· Answer to each written response question should contain a minimum 200 word response
· Sources need to be referenced at the end of the written response
1. Visit the website www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1977/09/dowie.html and read the article concerning the Ford Pinto. How did the decision making process help to create the problems for the Ford Pinto? Do these decisions represent optimizing behavior or satisficing on the part of Ford? If you were Lee Iacocca, would you have decided differently? How?
2. Conduct an Internet search for information on individual versus group decision making. Then, compare and contrast individual and group decision-making. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Are there certain decisions that are better suited to individual decision-making? What bounded awareness issues are found in individual versus group decision-making? Cite a minimum of two sources.
3. Discuss the following statement. “It is important that organizational managers understand that bounded awareness can and will occur in decision making.”
4. On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed upon launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida killing all seven astronauts on board. Conduct a literature and an Internet search on the topics of the Challenger disaster and groupthink. Then, discuss how groupthink might have created decision-making problems for NASA and its booster contractor. Cite at least two sources in your answer.
5. Conduct an Internet or library search for information on “The Bay of Pigs Invasion.” Discuss the failure of the invasion in terms of bounded awareness. In your opinion, what caused the poor decisions to be made? Could focalism and/or focusing illusion have played a part in this failure? If so, how?
6. Discuss your attitude about certainty, uncertainty, and risk when making decisions. How has your attitude helped or hindered your ability to make rational decisions?
7. Conduct an Internet and literature search on the topic of the expected-value decision rule. Discuss your findings.
8. Conduct an Internet and literature search on the topic of joint versus separate preference reversal. Discuss your findings. In your discussion compare and contrast joint and separate preference reversal.
9. Discuss a recent decision that you made (purchase an automobile or home, change jobs, etc.). How did motivation and emotions influence your decision? Did you experience any internal conflict (a battle between what you wanted versus what you should do)? How did you resolve this conflict?
10. Report on a decision that you were a part of or had witnessed in your organization, where personal motivation and/or emotions on the part of decision maker(s) may have caused a sub-optimal decision to be made.
11. The news has been full of stories lately about the stock market problems, sub-prime mortgages, and ponzi schemes. All of these required people to make decisions. Research one of the stories and discuss how motivation influenced people to make such terrible decisions. Had exponential discounting played a part in the decision(s) that you had researched. If so, how?
12. Lately, the stock market has experienced unprecedented volatility – wild ups and downs. Discuss how stock trading has created a lot of this volatility and the decisions for stock traders to buy and sell wildly in terms of hyperbolic discounting
13. Discuss how perceptual bias affected President George W. Bush’s decisions that lead the United States into war in Iraq in 2003. Did judgmental bias play a part in these decisions?
14. 2001, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy protection. Investigate this filing. What caused the bankruptcy? Can it be traced to an escalation of commitment?
15. In the 1960s, Britain and France decided to jointly fund and build a supersonic transport that became known as the Concorde. Research the decision to build and fly the supersonic transport Concorde. Then, discuss how the sunk costs and an escalation of commitment affected their decisions.
16. During the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, the United States and the Soviet Union have been competing with one another in attempts to gain a strategic advantage over one another. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was born out of that competition. Discuss the SDI and how the United States