Ch1

1. List and define the three interpersonal roles of a manager as described by Mintzberg.

Answer:
Figurehead. Symbolic head; obliged to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or
social nature.
Leader. Responsible for the motivation and activation of subordinates; responsible for
staffing, training, and associated duties.
Liaison. Maintains self-developed network of outside contacts and informers who provide
favors and information.


2. List and define the four decisional roles of a manager as described by Mintzberg.

Answer:
Entrepreneur. Searches the organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates
improvement projects to bring about change.
Disturbance handler. Responsible for corrective action when the organization faces
unexpected disturbances.
Resource allocator. Responsible for the allocation of organizational resources of all kinds.
Negotiator. Responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations

3. Describe the four phases in the decision-making process.
Answer: Intelligence. Searching for conditions that call for decisions.
Design. Inventing, developing, and analyzing possible courses of action.
Choice. Selecting a course of action from those available.
Implementation. Adapting the selected course of action to the decision situation.

4. Distinguish between structured and unstructured problems.
Answer: Unstructured problems are fuzzy, complex problems in which all of the factors are not
typically known. There is no cut-and-dry solution to the problem. Structured problems are
routine and repetitive for which standard solutions exist.

5. List the components of the architecture of business intelligence.
Answer:
Data warehouse with source data
Business analytics, a collection of tools for manipulating, mining, and analyzing the data in
the data warehouse
Business performance management (BPM) for monitoring and analysis of performance
User interface

Ch 2

1. Discuss the importance of decision style.

Answer: Decision style is the manner in which decision makers think and react to problems.
This includes their cognitive response, their values, beliefs, and perceptions. These factors can
vary greatly amongst individuals; as a result decisions can vary greatly.

2. Describe the three classifications of models.

Answer:
Iconic. An iconic model is a physical replica of a system, usually on a different scale.
Analog. An analog model is more abstract than an iconic model. It is a model that behaves
like a system but does not physically look like the system.
Mathematical. The complexity of relationships in many organizational systems cannot be
represented by icons or analogically because such representations would soon become
cumbersome, and using them would be time-consuming. Therefore, more abstract models are
described mathematically.

3. List five benefits of using models.

Answer:
Model manipulation is easier than manipulating the real system.
Models enable compression of time.
The cost of model analysis is less than the cost of a similar experiment using the real system.
The cost of making mistakes during the trial-and-error experiment is less using a model.
Models enable managers to estimate the risk of their actions.
Mathematical models enable analysis of a large number of possible solutions.
Models enhance learning and training.
Models are readily available over the Web.
There are many Java applets that readily solve models.

4. Briefly describe Simon's four phases of decision making.
Answer:
Intelligence phase. Reality is examined, and the problem is identified and defined.
Design phase. A model that represents the system is constructed by making assumptions that
simplify reality. The model is then validated, and criteria are determined for evaluation of the
alternative courses of action that are identified.
Choice phase. Select a proposed solution to the problem.
Implementation phase. Successful implementation results in solving the real problem. Failure
leads to a return to an earlier phase of the process.

5. Describe the three assumptions of rational decision makers used in Normative decision
theory.
Answer:
Humans are economic beings whose objective is to maximize the attainment of goals; that is,
the decision maker is rational. (More of a good thing [revenue, fun] is better than less; less of a
bad thing [cost, pain] is better than more.)
For a decision-making situation, all viable alternative courses of action and their
consequences, or at least the probability and the values of the consequences, are known.
Decision makers have an order or preference that enables them to rank the desirability of all
consequences of the analysis (best to worst).


CH 3

1. Identify the key characteristics and capabilities of a DSS.
Answer:
Supports semistructured and unstructured problems
Supports managers at all levels
Supports individuals and groups
Supports interdependent or sequential decisions
Supports intelligence, design, choice, and implementation phases
Supports variety of decision processes and styles
Adaptable and flexible
Interactive ease of use
Designed for effectiveness, not efficiency
Requires human control
Designed for ease of development by end users
Supports modeling and analysis
Supports data access
Operates in a standalone, integrated, or Web-based environment

2. List the capabilities of institutional DSS and ad hoc DSS.
Answer:
Institutional DSS deal with decisions of a recurring nature. An institutionalized DSS can be
developed and refined as it evolves over a number of years because the DSS is used repeatedly to
solve identical or similar problems. It is important to remember that an institutional DSS may not
be used by everyone in an organization.
Ad hoc DSS deal with specific problems that are usually neither anticipated nor recurring.
Ad hoc decisions often involve strategic planning issues and sometimes management control
problems.

3. List the five major components of a DSS.
Answer:
Data management. Includes a database and its management system
Model management. Includes models and their management system
User interface dialog management. Includes input and output modes of human-computer
communication and their management
Knowledge base. Includes artificial intelligence enhancements to the other components
The user. He/she is the decision maker


4. Explain the differences in strategic, tactical, operational, and analytical models.
Answer:
Strategic models support top management's strategic planning. For example, examination of
acquisitions, diversifications, and mergers.
Tactical models support mainly middle management in resource allocation and in control.
For example, make or buy decisions or devising a major promotion plan.
Operational models support middle managers and supervisors in very short term decisions.
For example, daily and weekly schedules.
Analytical models are used to perform analysis on data. They include statistical models,
management science models, data mining algorithms, financial models, and more.

5. Explain the role, components, and importance of the user interface (dialog) subsystem.
Answer: The user interface covers all aspects of communication between a user and the DSS or
any MSS. It includes the hardware, software, and factors that deal with ease of use and
accessibility. The user interface is one of the most important components because it determines
the systems' power, flexibility, and ease-of-use. A difficult user interface is one of the major
reasons for system failures.

CH 4

1. Distinguish between a static model and a dynamic model.
Answer: In a static model, we look at one set of input data and one set of output data at one
point of time. In a dynamic model, we look at several possible inputs and outputs over an
extended period.


2. Distinguish between decision making under certainty, risk, and uncertainty.
Answer: Decision making under certainty assumes that complete knowledge is available and
accessible to the decision maker and that the decision maker knows the exact outcome of each
course of action. It is assumed that there is only one outcome for each alternative.

Decision making under uncertainty considers situations in which several outcomes are possible
for each course of action. The decision maker does not know the probability of occurrence of the
possible outcomes.

Decision making under risk considers situations in which several outcomes are possible;
however, unlike uncertainty, the decision maker is able to calculate the probability of occurrence.

3. List the characteristics of a linear program allocation problem.
Answer:
A limited quantity of economic resources is available for allocation.
The resources are used in the production of products or services.
There are two or more ways in which the resources can be used. Each is called a solution or a
program.
Each activity (product or service) in which the resources are used yields a return in terms of
the stated goal.
The allocation is usually restricted by several limitations and requirements, called
constraints.

4. List five most common optimization models.
Answer:
Assignment (best matching of objects)
Dynamic programming
Goal programming
Investment (maximizing rate of return)
Linear and integer programming
Network models for planning and scheduling
Nonlinear programming
Replacement (capital budgeting)
Simple inventory models (e.g., economic order quantity)
Transportation (minimize cost of shipments).

5. Explain the value of visual interactive simulation (VIS).
Answer: VIS is a simulation method that lets decision makers see what the model is doing and
how it interacts with the decisions made, as they are made. VIS uses animated computer graphic
displays to present the impact of different managerial decisions.

CH 5

1. List three of the major characteristics and objectives of data mining.
Answer: The data mining environment is usually a client-server architecture or a Web-based
architecture.
Visualization tools help to remove the information buried in corporate files or archives.
The miner is often an end user, who is supported by data drills and power query tools to ask ad
hoc questions with little programming.
Striking it rich often involves finding an unexpected result and requires end users to think
creatively throughout the process.
Data mining tools are readily combined with spreadsheets and other software development tools.
Because of the large amounts of data and massive search efforts, it is sometimes necessary to use
parallel processing for data mining.

2. Identify and describe the two types of categorical data. Give an example of each.
Answer: Nominal data contains measurements of simple codes assigned to objects as labels,
which are not measurements. For example, the variable marital status can be generally
categorized as (1) single, (2) married, and (3) divorced.
Ordinal data contains codes assigned to objects or events as labels that also represent the rank
order among them. For example, the variable credit score can be categorized as (1) low, (2)
medium, and (3) high. Other examples are age group (i.e., child, young, middle-aged, elderly)
and educational level (i.e., high school, college, graduate school).

3. Identify and describe the two types of numerical data. Give an example of each.
Answer: Interval data are variables that can be measured on interval scales, but that do not have
an absolute zero value. An example of interval scale measurement is temperature on the Celsius
scale.
Ratio data include measurement variables such as those found in the physical sciences. Mass,
length, time, energy, and electric charge are examples of physical measures that are ratio scales.

4. List and briefly describe three of the major types of patterns that data mining attempts
to identify.
Answer:
Associations find the commonly co-occurring groupings of things, such as beer and diapers
going together in market-basket analysis.
Predictions tells the nature of future occurrences of certain events based on what has happened
in the past, such as predicting the winner of the Super Bowl or forecasting the absolute
temperature of a particular day.
Clusters identify natural groupings of things based on their known characteristics, such as
assigning customers in different segments based on their demographics and past purchase
behaviors.
Sequential relationships discovers time-ordered events, such as predicting an action based on
prior actions.

5. List and briefly explain four of the factors to be considered when assessing a model to
be used for classification.
Answer: Predictive accuracy. The model's ability to correctly predict the class label of new or
previously unseen data.
Speed. Computational costs involved in generating and using the model, where faster is better.
Robustness. The model's ability to make reasonably accurate predictions, given noisy data or
data with missing and erroneous values.
Scalability. The ability to construct a prediction model efficiently given a large amount of data.
Interpretability. The level of understanding and insight provided by the model.

CH 6

1. List the relationships between biological and artificial networks.
Answer:
Biological Artificial
Soma Node
Dendrites Input
Axon Output
Synapse Weight
Slow speed Fast speed
Many neurons (10
9
) Few neurons (a dozen to hundreds of thousands)

2. Describe the five major concepts / components of neural network information
processing.
Answer:
Inputs. Each input corresponds to a single attribute.
Outputs. The outputs of the network contain the solution to a problem.
Connection weights. The key elements in an ANN. They express the relative strength (or
mathematical value) of the input data or the many connections that transfer data from layer to
layer.
Summation function. The summation function computes the weighted sums of all the input
elements entering each processing element.
Transformation function. The transformation function combines the inputs coming into a
neuron from other neurons/sources, and then produces an output based upon the choice of the
transfer function.

3. Explain threshold value and its role in the network.
Answer: A threshold value is a hurdle value for the output of a neuron to trigger the next level of
neurons. If an output value is smaller than the threshold value, it will not be passed to the next
level of neurons. For example, any value of 0.5 or less becomes 0, and any value above 0.5
becomes 1.

4. Explain supervised and unsupervised learning modes of neural networks.
Answer: Neural network learning can occur in supervised or unsupervised mode. In supervised
learning mode, the training patterns include a correct answer, classification, or forecast. The
output of the network in its present form is calculated and compared to the desired
output. In unsupervised learning mode, there are no known answers. Unsupervised learning is
used for clustering or exploratory data analysis.

5. Briefly describe backpropagation.
Answer: It is the most widely used supervised learning algorithm in neural computing. A
backpropagation network includes one or more hidden layers. This type of network is considered
feedforward because there are no interconnections between the output of a processing element
and the input of a node in the same layer or in a preceding layer. Externally provided correct
patterns are compared with the neural network's output during (supervised) training, and
feedback is used to adjust the weights until all the training patterns are categorized as correctly as
possible by the network.

CH 7

1. Compare and contrast text mining and data mining.
Answer: Text mining is the semi-automated process of extracting patterns (useful information
and knowledge) from large amounts of unstructured data sources. Data mining is the process of
identifying valid, novel, potentially useful, and understandable patterns in data stored in
structured databases, where the data are organized in records structured by categorical, ordinal,
or continuous variables. Text mining is the same as data mining in that it has the same purpose
and uses the same processes, but with text mining the input to the process is a collection of
unstructured data files such as Word documents, PDF files, and so on.

2. Why will computers probably not be able to understand natural language the same way
and with the same accuracy that humans do?
Answer: Natural human language is vague for computers to understand; and a true
understanding of meaning requires extensive knowledge of a topic beyond what is in the words,
sentences, and paragraphs.

3. Describe a marketing application of text mining.
Answer: Text mining can be used to increase cross-selling and up-selling by analyzing the
unstructured data generated by call centers. Text generated by call-center notes as well as
transcriptions of voice conversations with customers can be analyzed by text mining algorithms
to extract novel, actionable information about customers' perceptions toward a company's
products and services.
Text mining is valuable for customer relationship management (CRM). Companies can use text
mining to analyze unstructured text data, combined with the relevant structured data extracted
from organizational databases, to predict customer perceptions and subsequent purchasing
behavior.

4. What are three of the challenges for effective and efficient knowledge discovery posed
by the Web?
Answer: The Web is too big for effective data mining. Because of the sheer size of the Web, it is
not feasible to set up a data warehouse to replicate, store, and integrate all of the data on the
Web, making data collection and integration a challenge.
The Web is too complex. The complexity of a Web page is far greater than a page in a traditional
text document collection. Web pages lack a unified structure.
The Web is too dynamic. The Web is a highly dynamic information source. Not only does the
Web grow rapidly, but its content is constantly being updated.
The Web is not specific to a domain. The Web serves a broad diversity of communities and
connects billions of workstations. Web users have very different backgrounds, interests, and
usage purposes.
The Web has everything. Only a small portion of the information on the Web is truly relevant or
useful to someone or some task.

5. Define the three main areas of Web mining and each area's source of information.
Answer: Web content mining refers to the extraction of useful information from Web pages.
Source: unstructured textual content of the Web pages, usually in HTML format.
Web structure mining is the process of extracting useful information from the links embedded in
Web documents. Source: the URL links contained in the Web pages.
Web usage mining is the extraction of useful information from data generated through Web page
visits and transactions. Source: the detailed description of a Web site's visits.