CHAPTER 12: ENHANCING DECISION MAKING

1.
a.
b.
c.
d.

In which stage of Simon's Model does problem discovery happen?

Choice
Intelligence
Design
Implementation

2. The questions "Is the solution working?" and "Can we make it work better?"
are asked in the:
a.
b.
c.
d.

Design stage.
Choice stage.
Intelligence stage.
Implementation stage.

3. The managerial roles identified by Mitzberg are

a.
b.
c.
d.

Interpersonal, informational, and decisional.

Input, process, output, and feedback.
Planning, organizing, coordinating, deciding, and controlling.
None of the above.

4. To which of the following information quality dimensions is the question "Are

all the data present?" related?
a.
b.
c.
d.
5.

Validity.
Accessibility.
Timeliness.
None of the above.
Studies of business restructuring find that firms tend not to:

a. Ignore poor performance until threatened by outside takeovers.

b. Blame economic conditions, foreign competition, and rising prices for poor
performance.
c. Blame senior management for poor business judgment.
d. Systematically blame poor performance on external forces beyond their control.

6. The system that typically produces fixed, regularly scheduled reports based
on data extracted and summarized from the TPS (transaction processing
system) is the:

a.
b.
c.
d.

Decision support system (DSS)

Management information system (MIS)
Executive supportive system (ESS)
Group decision support system (GDSS)

7. Which of the following is a question that would be asked when conducting a

backward sensitivity analysis?
a. If we want to sell one million product units next year, by how much must we
reduce the price of the product?
b. What happens if we keep the price and advertising budgets the same?
c. What happens if we raise the product price by 5% or increase the advertising
budget by $100,000?
d. All of the above.
8. Which of the following is a question that a pivot table could help management
answer?
a.
b.
c.
d.

Where do our customers come from?

Does the source of the customer make a difference in addition to the region?
How many customers come from each region?
All of the above.

9. Which of the following is not a characteristic of GDSSs?

a.
b.
c.
d.

They are paper based.

They are designed for decision makers working together as a group.
They are interactive and computer based.
They are used to facilitate the solution of unstructured problems.

10. The system that helps senior executives monitor organizational performance,
track activities of competitors, spot problems, identify opportunities, and
forecast trends is called:
a. The transaction processing system (TPS).
b. The management information system (MIS).
c. The executive support system (ESS).
d. The decision support system (DSS).
11. Which of the following is not a way DSS, GDSS, and ESS support decision
making?
a. generate monthly, hardcopy reports
b. provide information about different aspects of the decision situation and the
decision process
c. stimulate decision making by helping managers question decision procedures or

explore different solution designs

d. automate certain decision procedures
12. Which of the following is primarily a stand-alone DSS that uses some type of
model to perform "what-if" and other kinds of analyses?
a. Data-driven
b. Model-driven
c. Data warehouse
d. Data mart
13. The technology for finding hidden patterns and relationships in large
databases and inferring rules from them to predict future behavior best
describes:
a. Data clustering.
b. Knowledge acquisition
c. Data warehousing.
d. Data mining
14. Which of the following is NOT a type of information yielded from data
mining?
a. Intelligence
b. Clustering
c. Sequences
d. Classification
15. Each of the following is a DSS component except:
a. User interface.
b. Software system
c. Database.

a. Inference engine.

1. Models that ask "what-if" questions repeatedly to determine the impact of

a.
b.
c.
d.
2.
a.
b.
c.
d.
3.

changes in one or more factors on outcomes best describes:

Sensitivity analysis
Optimization analysis
Forecasting
Goal-seeking
According to the textbook, National Gypsum uses its DSS application for:
Corporate planning and forecasting.
Identifying customer buying patterns and fraud detection
Defense contract analysis
Price, advertising, and promotion selection
A system with software that can analyze and display data using digitized

maps to enhance planning and decision making best describes

a. geographic information system
b. executive support system
c. location analysis system
d. demographic analysis system
4. An interactive computer-based system to facilitate the solution to
unstructured problems by a set of decision makers working together as a
group best describes a(n):
a. group decision-support system
b. decision-support system
c. geographic information system
d. executive support system
5. GDSS software tools that allow individuals to simultaneously and
anonymously contribute ideas on the meeting topics are called
a. idea organizers
b. electronic questionnaires
c. electronic brainstorming tools
d. tools for voting or setting priorities
6. A GDSS can enhance group decision making by
a. doing all of the above
b. increasing participation
c. providing documentation of meetings
d. improving preplanning
7. Each of the following is a basic GDSS element EXCEPT
a. a user interface
b. a data warehouse
c. hardware
d. software tools
8. Contingencies affecting the outcome of group meetings include
a. the design of an electronic meeting system and its technology
b. all of the above

d. the manner in which the problem is presented to the group.

9. A useful tool used during the electronic meeting activity of idea generation is:
a. group matrix
b. personal productivity
c. topic commenter
d. policy formation
10. An information system at the strategic level of an organization designed to
address unstructured decision making through advanced graphics and
communications best describes a(n)
a. executive support system
b. group decision support system
c. decision-support system
d. management information system.