DECISION-MAKING Erhard Friedberg (ed) A DVD-ROM with 3 hours of video excerpts, biographical notes, a bibliography and a QUIZ. DOWNLOAD A DEMO OF THIS PRODUCT (Size file: 149 Megas) Volume 1 of the series "ISSUES OF ORGANIZATION" With the participation of: Herbert A. Simon, James G. March, Nils Brunsson, Michel Crozier, Peter Drucker, Charles E. Lindblom, Walter W. Powell, Jean-Daniel Reynaud, Thomas C. Schelling, W. Richard Scott

<object border="1" style="width:220px;height:190PX"><param name="movie" value="http://www.recherche-et-organisation.com/aso/flvplayer.swf?file=http://www.recherche-et-organisation.com/upload/om_videos/SIMON01.flv&autoStart=true" /><param name="quality" value="high" /></object> Herbert A. SIMON

"Erhard Friedberg has created a tremendous teaching resource with his interactive DVD-ROM, “Decision-Making." Based on interviews with the leading management consultants and organizational theorists, Friedberg’s DVD is on intensive course in how organizational decision-making happens. One can zoom in a particular issue and hear what the most brilliant analyst have to say. Teaching and learning about decision-making will never be the same." Frank DOBBIN, Harvard UniversityMore 'blurps'...

Main Menu - 1. The Myth of The Perfect Rationality  We normally associate the word decision with the word rational, as in when we talk about rational decision-making. And we have a lofty idea of what a rational decision ought to be. Indeed, a decision is considered rational if it corresponds to the optimal solution that a decision-maker, one who has all the necessary information, has chosen after an exhaustive search of all possible options, and after the evaluation of these options in the light of his or her preferences, which are stable and given in advance. Such an ambitious conception of what a rational decision ought to be is based on a number of illusions. 2.We Don't Know Everything  Although we know that in order to decide on an issue we need information, we readily admit that we never have all the information we would like to have. And we are all well aware that the basic premise of standard decision theory - a decision maker has all the necessary information, that information is clear and unambiguous, and he or she can process it without limits - is based on a notion of cognitive omnipotence that is just not of this world. Indeed, we never have complete and perfect information, and were we to assemble such a database, we would be unable to process it. 3. We Never Optimize A rational decision-maker is supposed to optimize his choice. This would imply that he is capable of an exhaustive search of all the possible solutions to the problem at hand, of analyzing all the consequences of these solutions, of comparing simultaneously the respective merits of the solutions and their consequences, and of choosing the best among them given his or her goals or preferences. From what we have just seen in the preceding section, it is already obvious that such an optimization is impossible... . We Don't Know What We Want Rational decision-makers are supposed to know what they want. That is, they are supposed to be able to choose among different solutions to a problem because they have a goal, or a utility function, or clear preferences. The standard model of rational choice considers that these preferences are known in advance, are clear and ambiguous, are ranked, ordered and, most importantly, that they are stable and unaffected by the choice process. A simple reflection on our personal experience shows that such a conception lacks realism. 5. The Garbage Can Model The critique and the deconstruction of the model of the rational decision-maker culminate with the so-called garbage can model of organizational choice, as presented by James March, together with Michael Cohen and Johan Olsen. 6. The Pitfalls of Rationality The model of the rational decision is indeed an illusion. It is based on premises and requirements that are simply impossible to put into practice. In this sense, it is a myth. Just like any myth, however, it has been a driving force: people have used it as an instrument of action.

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