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53 Cards in this Set
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The conscious process of making choices among alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. |
Decision Making |
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Systematically assessing alternatives against relevant factors to minimize the implicit favorite and satisficing problems that occur when they rely on general subjective judgments. Does not suggest we ignore intuition, but that we use it in combination with careful analysis of relevant info. Remember that decisions are influenced by both rational and emotional processes: deliberately revisit important issues later so that they can look at the info in different moods and allow their initial emotions to subside. Scenario planning: disciplined method for imagining possible futures. Involves thinking about what would happen if a significant environmental condition changed and what the organization should do to anticipate and react to such an outcome. useful for choosing the best solutions under possible scenarios long before they occur. Alternative courses of action are evaluated without the pressure and emotions that occur during real emergencies. |
Improving evaluation of alternatives |
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Can help improve decision quality by recognizing problems more quickly and defining them more accurately. Employees are the sensors of the organization's environment. Can potentially improve the number and quality of solutions generated. Under specific conditions, it improves the evaluation of alternatives. Strengthens employee commitment to the decision. Has positive effects on employee motivation, satisfaction, and turnover. Also increases skill variety, feelings of autonomy, and task identity, all of which potentially increase job enrichment and employee motivation. Participation is a critical practice in organizational change because employees are more motivated to implement the decision and less likely to resist changes resulting from the decision. |
Impact of employee involvement |
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follow standard operating procedures; they have been resolved in the past so the optimal solution has already been identified or documented.
require all steps of the decision model because problems are new, complex, or ill-defined. |
Programmed vs. Nonprogrammed Decisions |
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rather than aiming for maximization, people select an alternative that is satisfactory or "good enough". partly occurs because alternatives present themselves over time, not all at once. or because they lack the capacity and motivation to process the large volume of info required to identify the best choice. |
Satisficing |
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Redefine the problem: revisit old problems, ask others unfamiliar with the issue to explore the problem with you. Associative play: storytelling and acting or morphological analysis - listing different dimensions of a system and the elements of each dimension and then looking at each combination Cross Pollination: occurs when people from different areas of the organization exchange ideas or when new people are brought into an existing team. illustrates that creativity rarely happens alone. |
Encouraging Creativity |
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1. Identify the problem or opportunity 2. Choose the best possible decision process (is there enough info or do they need to involve others in the process; is the decision programmed or nonprogrammed) 3. Discover/develop alternative solutions 4. Choose the best alternative 5. Implement the selected alternative 6. Evaluate decision outcomes pg 183 |
Rational Choice model |
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Assumes that people are efficient and logical information processing machines when in reality people have difficulty recognizing problems, they can't (or won't) simultaneously process the huge volume of info needed to identify the best solution and they have difficulty recognizing when their choices have failed. It focuses on logical thinking and completely ignores the fact that emotions influence, and perhaps even dominate, the decision making process. |
Rational Choice Paradigm Assumptions |
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visual or relational images in our mind of the external world, they fill in info that we don't immediately see which helps us to understand and navigate our surrounding environment. blind us from seeing unique problems or opportunities because they produce a negative evaluation of things that are dissimilar to the ______ ______. If the idea does not fit, then it is quickly dismissed as unworkable or undesirable. |
Mental Models |
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the view that people are bounded in their decision-making capabilities, including access to limited information, limited information processing, and tendency toward satisficing rather than maximizing when making choices. |
Bounded Rationality |
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automatically distort either the probability of the outcomes or the value of those outcomes. Three: Anchoring and adjustment heuristic: we are influenced by an initial anchor point and do not sufficiently move away from that point as new info is provided. Availability heuristic: the tendency to estimate the probability of something occuring by how easily we can recall those events. problem is that how easily we recall something is due to more than just its frequency. Representativeness Heuristic: we pay more attention to whether something resemble something else than on the more precise statistics about its probability. |
Decision making heuristics |
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the ability to know when a problem or opportunity exists and to select the best course of action without conscious reasoning. both an emotional and a rapid nonconscious analytic process. some directs us to preferred choices relative to alternatives in the situation. involves rapidly comparing our observations with deeply held patterns learned through experience. signals an opportunity long before rational analysis takes place. relies on action scripts - programmed decision routines that speed up our response to pattern matches or mismatches. |
Intuition |
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aka. confirmation bias: the unwitting selectivity in the acquisition and use of evidence. when evaluating decisions, people with confirmation bias ignore or downplay the negative outcomes of the selected alternative and overemphasize the positive outcomes. Gives people an excessively optimistic evaluation of their decisions but only until they receive very clear and undeniable info to the contrary. Also inflates their initial evaluation of the decision so reality comes as a painful shock. |
Post-decisional Justification |
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the tendency to repeat an apparently bad decision or allocate more resources to a failing course of action. Causes: self-justification - decision makers want to appear rational and effective and will demonstrate the importance of a project by continuing to invest in it, whereas pulling the plug would indicate the project's failure and the decision maker's incompetence. especially evident when they are personally identified with the project, have staked their reputations to some extent on the project's success, and have low self esteem. Prospect theory effect - natural tendency to experience stronger negative emotions when losing something of value than the positive emotions when gaining something of equal value. motivates us to avoid losses which typically occurs by taking the risk of investing more in that losing project. More painful to most people to stop a project because it is a certain loss. Perceptual Blinders - decision makers do not see the problems soon enough. They nonconsciously screen out or explain away negative information to protect self-esteem. even when they can see something is wrong, the information is sufficiently ambiguous that it can be misinterpreted or justified. Closing Costs - the financial, reputational, and other costs of terminating the failing project can also be a powerful incentive to continue investing in that project. |
Escalation of Commitment* |
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Preparation: the process of investigating the problem or opportunity in many ways; involves developing a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve through a novel solution and then actively studying info seemingly related to the topic; process of developing knowledge, possibly skills, about the issue or object of attention. Incubation: the period of reflective thought; maintain a low-level awareness by frequently revisiting the problem; does not mean you forget it; assists divergent thinking (reframing a problem in a new way and thinking of different approaches). Illumination: the experience of suddenly becoming aware of a unique idea; rough ideas, usefulness requires verification through detailed logical evaluation, experimentation, and further creative insight. Verification: the beginning of a long process of creative decision making toward development of an innovative product or service. |
Stages of the creative process |
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the degree to which employees influence how their work is organized and carried out. Contingencies: Decision Structure - programmed decisions are less likely to need employee involvement because solutions are already worked out from past experiences. benefits increase with the novelty or complexity of the problem or opportunity. Source of Decision Knowledge - should be involved in some level of decision making when the leader lacks sufficient knowledge and employees have additional information to improve decision quality. particularly true for complex decisions where employees are more likely to possess relevant info. Decision Commitment - participation tends to improve employee commitment to the decision. if employees are unlikely to accept a decision made without their involvement, some level of participation is usually necessary. Risk of Conflict - two types of conflict: (1) if employee goals and norms conflict with the organization's goals only a low level of involvement (2) degree of involvement depends on whether employees agree on the preferred solution. if conflict is likely to occur, higher involvement would be difficult to achieve. |
Contingencies of employee involvement |
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Stakeholder Framing: Stakeholders have vested interests when bringing good or bad news to corporate decision makers and may unwittingly filter info to amplify or suppress the seriousness of the situation by throwing a spotlight on specific causes of the symptoms and away from other possible problems. cognitive biases include the decision makers perceptual process, specific circumstances, and the ways stakeholders shape or filter incoming info. Mental models: our mind frames info using preconceived mental models; our minds have visual or relational images of the external world and we use these to fill in info that we don't immediately see, which helps us to navigate and understand our surrounding environment. Blind us from seeing unique problems or opportunities because they produce a negative evaluation of things that are dissimilar to the mental model. Decisive leadership: quickly announcing problems or opportunities before having a chance to logically assess the situation because they are eager to look effective. Results in poorer decisions than could be made if more time was devoted to identifying the problem and evaluating the alternatives. Solution-Focused Problems: decision makers have a tendency to define problems as veiled solutions. they do this because it gives comforting closure to the otherwise ambiguous and uncertain nature of problems, especially for people who have a strong need for cognitive closure. Perceptual Defence: blocking out bad news as a coping mechanism. their brain refuses to see info that threatens their self concept. not true for everyone. |
Problems with Problem Identification* |
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groups of two or more people who interact and influence each other, are mutually accountable for achieving common goals associated with organizational objectives, and perceive themselves as a social entity within an organization. (created deliberately to serve an organizational purpose).
Include people assembled together, whether or not they have any interdependence or organizationally focused objective. Exist primarily for the benefit of their members. Fulfills drive to bond. allow people to define themselves by their group affiliation. can accomplish tasks that cannot be achieved by individuals working alone. Can potentially minimize employee stress.
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Teams vs. Groups |
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At the Beginning 1. clearly state desirable norms when the team is first created. 2. select people with appropriate values. In already existing teams: 1. By speaking up or actively coaching the teams, they can often subdue dysfunctional norms while developing useful norms. 2. introduce team based rewards that counter dysfunctional norms. 3. If dysfunctional norms are too ingrained, may need to disband the group and replace it with people who have more favorable norms. |
Changing Team Norms |
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a decision making problem that is based on the individual's desire to create a favorable self-presentation and need to protect self-esteem. Most common when meetings are attended by people with different levels of status or expertise or when members formally evaluate each other's performance throughout the year. Tends to discourage employees from mentioning creative ideas because of how they might sound in front of co-workers. |
Evaluation Apprehension |
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the problem that occurs when people exert less effort and usually perform at a lower level when working in teams than when working along. tends to be more serious when the individual's performance is less likely to be noticed, such as when people work together in very large teams or when the team produces a single output. Less occurs when individual performance is likely to be noticed, which can be achieved by reducing the teams size. Also depends on the employee's motivation to perform the work. less prevalent when the task is interesting because individuals are more motivated by the work itself to perform their duties. |
Social Loafing |
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- accomplish tasks - satisfy member needs - maintain team survival
teams exist to serve some organizational purpose so effectiveness is partly measured by achievement of those objectives. A team's ______ relies on the satisfaction and well-being of its members because people join groups to fullfil their personal needs. Also includes the teams viability: its ability to survive. Must be able to maintain the commitment of its members particularly during the turbulence of the team's development. Otherwise people will leave and team will fall apart. team must also be able to secure sufficient resources and find a benevolent environment in which to operate. |
Team Effectiveness* |
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the informal rules and shared expectations that groups establish to regulate the behaviour of their members. Only apply to behaviour, not to private thoughts or feelings. directly and indirectly reinforced; but team members often conform without direct reinforcement or punishment because they identify with the group and want to align their behaviour with the team's values. develop because people need to anticipate or predict how others will react. |
Team Members and Norms |
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Diverse teams are better than homogeneous teams at making decisions: (1) people from different backgrounds tend to see a problem or opportunity from different angles and have different mental models which makes them more likely to identify viable solutions to difficult problems. (2) have a broader pool of technical competencies. Challenges: (1) employees with diverse backgrounds take longer to become a high-performing team, takes longer to bond with people who are different from them particularly when they hold different values. (2) susceptible to fault lines, hypothetical dividing lines that may split a team along subgroups, this results in reduced team effectiveness by reducing the motivation to communicate and coordinate with teammates on the other side of the hypothetical division. |
Diversity and Cohesion |
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Groups that exist primarily for the benefit of their members. Reasons they exist: (1) innate drive to bond (2) social identity - we define ourselves by the groups we belong to. (3) goal accomplishment (4) emotional support |
Informal Groups |
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Teams: Advantages- - better decisions - information sharing - increase motivation Disadvantages: - some people are better at things than others - individuals can be faster on some tasks - process losses (resources expended toward team development and maintenance rather than the task) - social loafing (problem that occurs when people exert less effort and perform at a lower level when working in teams than when working alone) |
Teams vs. Working Alone |
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Teams flourish when organized around work processes because this structure increases interaction and interdependence among team members and reduces interaction with people outside the team. High-performance teams depend on organizational leaders who provide support and strategic direction while team members focus on operational efficiency and flexibility. Physical layout can make a difference too. |
Teams and Organizational Structure |
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the extent to which team members must share materials, information , or expertise to perform their jobs. Pooled (lowest level) - occurs when an employee or work unit shares a common resource with other employees or work units. Sequential (higher level) - the output of one person becomes the direct input for another person or unit (assembly line). Reciprocal (highest level) - work output is exchanged back and forth among individuals. higher the level, the greater the need to organize people into teams rather than have them work alone. |
Types of Interdependence |
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A team should be large enough to provide the necessary competencies and perspectives to perform the work, yet small enough to maintain efficient coordination and meaningful involvement of each member. 5-7 employees, able to be fed comfortably with two large pizzas. |
Selecting Team Size |
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Cooperating: are willing and able to work together rather than alone, includes sharing resources and being sufficiently flexible to accommodate the needs and preferences of other team members. Coordinating: actively manage the team's work so that it is performed efficiently and harmoniously. Communicating: transmit information freely (rather than hoarding), efficiently (using the best channel and language), and respectfully (minimizing arousal of negative emotions). Actively listen to co-workers. Comforting: help co-workers to maintain a positive and healthy psychological state (show empathy, provide comfort, and build others feelings up). Conflict resolving: have the skills and motivation to resolve dysfunctional disagreements among team members. |
Characteristics of Effective Team Members |
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A process that consists of formal activities intended to improve the development and functioning of a work team. Begin with a sound diagnosis of the team's health and then choose team-building interventions that address weaknesses (needs to target specific problems). Make it an on-going process, continuous, not a one time shot in the arm. Also occurs on the job and organizations should encourage team members to reflect on their work experiences and to experiment with just-in-time learning for team development. |
Effective Team Building |
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the degree of attraction people feel toward their team and their motivation to remain members. Characteristic of the team including the extent to which its members are attracted to the team, are committed to the team's goals or tasks, and feel a collective sense of team pride. An emotional experience, not just a calculation of whether to stay or leave the team. Exists when team members make the team part of their social identity. performance has more of an effect on cohesiveness than vice versa. Team cohesion increases team performance only when the team's norms are compatible with organizational values and objectives. Cohesion motivates employees to perform at a level more consistent with team norms. When team norms undermine the organization's performance, high cohesion will motivate employees to reduce team performance. |
Cohesiveness and Productivity |
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Built on three foundations: Identification-based (high): based on common mental models and values; increases with person's social identity with team; mutual understanding and emotional bond with team members; when team members feel, think, and act like each other. Knowledge-based (medium): based on predictability of another person's behaviour and competence; fairly robust. Calculus-based (low): based on deterrence; fragile and limited potential because dependent on punishment; a logical calculation that other team members will act appropriately because they face sanctions if their actions violate reasonable expectations. The positive expectations one person has toward another person in situations involving risk. |
Foundations of Trust |
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Teams whose members operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries and are linked through information technologies to achieve organizational tasks. Differ from traditional teams in two ways: (1) they are not usually co-located (do not work in the same physical area) and (2) due to their lack of co-location, members of virtual teams depend primarily on information technologies rather than face-to-face interaction to communicate and coordinate their work effort.
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Virtual Teams* |
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1. Members of successful ______ teams must have good communication technology skills, strong self-leadership skills to motivate and guide their behaviour without peers and bosses nearby, and higher emotional intelligence so they can decipher the feelings of other team members from email and other limited communication media. 2. Have a toolkit of communication channels as well as the freedom to choose the channels that work best for them. Specific comm channels gain and lose importance over time, depending on the task and level of trust. 3. Plenty of structure (clear objectives, documented work processes, and agreed upon roles and responsibilities). 4. Team members should meet face-to-face early in the team development process because no technology has replaced face-to-face interaction for high-level bonding and mutual understanding. |
Improving Virtual Teams |
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Transmits the intended meaning. Vital to all organizations, so much so that no company could exist without it. This is because organizations are groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose. People only work interdependently when they can communicate with each other. |
Effective Communication |
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Medium of choice in most workplaces because messages are quickly written, edited, and transmitted. Info can be appended and conveyed to many people with a simple click to send. It is asynchronous (messages sent and received at different times) so there is no need to coordinate a communication session. Has also become an efficient filing system. Tends to be the preferred medium for coordinating work and for sending well detailed info for decision making. Often increases the volume of communication and significantly alters the flow of that information within groups and throughout the organization. Reduces some face-to-face and voice communication but increases communication with people further up the hierarchy. Reduces stereotype biases by hiding age, race, etc. but it can increase reliance on stereotypes when we are already aware of the other person's personal characteristics. |
Email for Communication |
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A medium's data-carrying capacity - the volume and variety of information that can be transmitted during a specific time. High richness when channel can convey multiple cues such as both verbal and nonverbal info, allows timely feedback from receiver to sender, allows sender to customize message to the receiver, and makes use of complex symbols such as words and phrases with multiple meanings. Face-to-face is at the top. |
Media Richness |
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An unstructured and informal network founded on social relationships rather than organizational charts or job descriptions. |
Corporate Grapevine |
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Actively sensing the senders signals, evaluating them accurately, and responding appropriately. Cycle through sensing, evaluating, and responding during the conversation and engage in various activities to improve these processes. Sensing: -postpone evaluation -avoid interruptions -maintain interest Evaluating: -Empathize -organize information Responding: -show interest -clarify the message |
Active Listening |
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Writing and sending disparaging emails before their emotions have a chance to subside. More likely to write things they would never say in face-to-face conversation. Flame wars occur because people are more likely to send disparaging messages through email than through other communication channels |
Flaming |
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Coordinates work activities, vehicle for organizational learning, critical ingredient for decision making, influencing others-changing their behaviour, improves employee well being |
Functions of Communication |
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Process by which information is transmitted and understood between two or more people. Effective communication transmits intended meaning. Sender forms a message, encodes the message, transmits message via a communication channel to receiver who receives the encoded message and decodes it. Then the receiver forms feedback, encodes that feed back, transmits it to the sender who receives the encoded feedback and decodes it. The process happens over and over. Noise can disrupt messages and cause problems in understanding. |
Communication Process and its Elements |
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Poor medium for communicating emotions: people rely on facial expression and other nonverbal cues to interpret the emotional meaning of words, email lacks this parallel communication channel. Reduces politeness and respect: often less diplomatic than written letters. Poor medium for ambiguous, complex, and novel situations: usually fine for well defined situations (giving basic instructions) but can be cumbersome with new situations. Contributes to info overload: messages are created and copied to many people without much effort. |
Problems with Email |
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Verbal communication uses words and occurs through either spoken or written channels. Nonverbal communication is any part of communication that does not use words. Includes facial gestures, voice intonation, physical distance, or even silence. Necessary where noise or physical distance prevents effective verbal exchanges and the need for immediate feedback precludes written communication. In face-to-face meetings, most info is communicated nonverbally. Nonverbal is less rule-bound than verbal communication, we receive quite a bit of training on how to understand spoken words, but very little on how to understand the nonverbal signals that accompany those words. Thus nonverbal cues are more ambiguous an susceptible to misinterpretation. However, there are many facial expressions that are hardwired and universal. Another difference is that verbal comm. is usually conscious and most nonverbal communication is automatic and non conscious. We normally plan what we say or write, but we rarely plan every blink, smile, or facial expression. |
Verbal vs. Nonverbal Communications |
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The non-conscious process of "catching" or sharing another person's emotions by mimicking that person's facial expressions and other nonverbal behaviour. Technically, humans have brain receptors that cause them to mirror what they observe; to some degree, our brain causes us to act as though we are the person we are watching. We automatically mimic and synchronize our nonverbal behaviours with other people. Serves three purposes: 1. Mimicry provides continuous feedback of what we understand and empathize with to the sender. 2. Mimicking the nonverbal behaviours of other people seems to be a way of receiving emotional meaning from those people. 3. To fullfil the drive to bond; social solidarity is built out of each member's awareness of a collective sentiment. People see other share the same emotions they feel which strengthens relations among team members and between leaders and followers by providing evidence of their similarity. |
Emotional Contagion |
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Spoken communication, particularly face-to-face interaction, is more persuasive than emails, websites, and other forms of written communication. 1. Spoken communication is typically accompanied by nonverbal communication. People are more persuaded when they receive both emotional and logical messages. 2. Offers the sender high quality immediate feedback whether the receiver understands and accepts the message. Allows sender to adjust the content and emotional tone of the message more quickly than written communication. 3. People are more persuaded under conditions of high social pressure than low social pressure. Sender can more easily monitor the receiver's listening in face-to-face conversations, so listeners are more motivated to pay attention and consider the sender's ideas. Although spoken communication tends to be more persuasive, written communication can persuade others to some extent. Has the advantage of presenting more technical detail than can occur through conversation. Factual info is valuable when the issue is important to the receiver. Messages from friends and co-workers can be persuasive because people experience a moderate degree of social presence in written communication when they are exchanging messages with close associates. |
Persuasive Communication Channels |
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Specialized words and phrases for specific occupations or groups that is usually designed to improve communication efficiency. Can be a source of communication noise for people who do not possess the code-book. |
Jargon |
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- buffering: having incoming communication filtered, usually by an assistant - omitting: occurs when we overlook messages, such as software rules to redirect emails from distribution lists to folders we never look at - summarizing: ie. where we read executive summaries rather than the full report |
Reducing Information Overload |
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Men consider more power, status, functionality: - report talk - give advice quickly - dominate conversation Women consider more interpersonal relations: - rapport talk - indirect advice/requests - sensitive to nonverbal cues |
Gender and Communication |
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Verbal Differences: - language - voice intonation - silence/conversation overlaps Nonverbal Differences: - some nonverbal gestures are universal but others vary across culture (smiling probably the most universal) |
Culture and Communication* |
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Improving communication among staff by tearing down walls. Replacing traditional offices with an open space where all employees (including management) work together. Structured to stimulate conversation and allow people to work collaboratively. Potential problems include noise, distractions, and loss of privacy. Challenge is to increase social interaction without these stressors. |
Open-design offices |
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Early Research findings: - transmits info rapidly in all directions - follows a cluster chain pattern - more active in homogeneous groups - transmits some degree of truth Changes due to internet: - email becoming the main grapevine medium - social networks are now global - public blogs and forums extends gossip to everyone Benefits: - fills in missing information from formal sources - strengthens corporate culture - relieves anxiety - signals that problems exist Limitations: - Distortions might escalate anxiety - perceived lack of concern for employees when company info is slower than grapevine |
Organizational Grapevines* |
