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.