Fundamentals of Management Canadian 8Th Edition Robbins Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Fundamentals of Management Canadian 8Th Edition Robbins Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Lecture Outline
Introduction
Learning Objective 1: Tell what are the steps in the decision-making process?
The Decision-Making Process
Step 1: Identify a Problem
Step 2: Identify Decision Criteria
Step 3: Allocate Weights to Criteria
Step 4: Develop Alternatives
Step 5: Analyze Alternatives
Step 6: Select an Alternative
Step 7: Implement the Alternative
Step 8: Evaluate Decision Effectiveness
Learning Objective 2: Define what factors affect how decisions are made?
The Manager as Decision Maker
Making Decisions: Rationality, Bounded Rationality, and Intuition
Assumptions of Rationality
Bounded Rationality
Intuition
Types of Problems and Decisions
Structured Problems and Programmed Decisions
Unstructured Problems and Non-programmed Decisions
Decision-Making Conditions
Certainty
Risk
Uncertainty
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc. 1
Decision-Making Styles
Group Decision Making
Group Think
Individual vs. Group Decision Making
Decision-Making Biases and Errors
Learning Objective 3: Describe how do ethics and social responsibility relate to decision making?
Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and Decision Making
Four Views of Ethics
The Utilitarian View of Ethics
The Rights View of Ethics
The Theory of Justice View of Ethics
The Integrative Social Contracts Theory
Improving Ethical Behaviour
Codes of Ethics and Decision Rules
Corporate Social Responsibility
The Classical View
The Socio-economic View
Please note: This Instructor’s Manual (IM) includes guides and connections as follows:
Suggested approaches and teaching strategies for the end of chapter exercises and cases (see
this information below).
Connections and linkages to useful chapter related materials and activities in the text as well
as the MyManagementLab (MML) accompanying this text (see the table below) based upon
different levels of learning and application (Interpret, Analyze & Practise)
Additional suggested activities designed to gradually elevate your student’s understanding
of the chapter material are also available for your use as classroom or take home assignments
(see the Supplemental Activities section at the end of this chapter summary). These activities
are also introduced in the text as possible instructor led exercises.
Suggested solutions for the activities are available in both this Instructor’s manual and the
MyManagementLab
The MyManagementLab features a personalized Study Plan that includes a Pre-Test and a
Post Test for each chapter. Once students have read the chapter the pre-test is designed to
help students identify which concepts they have understood and then guides them towards
study tools for the areas in which they may need more practice. The Post-Tests are designed
to help students confirm their mastery of all the key chapter concepts.
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
1. INTRODUCTION
Making good decisions is something that every manager strives to do because the overall
quality of managerial decisions has a major influence on organizational success or failure.
The concept of decision making is explored in this chapter. The issue of ethics and its role
in managerial decision making is also examined in order to understand the various views of
Learning Objective 1: Tell what are the steps in the decision making process?
Learning Objective 2: Define what factors affect how decisions are made?
THE MANAGER AS DECISION MAKER
Decision making is an integral component of a manager’s job and is part of all four
managerial functions, as illustrated in Exhibit 4-5. This is why managers are often called
decision makers. In this section we look at how decisions are made, the types of decisions
Learning Objective 3: Describe how do ethics and social responsibility relate to decision making?
ETHICS, CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY, AND DECISION MAKING
4. There are four different approaches that an organization can take with
respect to corporate social responsibility (see Exhibit 4-13).
a. The obstructionist approach is to avoid social responsibility,
which may mean engaging in unethical or illegal behavior in order
to hide what may be considered socially irresponsible behavior.
b. An organization that adopts a defensive approach exhibits a
minimal commitment to social responsibility in that it will adhere
to legal rules and regulations; however, it will not attempt to do
more than what is legally required.
c. The accommodative approach exercises a moderate commitment
to social responsibility by attempting to balance the interests of
shareholders with those of other stakeholders.
d. A proactive approach is taken by mangers who take an active
interest in social responsibility and use organizational resources to
assist with their efforts in protecting the interests of society as a
whole.
Discussion Questions
3. Explain how a manager might deal with making decisions under conditions of uncertainty.
The manager would assign degrees of probability to the various alternatives considered and
choose the decision with the highest probability of a beneficial outcome.
4. Give an example drawn from your personal decision making that illustrates satisficing? What
steps would be necessary to make a better decision in that situation?
As long as students can express examples of where they did not really analyze all the
alternatives available to them – and rather focused on the more conspicuous ones - and in
the end accepted a solution that was “sufficient” or “good enough” they can be said to be
satisficing. The steps that would be necessary to make a better decision would be to first take
the time necessary to bring forward as many alternatives as possible, establishing
criteria related to the objectives that you wish to achieve by making the decision, weighting
each criterion and then evaluating each alternative against these criteria. In the final
analysis you have a more thoroughly developed basis upon which to choose the best
alternative for the decision at hand.
5. How does escalation of commitment affect decision making? Have you had an example of
this in your decision making?
The escalation of commitment represents the tendency to stay the course, despite negative
data that suggest one should do otherwise. Managers may not want to admit that their initial
decision may have been wrong so, rather than search for new solutions, they simply increase
their commitment to the original decision. Students may have difficulty admitting where
they have made this error in decision making – but with some prodding, perhaps with the
instruction mentioning where they have made such errors, students will become more
comfortable and follow suit.
6. Discuss the role that stakeholders play in the four approaches to corporate social
responsibility.
Organizations which avoid corporate social responsibility by following an obstructionist
approach attempt to hide any unethical or illegal behavior from organizational stakeholders.
Your employee was well qualified to meet the requirements of the request but it would force his last
two weeks to be tremendously busy. How would you decide whether you should take the customer
up on her request?
Teaching Suggestions
Depending on class size students could work on this individually as a reflective exercise or in pairs.
The key is to guide students in the end to an understanding and analysis of the process they used to
make their decision and steps they took to reach their decision. With this record, each step of the
decision-making process could be reviewed for patterns that indicate the decision-making models,
styles, and errors they may have used.
BECOMING A MANAGER
Teaching Suggestions:
1. Allow students a set time to work as individuals on this exercise, perhaps 3-5 minutes.
Emphasize the importance of not talking—NO collaboration.
2. Call time and ask students to total their word list. Emphasize there is still NO collaborating
or sharing of word lists.
3. At this point, you can ask for a response to categories by a show of hands (number who
created 5 or more words, 15 or more, 25 or more, etc.) until people with the most words are
recognized.
4. You might also want to write on the board the words created by the students, polling students
around the room until no additional words are left.
5. You can stop at this point and discuss why some people may have created more words than
others.
6. Did the class as a whole (with each student’s individual words included on the board) create
more words than any individual student? You might ask the students about working in groups
for another project requiring creativity. If they were to work in groups on such an exercise
or project, you might ask their opinions about group formation. Based on the outcomes of
This exercise can also be followed up with a team approach where the winning team with the most words
wins bragging rights for being the most creative. Then the assessment as to the difference in results can be
explored.
There may arise several advantages as well as some disadvantages because of the diversity in
groups at the workplace. A diverse group will bring a diversity of experiences and perspectives
to the decision process. Diverse groups also generate more alternatives. The Quantity and
diversity of information are greatest when group members represent different specialties. Group
decision making increases acceptance of a solution that leads to sense of ownership and
increased legitimacy of the decision. Everyone benefits from a right decision. There are few
disadvantages of working in diverse groups. First, they are time-consuming because it takes time
for everyone to understand the process as well as their co-worker’s working style. There may
also be a situation in which there is a small group that does not accept the diversity. This creates
rifts, conflicts and sense of ambiguous responsibility. Second, the ownership ca not be
established and it reduces the level of efforts from members in the group. Then, there is a
communication gap and cultural differences to understand a problem and its solutions. A wise
manager takes everyone on board and frequently asks for solutions and feedback on the
prevailing issues. The manager also recommends for various diversity trainings for the team
members.
Team Exercises
Instructions
1. Allow students 5 minutes to read the story and then have them respond to each of the 11
statements by circling True, False, or Unknown.
Advise students that if any element of a statement is false, the whole statement
should be considered false.
They should use “unknown” whenever there is insufficient information to decide if
the statement is true or false.
They have a maximum of 10 minutes. They should simply respond and not spend a
great deal of time looking for clues or tricks.
The guidance post exercise is really about drawing out how organized the group was in coming about
their decisions and how the decisions were made. Both the difficulty as well as the value in making
decisions such as this in a group setting is instructive and is a key lesson of the exercise.
1. Is it appropriate for baseball managers to use only quantitative, objective criteria in evaluating
their players? What do you think? Why?
Student responses will differ. Some will say ‘yes’ because quantitative analysis can take into
account many more pieces of information and compute many more potential outcomes than the
human mind. Some students will say no because they believe no machine can tell them about how
a person will act under pressure, the “gut instinct.”
2. Describe how baseball front office executives and college coaches could use each of the
following to make better decisions: (a) rationality, (b) bounded rationality, and (c) intuition.
Rationality says that a person will always make the most logical decision from all of the options.
This is unlikely because managers are influenced by the company culture, politics and other
issues. Managers can make bounded rational decisions by making the logical choice based on
available facts. Executives and coaches can make better bounded rational decisions by gather as
much information as possible before making their decisions; talk to other people, verify facts, etc.
Intuition can be used to complement the data and facts available. In the face of a small amount of
information intuition can help managers make good decisions because of past experience with a
similar problem.
3. Can there be too much information in managing the business of baseball? Discuss.
There may be abundance of historical as well as current information in managing the business of
baseball. However, it depends on what kind of data and information is being processed and how
is it used in determining the better prospects for improving team’s performances. For example,
rigorous statistical analysis showed that on-base percentages and slugging percentages were
better Indicators of a player’s offensive potential. To make better decisions, the team managers
want to allocate their limited payroll in the best way possible to help the team be a winner. The
move to more systematic data usage can also be used. The use of this kind of data analysis helps
balance qualitative and quantitative decision making. Sstudents’ responses will vary.
1. Which decisions in this story could be considered unstructured problems? Structured problems?
Since getting in to the juice business is new for Coke this could be considered an unstructured
problem. Based on the data being collected though, the Black Boot software seemingly makes
these decisions very structured.
2. How does the Black Book help Coke’s managers and other employees in decision making?
It considers over 600 variables in its calculations which is far more than the human brain can
process. In doing so, it greatly simplifies the decision-making process for managers while making
it more powerful because of the amount of data being used.
Rank Choices
1 Swimming lessons scheduled for next month require 20 instructors, 20 assistants, and 10
lifeguards. There are 30 current pool staff members.
2 Kaylee’s decision must maximize the number of lessons that can be offered, not increase staffing
costs, and maintain a safe learning environment for swimmers.
3 Safety is the number one priority at the community pool. Kaylee makes it worth “5”. The budget
is tight and firm at the community centre. Kaylee makes this worth “4”. Kaylee knows that it is
better to cancel lessons and disappoint a few than to risk safety or go over budget. She makes
maximizing the number of lessons offered worth “2”.
4 Kaylee works with her staff and the other community centre managers to generate ideas. The
centre could cancel some lessons, put more students in each lesson, or ask centre volunteers to
assist with other pool duties to free staff for lessons.
5 Cancelling lessons is safe, but reduces center revenues and disappoints many swimmers. It
scores 5.
Putting more students in each lesson makes money sense, and maximizes lessons offered but
puts students at risk. It scores 6.
Having volunteers working at the pool to free staff for lessons ensures safety, doesn’t impact the
budget and ensures all lessons can be offered. It scores 11.
7 Kaylee works with community centre managers to recruit and train centre volunteers. With
volunteers in place, pool staff are diverted from pool maintenance responsibilities to swimming
lessons.
8 After the lesson session Kaylee reviews feedback received from centre members, and parents of
lesson attendees regarding the volunteer program. She asks staff how the volunteer system
worked for them. Feedback is positive and Kaylee plans to expand the volunteer program.
Hint:
The decision-making process is described at the beginning of chapter 4. Look to your text to help you.