups to think and behave creatively.

Creativity

A decision maker’s ability to discover original and novel ideas that lead to feasible alternative courses of action.

Brainstorming

A technique where group members generate and debate alternatives without immediate evaluation.

Nominal Group Technique

A decision-making technique where group members write down ideas, discuss, and then rank alternatives.

Entrepreneur

An individual who identifies opportunities and mobilizes resources to produce new and improved goods and services.

Social Entrepreneur

An individual who pursues initiatives to address social problems and improve societal well-being.

Intrapreneur

A manager or innovator within an organization who develops new products or services.

Skunkworks

A group that is separated from normal operations to focus on developing new products.

Product Champion

A manager who provides leadership and vision for developing a project from idea to final product.