Chapter 13 Enhancing Decision Making for the Digital Firm 13- 21
Chapter 13
Enhancing Decision Making for the Digital Firm
True-False Questions
1. / Senior management is concerned with general yet timely information on changes in the industry and society at large that may affect both the long-term and near-term future of the firm.Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: pp. 460-461
2. / Middle management is concerned with specific, timely information about firm performance, including revenue and cost reduction targets.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
3. / Unstructured decisions are novel and nonroutine, and there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making them.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
4. / Unstructured decision making is most prevalent at lower organizational levels.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
5. / Middle management tend to face more structured decision scenarios, and rarely include unstructured components.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
6. / Most decisions would probably fall somewhere between structured and nonstructured.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
7. / A structured decision involves processing a certain kind of information in a specified way so that you will always get the right answer. No “feel” or intuition would be necessary.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
8. / Rank-and-file employees tend to make more structured decisions.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
9. / Project teams typically deal with structured decisions.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
10. / The intelligence phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem, need, or opportunity.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
11. / The choice phase of decision making considers ways to solve problems, fill needs, or take advantage of opportunities.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
12. / Management information systems provide routine reports and summaries of transactions-level data to middle and operational-level managers to provide answers to structured and semistructured decision problems.
Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 462
13. / Executive support systems are targeted systems that combine analytical models with operational data and supportive interactive queries and analysis.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
14. / The first stage in Simon's decision-making process model is the choice stage.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
15. / The design phase of Simon’s decision-making process involves identifying and exploring various solutions to the problem.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
16. / In the real world, Simon’s decision-making phases would follow a linear path.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 463
17. / MIS typically produce fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted and summarized from the firm’s underlying transaction processing systems.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 465
18. / DSS primarily address structured problems.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 466
19. / The earliest DSS were not model-driven.
Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 466
20. / With query-oriented data analysis, users need to know what they’re looking for.
Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 466
21. / Data mining does not use fuzzy logic.
Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 467
22. / Forecasting models cannot be used to predict the actions of competitors.
Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 470
23. / What-if analysis works forward from known or assumed conditions.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 470
24. / Backward sensitivity analysis software is used for goal seeking.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 470
25. / The user interface for a DSS must be relatively intuitive, because it may be used by managers or employees with no patience to learn a complex tool.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 470
26. / Predictive analysis uses data-mining techniques, historical data, and assumptions about future conditions to predict outcomes of events.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 472
27. / Data visualization technologies can make it more difficult for users to understand the data from information systems.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 473
28. / A geographic information system is a decision support system designed specifically to work with spatial information.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 473
29. / DSS are a special category of GIS.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 473
30. / Web-based tools for videoconferencing and electronic meetings are the primary tools for GDSS.
Answer: False Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 476
31. / During a GDSS electronic meeting, the attendees control the use of GDSS tools.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 477
32. / GDSS outcomes are always better than face-to-face meetings.
Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 478
33. / Integrating data from systems designed for very different purposes is a challenge of building ESS.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 479
34. / Contemporary ESS do not need tools for modeling and analysis.
Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 479
35. / Contemporary ESS need to have some facility for environmental scanning.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 479
36. / An advantage of ESS is the ability to identify opportunities early on.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 480
37. / Balanced scorecard systems show how well the firm is meeting its strategic goals.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 481
38. / Enterprise reporting capabilities create measures of firm performance that were not previously available.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 482
39. / The use of critical success factors and other information requirements determination methods does not always help establish information requirements for ESS and DSS serving senior management.
Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 483
40. / The business value of DSS and ESS does not depend on changing patterns of management decision making.
Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 483
Multiple-Choice Questions
41. / Applications and technologies that work with data from many different sources to help users make better business decisions are referred to as:a. data libraries.
b. enterprise reporting.
c. operational planning.
d. business intelligence.
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 458
42. / Allocating resources, developing short-range plans, and monitoring the performance of departments is the concern of this level of management:
a. senior
b. middle
c. operational
d. knowledge
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
43. / This management level is in charge of specific projects and allocate resources within the project budget:
a. senior.
b. middle.
c. operational.
d. knowledge.
Answer: c Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 461
44. / Where there is no well-understood or agreed-on procedure for making a decision, it is said to be:
a. roundabout.
b. unstructured.
c. structured.
d. semistructured.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
45. / Decision makers can follow a definite procedure for making a decision, it is said to be a(n):
a. structured decision.
b. unstructured decision.
c. semistructured decision.
d. obscure decision.
Answer: a Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
46. / These types of decisions are more prevalent at lower organizational levels:
a. indirect decisions.
b. unstructured decisions.
c. structured decisions.
d. semistructured decisions.
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
47. / These types of decisions are most common at higher levels of management:
a. disguised decisions.
b. unstructured decisions.
c. structured decisions.
d. semistructured decisions.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 461
48. / Rank-and-file employees tend to make more of these types of decisions:
a. semistructured
b. unstructured
c. structured
d. disguised
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
49. / Which phase of decision making finds or recognizes a problem, need, or opportunity?
a. Design
b. Intelligence
c. Choice
d. Implementation
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
50. / Which type of decision is calculating gross pay for hourly workers?
a. Structured decision
b. Nonstructured decision
c. Recurring decision
d. Nonrecurring decision
Answer: a Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
51. / Which type of decision is deciding whether to introduce a new product line?
a. Structured decision.
b. Nonstructured decision.
c. Recurring decision.
d. Nonrecurring decision.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
52. / MIS typically produce:
a. new ways of looking at data that emphasize change, flexibility, and rapid response.
b. fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted from the organization’s TPS.
c. solutions to semistructured problems appropriate for middle management decision-making.
d. assumptions, responses to ad hoc queries, and graphic representations of existing data.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 462
53. / DSS are intended to help design and evaluate alternatives and:
a. monitor the adoption or implementation process.
b. provide reports through an intranet.
c. provide information to business partners.
d. monitor and forecast the business decisions taken by senior managers.
Answer: a Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 462
54. / Simon’s description of decision-making consists of four stages:
a. planning, financing, implementation, and maintenance.
b. planning, design, implementation, and maintenance.
c. intelligence, design, choice, and implementation.
d. intelligence, design, financing, and implementation.
Answer: c Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 462
55. / Simon’s description of decision-making consists of four stages. This stage consists of discovering, identifying, and understanding the problem:
a. intelligence.
b. design.
c. choice.
d. implementation.
Answer: a Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 462
56. / This application typically produces fixed, regularly scheduled reports based on data extracted and summarized from the organization’s TPS:
a. MIS.
b. DSS.
c. ESS.
d. GDSS.
Answer: a Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 465
57. / These systems are intended to help design and evaluate alternatives and monitor the adoption or implementation process:
a. GPS
b. ESS
c. TPS
d. DSS
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 465
58. / Model-driven DSS::
a. analyze large pools of data.
b. are primarily standalone systems.
c. use multidimensional analysis.
d. mine Web site data.
Answer: b Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 466
59. / ______provides insights into corporate data that cannot be obtained with OLAP by finding hidden patterns and rules used to guide decision making and forecast the effect of those decisions.
a. Association
b. Sequencing
c. Profitability analysis
d. Data mining
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 466
60. / In data mining, occurrences linked to a single event are called:
a. associations.
b. sequences.
c. classifications
d. clusters.
Answer: a Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 467
61. / ______helps managers estimate the future value of continuous variables such as sales figures.
a. Sequencing
b. Association
c. Profitability analysis
d. Forecasting
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 467
62. / Optimization models often use:
a. data co-integration.
b. linear programming.
c. abstract decision processing.
d. model data libraries.
Answer: b Difficulty: Medium Reference: p. 469
63. / The components of the DSS are the:
a. internal database, external database, and analysis tools.
b. data visualization tools, software, and graphics capabilities.
c. database, graphics capabilities, and analysis tools.
d. database, software system, and user interface.
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 469
64. / A model that asks what-if questions repeatedly to determine the impact on outcomes of changes in one or more factors is called a(n):
a. optimization model.
b. sensitivity analysis model.
c. goal seeking model.
d. slice and dice model.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 470
65. / Backward sensitivity analysis software is used for:
a. sequencing.
b. what-if.
c. goal seeking.
d. slice and dice.
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 470
66. / Discount chain ShopKo Stores uses this type of software to determine the optimal time and price for marking down items:
a. optimization.
b. goal seeking.
c. what-if
d. sensitivity.
Answer: a Difficulty: Hard Reference: p. 471
67. / A model that uses data-mining techniques, historical data, and assumptions about future conditions to predict outcomes of events is known as:
a. optimization analysis.
b. sensitivity analysis.
c. predictive analysis.
d. goal seeking analysis.
Answer: c Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 472
68. / This 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. MIS.
d. TPS.
Answer: a Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 473
69. / Electronic questionnaires in a GDSS:
a. facilitate the organized integration and synthesis of ideas generated during brainstorming.
b. document group agreement on definitions of words and terms central to the projects.
c. use structured approaches to evaluate the impact of an emerging proposal on the organization.
d. aid the organizers in premeeting planning by identifying issues of concern.
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 477
70. / Idea organizers in a GDSS:
a. facilitate the organized integration and synthesis of ideas generated during brainstorming.
b. document group agreement on definitions of words and terms central to the projects.
c. use structured approaches to evaluate the impact of an emerging proposal on the organization.
d. aid the organizers in premeeting planning by identifying issues of concern.
Answer: a Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 477
71. / Tools for voting or setting priorities in a GDSS:
a. facilitate the organized integration and synthesis of ideas generated during brainstorming.
b. document group agreement on definitions of words and terms central to the projects.
c. use structured approaches to evaluate the impact of an emerging proposal on the organization.
d. make available a range of methods for setting priorities.
Answer: d Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 477
72. / Policy formation tools in a GDSS:
a. facilitate the organized integration and synthesis of ideas generated during brainstorming.
b. provide structured support for developing agreement on the wording of guideline statements.
c. use structured approaches to evaluate the impact of an emerging proposal on the organization.
d. aid the organizers in premeeting planning by identifying issues of concern.
Answer: b Difficulty: Easy Reference: p. 477
73. / Stakeholder identification and analysis tools in a GDSS:
a. facilitate the organized integration and synthesis of ideas generated during brainstorming.
b. document group agreement on definitions of words and terms central to the projects.