Exam 7: Decision Making and Creativity

As director of new projects,you have just learned that cash flow problems have forced your organization to cut back product-development activities.This means that two of the eight projects currently being developed must be terminated,along with the employees working on those projects (about 25 per cent of employees in your unit).You have a good knowledge of these projects as well as the performance and seniority of employees who work in your unit.While some projects clearly have a high chance of success,the long-term potential of a couple of them is unknown.Identify the best level of employee involvement in this situation and describe three factors (contingencies)that support this level of involvement.

Creativity tends to suffer during times of downsizing and corporate restructuring.

Scenario planning is a structured process that helps decision makers explore potential problems and choose the best solutions under different future conditions.

The higher the level of employee involvement,the more influence people have over the decision process.

For the past 2,500 years,scholars in most western countries have mainly followed the ____________ model of decision making.

Which of these statements about creativity is TRUE?

Ensuring that the person who makes the decision is different from the person who evaluates that decision is recommended mainly to:

Divergent thinking occurs when the individual has a fleeting inspiration that is usually forgotten before it can be written down.

The rational choice paradigm of decision making does NOT assume that:

Which of these statements about human decision making is FALSE?

Which of the following is NOT explicitly identified as a contingency of employee involvement?

If a decision maker encounters the same problem several times,he or she can increasingly rely on non-programmed decision routines to solve the problem.

To make the best decisions,the number of employees involved should be minimized.