Management Exam 2 - Chapter 8
Tacit knowledge
This is what employees can typically learn only through experience. It's not easily communicated but could very well be the most important aspect of what we learn in organizations.
Stereotype
This occurs when assumptions are made about others on the basis of their membership in a social group.
Rational decision making model
This offers a step-by-step approach to making decisions that maximize outcomes by examining all available alternatives. This applies to nonprogrammed decisions Steps: 1. Determine appropriate criteria for making a decision 2. Generate lis of available alternatives 3. Evaluate the alternatives against criteria 4. Choose the solution that maximizes value 5. Implement appropriate solution 6. Evaluate your decision
Fixed ratio schedule
reinforce behaviors after a certain number of them have been exhibited. Some manufacturing plants have created piece-rate pay systems in which workers are paid according to the number of items they produce. Potential level of performance: high
Positive Reinforcement
Occurs when a positive outcome follows a desired behavior. - Getting rewarded for doing something good
Punishment
Occurs when an unwanted outcome follows an unwanted behavior. Suspending someone for showing up late or giving them a demeaning task
Negative Reinforcement
Occurs when an unwanted outcome is removed following a desired behavior. - Doing something so you don't get yelled at
Transfer of training
Occurs when the knowledge, skills, and behaviors used on the job are maintained by the learner once training ends and generalized to the workplace once the learner returns to the job.
Self-serving bias
Occurs when we attribute our own failures to external factors and our own successes to internal factors.
Extinction
occurs when there is the removal of a consequence following an unwanted behavior. Firing someone
Performance-prove orientation
Focus on demonstrating their competence so that others think favorably of them.
Performance-avoid orientation
Focus on demonstrating their competence so that others will not think poorly of them.
- Limited Information - Faulty Perceptions - Faulty Attributions - Escalation of Commitment
Four types of decision making problems
Decision making
The process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem.
Climate for transfer
An environment that can support the use of new skills. Helps foster transfer of training
Crisis situation
A change—whether sudden or evolving—that results in an urgent problem that must be addressed immediately. For businesses, a crisis is anything with the potential to cause sudden and serious damage to its employees, reputation, or bottom line.
Behavior modeling training
A formalized method of training in which employees observe and learn from employees with significant amounts of tacit knowledge
Training
A systematic effort by organizations to facilitate the learning of job-related knowledge and behavior.
fundamental attribution error
Argues that people have a tendency to judge others' behaviors as due to internal factors.
- Availability - Representative - Judgemental
Common types of heuristics
- Anchoring - Framing - Representativeness - Contrast - Recency - Ratio Bias Effect
Decision making biases
Programmed decisions
Decisions that become somewhat automatic because people's knowledge allows them to recognize and identify a situation and the course of action that needs to be taken. *NOTE* Could be call Intuitive decision making on the test
Variable interval schedule
Designed to reinforce behavior at more random points in time. A supervisor walking around at different points of time every day is a good example this. Potential level of performance: Moderately high
Consensus
Did others act the same way under similar situations?
Consistency
Does this person always do this when performing this task?
Distinctiveness
Does this person tend to act differently in other circumstances?
Social identity theory
Holds that people identify themselves by the groups to which they belong and perceive and judge others by their group memberships.
Intuition
Emotionally charged judgments that arise through quick, nonconscious, and holistic associations.
Two types of knowledge
Explicit and tacit knowledge
Internal factors
Factors that are internal to a business or person that can be avoided
External factors
Factors that are out of an individual or businesses control
- Continuous - Fixed interval - Variable interval - Fixed ratio - Variable Ratio
Five schedules of reinforcement
Communities of Practice
Groups of employees who work together and learn from one another by collaborating over an extended period of time.
Learning
Relatively permanent changes in an employee's knowledge or skill that result from experience.
Variable ratio schedules
Reward people after a varying number of exhibited behaviors. Salespeople, for example, are often compensated based on commission because they receive extra pay every time they sell an item, but you don't always make a sale every time someone walks in the door Potential level of performance: very high
Types of Limited information (decision making problems)
Satisfying and bounded rationality
1. Determine appropriate criteria for making a decision 2. Generate lis of available alternatives 3. Evaluate the alternatives against criteria 4. Choose the solution that maximizes value 5. Implement appropriate solution 6. Evaluate your decision
Steps in the Rational Decision-Making Model
Escalation of commitment
The decision to continue to follow a failing course of action. The expression "throwing good money after bad" captures this common decision-making error.
Contingencies of reinforcement
The four specific consequences typically used by organizations to modify employee behavior. They are meant to increase desired behaviors and decrease negative behavior. Increase desired behavior - Positive Reinforcement - Negative Reinforcement Decrease negative behavior - Punishment - Extinction
Explicit knowledge
The kind of information you're likely to think about when you picture someone sitting down at a desk to learn. It's information that's relatively easily communicated and a large part of what companies teach during training sessions.
Expertise
The knowledge and skills that distinguish experts from novices and less experienced people.
Projection bias
The misconception that others think, feel, and act the same way they do.
Continuous Reinforcement
The simplest schedule and happens when a specific consequence follows each and every occurrence of a desired behavior. Potential level of performance: high, but difficult to maintain
Fixed interval schedule
The single most common form of reinforcement schedule. With this schedule, workers are rewarded after a certain amount of time, and the length of time between reinforcement periods stays the same. Potential level of performance: average
Availability bias
The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is easier to recall.
Selective perception
The tendency for people to see their environment only as it affects them and as it is consistent with their expectations.
Representativeness
The tendency to assess the likelihood of an event by comparing it to a similar event and assuming it will be similar. Example: Because a flipped coin has come up heads 10 times in a row, some assume the likelihood that it will come up tails is greater than 50-50. This is sometimes referred to as the "gambler's fallacy."
Ratio Bias Effect
The tendency to judge the same probability of an unlikely event as lower when the probability is presented in the form of a ratio of smaller rather than of larger numbers. Example: When offered an opportunity to win $1 if they drew a red jelly bean, people frequently elected to draw from a bowl that contained a greater number but a smaller proportion of red beans (e.g., 7 in 100vs. 1 in 10). Participants knew the probabilities were against them, but they "felt" they had a better chance when there were more beans.
Contrast
The tendency to judge things erroneously based on a reference that is near to them. Example: If you were to take your hand out of a bowl of hot water and place it in a bowl of lukewarm water, you would describe that wateras "cold." If someone else were to take their hand out of a bowl of extremely cold water and place it in the same bowl of lukewarm water, they would describe that water as "hot."
Framing
The tendency to make different decisions based on how a question or situation is phrased. Example: Why do gas stations (or any retailer) give out discounts for paying cash as opposed to adding a surcharge for using a credit card? The discount is seen as a gain, while the surcharge is seen as a loss. Because humans are loss averse, we're more likely to give up the discount (the gain) than accept the surcharge (the loss).
Anchoring
The tendency to rely too heavily on one trait or piece of information when making decisions even when the anchor might be unreliable or irrelevant. Example: One recent study showed that initial bids for a bottle of wine in an auction could be heavily influenced by simply having subjects write down the last two digits of their Social Security number prior to putting a value on the bottle. Those with higher two-digit numbers tended to bid 60-120 percent more for a bottle of wine than those with low numbers.
Recency
The tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events. Example: A manager tends to weight ratings in performance evaluations based on an employee's behavior during the prior month as opposed to his or her behavior over the entire evaluation period.
Social learning theory
This argues that people in organizations have the ability to learn through the observation of others.
Behavioral modeling
This happens when employees observe the actions of others, learn from what they observe, and then repeat the observed behavior.
- Consensus - Distinctiveness - Consistency
Three kinds of questions managers ask when problems arise
Fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias
Types of Faulty Attributions
- Selective perception - Projection bias - Social identity theory - Stereotype - heuristics - availability bias
Types of Faulty Perceptions
- Learning orientation - Performance-prove orientation - Performance-Avoid orientation
Types of Goal orientation Note: First one is learning based Second and third are competence based
- Reinforcement - Observation - Experience
Types of learning
Knowledge transfer
Used in addition to traditional training experiences. Happens when new workers learn form their older, more experienced colleagues informally.
Nonprogrammed decision
When a situation arises that is new, complex, and not recognized. *NOTE* Could be called Incremental Decision making on the test
Learning orientation
Where building competence is deemed more important than demonstrating competence.
Types of decisions
programmed and non-programmed -or- Incremental and intuitive
Satisficing
results when decision makers select the first acceptable alternative considered.
Heuristics
simple, efficient rules of thumb that allow us to make decisions more easily. Note: In general, these are not bad. In fact, they lead to correct decisions more often than not. However, they can also bias us toward inaccurate decisions at times.
Schedules of Reinforcement
specific patterns that determine when a behavior will be reinforced.
Bounded rationally
the notion that decision makers simply do not have the ability or resources to process all available information and alternatives to make an optimal decision.