1
Essentials of MIS, 12e (Laudon)
Chapter 11 Improving Decision Making and Managing Knowledge
1) Why does improving a small, routine decision have business value for a company?
A) A small decision may have a great economic impact on the company.
B) Even a routine decision may have a “ripple” effect through a corporation.
C) A small decision has business value when added with all the other small decisions made in
the company.
D) Small, routine decisions typically do not have any business value for a company.
E) Even small decisions affect the culture of the organization.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
2) Where there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making a decision, it is said to
be:
A) undocumented.
B) unstructured.
C) documented.
D) semistructured.
E) low-level.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
3) The type of decision that can be made by following a definite procedure is called a(n)
________ decision.
A) operational
B) unstructured
C) semistructured
D) procedural
E) structured
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
2
4) Which types of decisions are more prevalent at lower organizational levels?
A) Procedural decisions
B) Unstructured decisions
C) Structured decisions
D) Semistructured decisions
E) Operational decisions
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
5) ________ decisions are most common at higher levels of management.
A) Semistructured
B) Unstructured
C) Structured
D) Undocumented
E) Procedural
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
6) Operational management typically makes which type of decisions?
A) Semistructured
B) Documented
C) Structured
D) Procedural
E) Low-level
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
7) Deciding whether to introduce a new product line is an example of a(n):
A) semistructured decision.
B) procedural decision.
C) nonprocedural decision.
D) operational decision.
E) unstructured decision.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
3
8) Estimating the number of direct goods to reorder falls into which category of decision
making?
A) Structured
B) Documented
C) Unstructured
D) Procedural
E) Operational
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
9) Which phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem?
A) Design
B) Intelligence
C) Choice
D) Implementation
E) Definition
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
10) Which is the second step in Simon’s four different stages of decision making?
A) Identification
B) Implementation
C) Design
D) Choice
E) Intelligence
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
4
11) Which dimension of quality means that a decision should reflect a rational process?
A) Comprehensiveness
B) Accuracy
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Due process
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
12) Which dimension of quality means that a decision faithfully reflects the concerns and
interests of affected parties?
A) Due process
B) Justice
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Accuracy
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
13) You are answering phones for a local utilities provider and are speaking with an extremely
angry customer. Because your company manual advises employees to transfer hostile calls to a
superior, you do this. What quality dimension of decisions does your action reflect?
A) Due process
B) Justice
C) Fairness
D) Coherence
E) Accuracy
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
5
14) Which of the following is a typical middle management decision?
A) How much of our product is selling in lower-income markets?
B) Why are sales of our product decreasing on the west coast?
C) Should we introduce our product to overseas markets?
D) Should we discontinue this product?
E) Which product is selling the best in overseas markets?
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
15) A decision can be said to have improved if it can be made more quickly.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
16) In high-velocity automated decision making, humans are eliminated from the decision chain.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
17) As discussed in the chapter opening case, the Match Insights software allowed German
soccer coaches to target performance metrics for specific players based on vast amounts of video
data and give them feedback through mobile devices.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
18) A bank’s decision to give a customer a mortgage is an example of an unstructured decision.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
6
19) A coherent decision is one that reflects reality.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
20) The use of high-velocity automated decision making eliminates the risk inherent in human
decision making.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
21) You are the CIO at an insurance firm and a manager has proposed implementing expensive
new project management software that would help increase the efficiency of the IT staff. The
idea of improved efficiency sounds good, but is there any way you can evaluate her decision
before purchasing the software? Be specific.
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
7
22) Identify and describe the different types of decisions.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
23) Describe the stages of organizational decision making.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.1: What are the different types of decisions, and how does the decision-making process
work?
24) Which of the following is not an element of the business intelligence environment?
A) User interface
B) Executive users
C) Platform
D) Business analytics toolset
E) Production reports
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
8
25) All of the following are analytic functionalities that BI systems deliver except:
A) ad hoc queries.
B) dashboards.
C) production reports.
D) drill-down ability.
E) user interface.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
26) Which of the following would be a typical production report for an organization’s financial
division?
A) Variability of sales by region and time
B) Projected income
C) Supplier information
D) Cash flow
E) Customer models
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
27) In a parameterized report, users can:
A) drill down to more finely grained information.
B) create their own reports based on custom queries.
C) view overall firm performance data.
D) view data according to different dimensions of the data.
E) predict future outcomes according to changing circumstances.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
9
28) Which of the following BI functionalities would you use to assess how customers would
respond to a price change in your product?
A) Parameterized reports
B) Predictive analytics
C) Ad hoc queries
D) Production reports
E) Cash flow reports
AACSB: Analytical Thinking
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
29) All of the following are dimensions of a firm’s performance that are measured in the
balanced scorecard method except:
A) resources.
B) business process.
C) customer.
D) learning and growth.
E) financial.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
30) Why is the balanced scorecard method said to be “balanced”?
A) It uses measurable dimensions for assessing performance.
B) It assesses both the internally focused and externally focused business processes.
C) It measures performance along all major divisions of a firm, from production and
manufacturing to human resources.
D) It measures performance of all levels of a firm, from executives to operational employees and
data workers.
E) It measures performance of more than just financial systems.
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
10
31) What type of model asks what-if questions repeatedly to determine the impact on outcomes
of changes in one or more factors?
A) Mathematical
B) Sensitivity analysis
C) Goal seeking
D) Forecasting
E) Simulation
AACSB: Application of Knowledge
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
32) Backward sensitivity analysis software is used for:
A) supply chain optimization.
B) historical what-if analysis.
C) goal seeking.
D) reverse forecasting.
E) customer analysis.
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?
33) Which type of information system uses data visualization technology to analyze and display
data for planning and decision making in the form of digitized maps?
A) GIS
B) DSS
C) GSS
D) TPS
E) MIS
AACSB: Information Technology
LO: 11.2: How do business intelligence and business analytics support decision making? What
are the business benefits of using intelligent techniques in decision making and knowledge
management?