The theory of administrative decision-making was formed in 1930s-1940s. First of all, put forward the viewpoint of administrative decision-making in books related to decision-making theory.
Is an American scholar L. Gulick. In the article "Organization Theory", he thinks that decision-making is one of the main functions of administrative management. Later, American scholar C.I. Barnard thought that administrative decision-making was an important strategic factor to achieve organizational goals in his book The Function of Executive Leadership. These views have a great influence on the later administrative decision-making theory. However, the formation of the theoretical system of administrative decision-making and its important position in administrative science were realized by the American administrative scientist H.A. Simon. 1944, he put forward the outline of decision-making theory for the first time in the article Decision-making and Administrative Organization. Three years later, he published "Administrative Behavior-Research on Decision-making Procedures in Administrative Organizations", which became the earliest monograph on decision-making theory. Since then, he has continued to study decision-making theory and practical decision-making technology (including operational research and computer science), laying the foundation for decision-making to become a new management discipline.
Representative theory
Decision-making concepts, principles, theories, etc. The word "decision" usually refers to making a choice and decision from a variety of possibilities. The theory of administrative decision is the theoretical basis for guiding and explaining administrative decision. There are many theories of administrative decision-making, and different scholars explain the problems from different angles. Representative theories include the following.
Completely rational decision theory
Also known as objective rational decision theory. Representative figures are British economists J. Bentham, Herbert-A. Simon, F. W. Taylor and so on. They believe that man is an economic man who insists on pursuing the greatest value. Economic man has maximum rationality and can make the best choice to achieve organizational and personal goals. Its performance in decision-making is: before making a decision, all actions and their effects can be fully considered; According to their own value standards, decision makers choose the actions with the greatest value as countermeasures. This theory only assumes that people make decisions under complete rationality, not in the state of actual decision-making.
Continuous finite comparative decision theory
The representative is Simon. He believes that people's actual actions can't be completely rational, and decision makers are administrators with limited rationality. It is impossible to foresee all the results, so they can only choose a "satisfactory" plan from the alternatives. When "executors" simplify their views on the administrative environment, they often can't grasp all kinds of complex factors in the decision-making environment, but only see a limited number of schemes and some of their results. In fact, the degree of rationality has a great influence on decision makers, but the role of organizational factors in decision-making can not be ignored.
Rationality and organizational decision theory
The representative figure is J.G. March, an American organizational scholar. He admits the existence of individual rationality, and thinks that human rationality is limited by individual wisdom and ability, so it must rely on the role of organization. By organizing the division of labor, each decision-maker can clarify his work and learn more about the action plan and action results. Organizations provide certain guidance for individuals, so that decision-making has a clear direction. Organizations use power and communication methods to make it easy for decision makers to choose favorable action plans, thus increasing the rationality of decision-making. The basis for measuring the rationality of decision makers is organizational goals rather than personal goals.
Realistic progressive decision theory
The representative figure is American political economist C.E. Linde blom. The basic point of his theory is not human rationality, but the reality that people face, and gradually change it. He believes that decision makers can't have all the wisdom of human beings and all the information about decision-making, and the time and cost of decision-making are limited, so decision makers can only take the method of coping with the situation and make decisions in "biased intermodulation". This theory requires the decision-making procedure to be simplified, the decision-making is feasible and meets the requirements of interest groups in order to solve practical problems. This theory emphasizes reality and gradual change, which has attracted the attention of administrative decision makers.
Irrational decision theory
Representative figures are Austrian psychologist S Floyd and Italian sociologist V Pareto. Rational decision theory
The basic point of this theory is neither man's rationality nor the reality that man faces, but man's lust. They believe that people's behavior is largely dominated by the subconscious mind, and many decision-making behaviors often show unconscious and irrational lust, which shows that decision makers often use emotions when dealing with problems, thus making unwise arrangements. The development trend of administrative decision-making theory is: ① emphasizing the influence of human judgment on decision-making. For example, behavioral decision theory discusses the method of decision makers seeking suboptimal behavior; Social judgment theory holds that decision makers are influenced by different environments, which will lead to inaccurate judgment; Attribution decision theory emphasizes that under the action of environmental variables, decision makers will be influenced by accidental factors. ② Expanding the application scope of administrative decision theory. For example, applying the decision-making method to the effectiveness analysis of administrative management; Introducing decision theory into the study of sudden crisis; Apply decision theory to the field of policy analysis, and study the reasons and opportunities of policy mistakes.
The viewpoint of decision theory
Decision-making theory is developed on the basis of system theory and absorbs the research results of behavioral science, operational research and computer science. The main representative is American Simon, whose representative is the new science of management decision-making. Simon won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics for his pioneering research in decision theory and decision application. The viewpoint of decision theory is mainly manifested in three aspects: 1) highlighting the position of decision in management. Decision management theory holds that the essence of management is decision-making, which runs through the whole process of management and determines the success or failure of the whole management activity. If the decision-making is wrong, no matter how rich the resources and advanced the technology are, it will not help. 2) The decision-making principle is expounded systematically. Simon made a scientific analysis of decision-making procedures, standards, types and decision-making skills, and proposed to replace the "optimization standards" of traditional decision-making theory with "satisfaction standards" to study the solutions to conflicts in the decision-making process. 3) Emphasize the role of decision makers. People think that an organization is a system composed of individual decision makers. Therefore, it is emphasized that we should not only attach importance to the application of new scientific methods such as quantitative methods and calculation techniques, but also attach importance to the role of social factors such as psychological factors and interpersonal relationships in decision-making.
development trends
The development trend of administrative decision theory is: 1. Emphasize the influence of human judgment on decision-making. For example, behavioral decision theory discusses the method of decision makers seeking suboptimal behavior; Social judgment theory holds that decision makers are influenced by different environments, which will lead to inaccurate judgment; Attribution decision theory emphasizes that under the action of environmental variables, decision makers will be influenced by accidental factors. 2. The application scope of administrative decision theory has been expanded. For example, applying the decision-making method to the effectiveness analysis of administrative management; Introducing decision theory into the study of sudden crisis; Apply decision theory to the field of policy analysis, and study the reasons and opportunities of policy mistakes.
Basic points
Basic viewpoints of Simon's decision theory
1. Decision-making runs through the whole process of management. Management is decision-making (1). Decision theory is a new stage in the development of management theory. (2) An organization is a system composed of individuals as decision makers. (3) All management activities of an organization are decision-making. (2) Decision-making is a process. (1) information activities. (2) Design activities. (3) Selection activities. (4) Review activities. Decision-making should adopt "bounded rationality". The standard of human's "absolute rationality" (2) People's behavior in an organization is that "managers" have limited rationality and choose task-centered means reasonably in order to achieve a certain goal (3) Limited rationality leads managers to seek "satisfaction" or "satisfaction" measures. 4. Decision-making can be divided into fixed decision-making and non-fixed decision-making, and decision-making skills are different from decision-making theory.
(1) Types of decision-making (2) Techniques of decision-making (5) Relationships between decision-making and organization, centralization and decentralization, and information connection (1) The division of organizations must be based on the types of decisions to be made (2) Centralization and decentralization cannot exist in isolation from the decision-making process (3) Both line leaders and staff officers have decision-making problems (4) The premise of decision-making is passed from one organization member to another.
Comment on "Simon's Decision Theory"
1. Contribution of decision theory II. Limitations of decision theory
The Contribution of Simon's Decision Theory
(1) gives a highly theoretical summary of complex management activities, fully considers the whole field of management and its environment, and makes management theory develop around the decision center. (2) The system structure of decision theory can provide managers with systematic methods to analyze and solve problems. It encourages managers to discover and explore all kinds of potential countermeasures and possible natural conditions, and can make full use of all kinds of scientific knowledge and technical means to form a more comprehensive and systematic management method and technology, so that management has certain operability. (3) The bounded rationality standard of managers (or decision makers) has considerable objectivity, feasibility and strong practical significance for the management decision of industrial and commercial enterprises.
Limitations of Simon's decision theory
(1) decision theory, as the mainstream general management theory, obviously fails to fully reflect the regularity of management activities, lacks the analysis of general management relations and links, and ignores the fact that management work is much more complicated than decision-making. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, it also belongs to the management theory of management methods, means or technologies. (2) Simon's decision-making theory is essentially a management decision-making theory, but it does not include the business (or management) decision-making content based on the organizational work of enterprises such as production, sales and capital operation. From this point of view, like other management theories, it is not closely integrated with the business activities of enterprises and cannot become the mainstream theory of enterprise management theory.