Management Information Systems, 14e (Laudon)
Chapter 12 Enhancing Decision Making
1) Which of the following statements best describes the business value of improved decision
making?
A) Improved decision making creates better products.
B) Improved decision making results in a large monetary value for the firm as numerous small
daily decisions affecting efficiency, production, costs, and more add up to large annual values.
C) Improved decision making enables senior executives to more accurately foresee future
financial trends.
D) Improved decision making strengthens customer and supplier intimacy, which reduces costs.
E) Improved decision making creates a better organizational culture.
2) When 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) ad-hoc.
3) If you can follow a definite procedure to make a business decision, you are making a(n)
________ decision.
A) ad-hoc
B) procedural
C) unstructured
D) semistructured
E) structured
4) Which type of decision is calculating gross pay for hourly workers?
A) semistructured
B) procedural
C) structured
D) unstructured
E) ad hoc
5) Which type of decision is deciding whether to introduce a new product line?
A) structured
B) unstructured
C) recurring
D) nonrecurring
E) procedural
6) The decision to approve a capital budget is an example of a(n) ________ decision.
A) structured
B) ad hoc
C) semistructured
D) undocumented
E) unstructured
7) The decisions involved in creating and producing a corporate intranet can be classified as
________ decisions.
A) semistructured
B) procedural
C) ad hoc
D) structured
E) unstructured
8) Checking store inventory is an example of a(n) ________ decision.
A) procedural
B) structured
C) ad hoc
D) unstructured
E) semistructured
9) The ________ phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem, need, or opportunity.
A) choice
B) design
C) implementation
D) analysis
E) intelligence
10) Which of the following is not one of the Simon’s four stages of decision making?
A) implementation
B) intelligence
C) analysis
D) choice
E) design
11) Which of the following is not one of the five observed ways in which managerial behavior
differs from the classical description of managers?
A) Managers perform a great deal of work at an unrelenting pace.
B) Managerial activities are fragmented.
C) Managers prefer regular, written reports on firm activities.
D) Managers prefer oral forms of communication.
E) Managers give high priority to maintaining a diverse web of contacts.
12) The role of liaison falls into which of Mintzberg’s managerial classifications?
A) decisional
B) informational
C) interpersonal
D) symbolic
E) leading
13) Mintzberg outlined three categories of managerial roles:
A) interpersonal, informational, and decisional.
B) leading, deciding, and controlling.
C) operations, management, and executive.
D) cultural, organizational, and technical.
E) negotiator, spokesperson, and entrepreneur.
14) The role of entrepreneur falls into which of Mintzberg’s managerial classifications?
A) decisional
B) informational
C) interpersonal
D) symbolic
15) According to Mintzberg, managers in their informational role act as
A) figureheads for the organization.
B) leaders.
C) nerve centers of the organization.
D) negotiators.
E) liaisons.
16) Which of the following systems support a manager’s role as leader of an organization?
A) decision support systems
B) telepresence systems
C) e-mail
D) MIS
E) ESS
17) All of the following managerial roles can be supported by information systems except
A) figurehead.
B) resource allocator.
C) spokesperson.
D) disseminator.
E) entrepreneur.
18) When managers represent their company in the outside world and perform symbolic duties,
they are acting in their
A) decisional role.
B) managerial role.
C) informational role.
D) interpersonal role.
E) leadership role.
19) As discussed in the chapter text, the three main reasons that investments in information
technology do not always produce positive results are
A) management support, technical logistics, and user compliance.
B) organization, environment, culture.
C) information quality, information integrity, and information accuracy.
D) information quality, organizational culture, and management filters.
E) organization, culture, and technology.
20) The concept of management ________ describes situations in which managers act on
preconceived notions that reject information that does not conform to their prior conceptions.
A) filters
B) roles
C) biases
D) risk
E) politics
21) Which quality dimension of information is concerned that the data values of an information
source fall within a defined range?
A) timeliness
B) consistency
C) completeness
D) accessibility
E) validity
22) The dimension of ________ describes whether the structure of data is consistent within an
information source.
A) completeness
B) accuracy
C) validity
D) consistency
E) integrity
23) High-velocity decision making systems are growing rapidly for decisions classed as
A) semi-structured.
B) financial.
C) ad hoc.
D) predefined.
E) highly structured.
24) Which of the following describes how the Simon framework of decision-making works in
high-velocity decision environments?
A) Only the initial step is performed by the software; the final three steps are handled by
humans.
B) The first two steps of Simon’s framework are eliminated and the final two steps are handled
by software algorithms.
C) The first three steps of the process are handled by software algorithms and the final step is
handled by experienced managers.
D) All four steps are performed by humans with the support of high-speed, high-volume DSS
and ESS.
E) All four steps of the process are handled by software algorithms; humans are eliminated from
the decisions because they are too slow.
25) A drawback to high-velocity, automated decision-making systems is that they are unable to
A) handle high volumes of decisions.
B) handle structured decisions.
C) handle semi-structured decisions.
D) control themselves and respond to new environments.
E) be applied to situations outside of the financial world.
26) Improving the quality of high-value decision making by an executive will save an
organization far more money than improving the quality of lesser-value decisions made at a
lower level.
27) A structured decision can be made by following a well-defined set of procedures. No “feel”
or intuition is necessary.
28) Middle management face primarily unstructured decisions.
29) Structured decision making is most prevalent at lower organizational levels.
30) The intelligence phase of decision making consists of discovering, identifying, and
understanding the problems occurring in the organization.
31) The implementation phase of Simon’s decision-making model includes choosing among
solution alternatives.
32) The first stage in Simon’s decision-making process model is the design stage.
33) The classical model of management does not address what exactly managers do when they
plan, decide things, and control the work of others.
34) A structured decision is repetitive and routine, for which known procedures provide
solutions.
35) The third stage in Simon’s description of decision making is choice.
36) In your position of office manager at a legal firm, you are in charge of hiring temporary legal
assistants and clerical workers. Describe how Simon’s decision-making process applies to this
decision. Could that decision be aided by an information system in any way, and if so, how?
37) A key business decision in your sporting goods manufacturing company is determining what
suppliers to use for your raw materials. How can you determine if a manager in charge of
selecting suppliers is making the best choice?
38) Explain why even well-designed information systems do not always help improve a firm’s
decision making.
39) Behavioral models of management sees managers as being ________ than does the classical
model.
A) more systematic
B) more informal
C) more reflective
D) more well organized
E) less reactive
40) Which of the following is not one of the five classical functions of managers?
A) leading
B) deciding
C) planning
D) organizing
E) controlling
41) Which of the following BI tools or abilities have been driving the movement toward “smart
cities?”
A) OLAP
B) chi-square analysis
C) predictive analytics
D) data mining
E) big data analytics
42) The dimension of ________ in information quality describes whether data is available when
needed.
A) integrity
B) accuracy
C) timeliness
D) completeness
E) consistency
43) Which of the following statements best describes the term business intelligence?
A) the infrastructure for collecting and managing business data
B) the tools and techniques used to analyze and understand business data
C) software developed exclusively for business management
D) information systems involved in business decision making
E) enterprise systems used to make business decisions
44) Decisions regarding managing and monitoring day-to-day business activities are referred to
as ________ intelligence.
A) business
B) analytical
C) operational
D) transactional
E) production