Jewish family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 15, 1916. His father, Arthur Simon (1881–1948) was an electrical engineer Herbert A.Simon who had come to the United States from 1916-20011903 after earning his Germany in engineering degree from the Technische Hochschule ofDarmstadt. • Herbert A. Simon was 31 years old when he published his book "Administrative Behavior" in 1947. • The aim of the book was to show how organizations can be understood in terms of their decision processes. • The language and conceptual framework for describing administration must be based on the logic and psychology of human choice, i.e. economic theory and psychology. • Simon got a Nobel's prize in 1978 for his contributions to science within decision processes in economic organizations. • His book, "Administrative Behavior", was emphasized in particular (Bakka and Fivesdal,) . Books
1. Measuring Munciple Activities in co
authorships with Clarence Ridley. 2. Administrative Behaviour 3. Public Administrative 4. Organisation: in co authorship with James G. March . 5. The New Science of Management Dicision The following conclusion from his book “administration Behaviour “ are worth recording:
The Organisation
1) a specialization of the organization according to
purpose, process, cliental (customers), or place;
2) arranging the organization in a determinate
hierarchy of authority;
3) limiting the span of control at any given point in
the hierarchy to a small number. • How does the organization fit the individuals behavior into an overall pattern ? • How does it establish and maintain the premises that influences his decisions?
• Simon distinguish between two principal sets of mechanisms or
aspects of influence external and internal:
• External mechanisms are the stimuli with which the organization
seeks to influence the individual. those that initiate behavior in a particular direction.
• Internal mechanisms are those which determines his response the
stimuli. those that cause behavior to persist in a particular direction once it has been turned in that direction. DECISION MAKING • Simons definition for a strategy is as follows: "Decision, or choice, is the process by which one of [the] alternatives for each moment's behavior is selected to be carried out. • The series of such decisions which determines behavior over some stretch of time may be called a strategy. • Simon, Administrative Behavior, - You will always choose the alternative which is highest on your value-scale (maximization). - You will always make the same choice if/when the situation recur. Model of Dicision making. According to him, the dicision process can be broken into a series of three steps .
a) Intelligence activity: borrowing from the millitary
meaning of intelligence , the initial phase consists of searching the environment for condition called dicision. b) Design Activity: In the phase inventing, developing and analysing possible course of action take place. c) Choice Activity : the third and final phase is the actual choice selecting a particular course of action from those available. The Economic Man The economic man represents the objective rationality in an ideal model. In reality there are of course limitations to this model. You are limited by unconscious skills, habits, and reflexes; by your values and conceptions of purpose, which may diverge from the organization goals; and by the extent of your knowledge and the information available . Actual behavior is thus limited compared to objective rationality in at least three ways:
• 1) Rationality requires a complete knowledge and anticipation of the
consequences that will follow on each choice. In fact, knowledge of consequences is always fragmentary. • 2) Since these questions lie in the future, imagination must supply the lack of experienced feeling in attaching value to them. But values can be only imperfectly anticipated. • 3) Rationality requires a choice among all possible alternative behaviors. In actual behavior, only a very few of all these possible alternatives come to mind. • Given these limitations a model of rational behavior by the administrative man is outlined. The administrative man as a model compared to economic man is different in two major ways: • - Whereas economic man maximizes - selects the best alternative from among all those available to him, his cousin, administrative man, satisfices - looks for a course of action that is satisfactory or "good enough.“
• - Economic man deals with the "real world" in all its
complexity. Administrative man recognizes that the world he perceives is a drastic simplified model .He makes his choices using a simple picture of the situation that takes into account just a few of the factors that he regards as most relevant and crucial. The Administrative Man • The administrative man will always have a simplified model of the situation in question.
• The administrative man will seek only a limited number of alternatives
and/or information about the consequences of different alternatives.
• Decision processes are oriented towards finding and choosing among
satisfying alternatives. Only occasionally a decision is driven by maximizing.
• -As the administrative man is satisfied with a limited knowledge of the
situation that she must consider, she can make decisions from relatively simple heuristics, which does not require an impossible or unrealistic overview and insight. Organisation and dicision making • Organizational influence are manifested through five mechanisms:
• Authority, defined as "the power to make decisions which guide
the actions of another. It is a relationship between two individuals, one "superior", the other "subordinate." The superior frames and transmits decisions with the expectation that they will be accepted by the subordinate.
• Communication. Formal communication is expresses by media's
like the spoken word, memoranda, letters, records, reports, and manuals. Informal communication is build around the social relationships of the members of the organization. • Training : "prepares the organization member to reach satisfactory decisions himself, without the need for constant exercise of authority or advice“ Training includes both "pre- service" (educational qualifications) and "in-service" (day-to-day supervision and formal training within the organization.
• The criterion of efficiency: which "demands that, of two
alternatives having the same cost, that one be chosen which will lead to the greater attainment of the organization objectives; and that, of two alternatives leading to the same degree of attainment, that one be chosen which entails the lesser cost” • Organizational identification and loyalty: This concerns the process whereby the individual substitutes organizational objectives (service objectives or conservation objectives) for his own aims as the value-indices which determine his organizational decisions.
Planning play a major role to organisation take a dicision.
• Planning involves general decisions that influences future
decisions by:
• limiting future possibilities by providing a strategy,
• guiding future decisions by providing particular values as a
decision criteria. (e.g. in terms of stated goals). JAMES G. MARCH INTRODUCTION James Gardne March (born 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio) is Jack Steele Parker Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, best known for his research on organizations and organizational decision making. March is highly respected for his BORN IN 1928 broad theoretical perspective which combined theories from psychology and other behavioural sciences. As a core member of the Carnegie School, he collaborated with the cognitive psychologist Herbert Simon on several works on organization theory. About his work: • The scope of his academic work is broad, but focused on understanding how decisions happen in individuals, groups, organizations, companies and society. • He explores factors that influences decision making, such as risk orientation, leadership and the ambiguity of the present and the past; politics and vested interests by stakeholders; the challenges of giving and receiving advice; the challenges of organizational and individual learning and the challenges of balancing exploration and exploitation in organizations. Contribution of James G. March in organisation: • In the book “organisation” written in collaboration with Herbert A. Simon , he has analysis the organisational phenomena. This book bears testimony to his deep insights into the organisational phenomena. • His model of organisation is descriptive , comprihending , analytic and predicts organisational behaviour. • He has indulged in mentioning universals in administration. According to March and Simon, in the U.S.A two types of views on the position of men in an organisation prevail .
There is a tendency to view the employee
as an inert instrunment performing the task assigned to him.