Decision Making Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The outcomes of mechanistic decisions are known.

Mechanistic decisions are routine, repetitive decisions made by following a fixed rule, procedure or chart, such as a clerk applying a policy table. Because the situation and the rules are well defined, the result of each alternative is known in advance; there is little uncertainty.

Decisions with unknown or uncertain outcomes are the non-programmed, analytical or judgement-based decisions. 'Hidden' and 'irrelevant' do not describe the outcome of a rule-following decision.

Answer: A

The sensible response is to make the citizens aware and construct speed breakers.

If many more accidents happen in the middle of the road than at the side, the likely causes are speeding vehicles and people walking or crossing carelessly in traffic. Public awareness about road safety tackles the behaviour, and speed breakers slow vehicles at the danger points, so together they address the cause.

Celebrity events do nothing about road safety by themselves. Inferring that the middle of the road is safer gets the evidence backwards, since that is where most accidents occur. Because one option is clearly appropriate, 'None of the above' is wrong.

Answer: A

The key gives Taking time for better preparation.

An administration postpones an event when it is not ready to hold it well, for example to complete arrangements, ensure security or allow participants to prepare. Postponement in this sense is a practical step to gain time for better preparation.

Teaching a lesson to the populace is not a legitimate administrative purpose of postponing an event, so 'Both (A) and (B)' is wrong too. Since one purpose clearly applies, 'None of the above' does not fit.

Answer: A

Decision-making is a cognitive process.

Making a decision involves mental activities: identifying the problem, gathering and evaluating information, considering alternatives, judging their consequences and choosing one. These are cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning, which is why decision-making is classed with problem solving and judgement in psychology.

A sound decision is not superficial or random, since both describe choices made without proper thought. Because 'cognitive' clearly applies, 'None of the above' is wrong.

Answer: B

The key gives Increase in intelligence; it is the answer only by elimination, and the option set omits the more exact one.

Brainstorming is a group technique for producing many ideas without criticising them, and training in it is meant to improve creative problem solving. None of the options says that. A, C and D all describe a loss (less creative problem solving, creativity neutralised, lower intelligence), which training in a creative technique cannot signify, so only B points in the right direction.

Strictly, brainstorming training is not known to raise intelligence as such, so the key is the best of a poor set, not an exact statement. I could not confirm a textbook source that uses the word intelligence for it.

Answer: A

Problem solving is the ability to identify the problem, its cause, analyse solutions and implement the best one.

Problem solving is a sequence of steps: recognising and defining the problem, finding its cause, generating and analysing possible solutions, choosing the best and putting it into practice, then checking the result. The first option describes this whole sequence.

Describing traditional knowledge of communities is about indigenous knowledge, helping two parties resolve their differences is mediation, and reading books to give detailed information is research or reporting. None of them is problem solving in general.

Answer: B

Correct answer: proactive

A proactive decision anticipates the change and acts before it arrives; a reactive one responds after the fact. The distinction is about timing relative to the event rather than about how the decision is reached, so a proactive decision may be intuitive or systematic.

Answer: A

Correct answer: bounded rationality.

Bounded rationality names the whole set of limits on the decision maker: the information available, the time and resources, the organisation’s constraints, and the individual’s own capacity and values. Total rationality would require all of them to be absent, which is never the case.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Administrative

Simon’s administrative model describes how managers actually decide rather than how they would if the rational assumptions held: with limited information, limited time and limited capacity to process what they have. Bounded rationality and satisficing are its two central ideas, and they earned him the Nobel prize in economics.

Answer: C

Correct answer: top management.

Non-programmed decisions are novel, unstructured and consequential, so they reach the level with the authority and the perspective to take them. The corresponding point is that programmed decisions should be pushed downward - a senior manager spending time on them is spending it on work that a rule could do.