Professional Documents
Culture Documents
within organizations.
Keywords: Herbert A. Simon; Organizational Theories; Bounded Rationality;
Behavioral Theory; Decision Making.
1 Introduction
The administration in the social sciences has been recognized mainly
the contribution of thinkers who, through tireless research and studies,
improved understanding of organizational phenomena. Many of these researchers
absolute truths challenged and fought against prevailing currents, with the ideal of
bringing
organizational studies to a much more reliable real environment
organizational.
One of these thinkers was Herbert A. Simon, who had recognized its importance
in the field of organizational studies from the significant relevance of their theses.
His greatest recognition came from the refutation of some of the basic assumptions
neoclassical economics, a fact that earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics in
1978. More
specifically, in the area of management studies, Simon is known as the father of
behaviorism.
The purpose of this article is to map and retrieve the key contributions of
Simon in the context of organizational studies. However, it is worth noting that the
importance
his work transcends the boundaries of the social sciences, creating impact in
several
areas of scientific knowledge.
To achieve the goal proposed here, we carried out a comprehensive analysis of its
publications, totaling approximately 845 original works (including articles and
books)
published from 1937 to February 2001. The search strategy used
consisted of two stages: the first included a study of the major publications of the
author
and the second consisted of a content analysis of the titles of all your
original publications.
The text is structured as follows: section 2, will be presented
main concerns and contributions of Simon for the various areas of knowledge;
in section 3, we present the results of the analysis of their publications, and finally
in
section 4, some concluding remarks will be given.
2 Concerns and Contributions to Organizational Theory
Simon studies have traversed the fields of economics, psychology,
Simon says the administrator, and make decisions in the best way
possible, you should ensure that everyone in your organization to also take
effectively. According to the author, the last 40 years, the techniques of decision
making
have advanced considerably depending on the development of a large number of
tools - in particular, the tools of operations research, science
management technologies and expert systems (Simon, 1987).
Worried about providing knowledge the decision maker, Simon grants
special attention to computer information systems. For the author, historically,
information was a scarce factor in the decision-making process, but at the moment
current, are being made available large amounts of information and this provided
a lack of time for people to process this information. Consequently, the process of
information requires computational systems (expert systems or intelligence
artificial) that allow the process to work efficiently informational (Simon, 1998).
These systems provide each member of the group a substantial part of
information, assumptions, goals and attitudes that are part of the process
decision. It should be noted that the importance given to information systems can
be
related to the concept that, according to Simon, defines the organization: complex
communications system and inter-relationships that exist in a human group
(Simon, 1947).
2.2 Contribution of Simon to Economics
Simon won the Nobel Prize in Economics for helping to "push" the economy
conventional theory of supply and demand to the complexity of the real world of
psychology and
behavioral science. He introduced the theory of bounded rationality, in which
contrasted the classical view that administrators always make decisions that
maximize profits and that individuals always make the best choice among several
alternatives. Simon noted that information processing is limited by the people
and generally seek to a satisfactory approximation of the results (March and
Simon,
1958).
Lambasting the economy, Simon (1999, p. 94) argues as follows:
"People should consider that decision makers possess skills
Limited to evaluate all possible alternatives of a decision, as well as handle
the uncertain consequences of its decision. One theory, to come into existence,
should
be firmly based on knowledge about the process of decision making and current
real human beings. The lesson that the economy is just beginning to learn is that
a theory can not be built in the comfort of an armchair without foundations
optimization. In his view, Simon argues that an alternative is good only if: (1)
A set of criteria that enable all alternatives are compared and
(2) the alternative is chosen according to these criteria. Moreover, an alternative is
satisfactory when: (1) there is a set of criteria that describes a minimum
satisfaction of the alternatives and (2) the chosen alternative meets these criteria
(March and
Simon, 1958).
2.3 Contribution to Administrative Theories
In his book Administrative behavior, Simon makes some harsh criticism of the
theory
classical management, especially with regard to administrative principles.
According to the author, most known principles of administration are as
sayings, i.e., in pairs and for each principle, there is another which is
contradictory. Simon also indicates that studies suffer from administrative
superficiality, oversimplification and lack of objectivity. He argues that a
generally has been left out of studying the actual location of decision-making
functions,
content to speak of terms like authority, centralization, span of control and
function without trying, however, to define them operationally.
The author cites, for example, the case of mismatch principle
specialization with the principle of the control unit, both being presented
Originally by Fayol in 1916. If the decisions of an individual at any point in
administrative hierarchy, always subject to the influence of a single channel
authority (control unit) requires a broader knowledge about the
organization, which is restricted by the principle of specialization.
Another criticism made by Simon is in relation to the appearance of authority, too
emphasized the aspect of persuasion and arbitrariness by the authors of the theory
classic. Simon (1947) has the authority as one of various ways of influencing the
behavior of individuals, and its main feature persuasion and
agreement of the subordinate.
For Simon (1947), the social sciences suffered from acute schizophrenia,
especially in relation to the importance given to rationality. At one extreme,
were economists who attributed the rational economic man an omniscience
absurd, and other extreme would be the trends of social psychology, that reduced
the
knowledge of and affection showed that people are not as rational as
think.
With the proposition of behavioral theory addressing aspects of rational ity
Limited, Simon sought a balance between the two previous approaches based on
Rationality (16), reasoning (14) rational (12); heuristic (9): the frequency of these
words in their publications resulting from the theme of the text presented in the
Nobel
1978, in which Simon proposed the theory of bounded rationality, indicating that
being
human makes decisions that meet the minimum standards of satisfaction and never
optimization.
Organization (46), public (17), municipal (11): the occurrence of these terms
demonstrates the
Simon's concern with the study of the problems of public organizations and
private.
One must consider that the fragility inherent lexical analysis technique (at
fact just point the frequency of pala Vras out of context), the considerations
Science (61); theory (58); solving (problem) (51), human (51) information (48);
organization (46);
computers (45); model (45); behavior / behavioral (44); cognitive (38); decision
(36); system (34);
Scientific (33), economic (31); administration / administrative (29); social (29)
discovering (27);
making (decision) (26); psychology (23); simulation (21) technology (21); chess
(18); artificialintelligence
(18); management (17); public (17); complex (15); rationality (16); reasoning (14);
modeling (12); rational (12); municipal (11); heuristic (9), mathematical (9);
planning (9); expert
presented above have a high degree of bias, if the author of this article had not
a priori depth study and understanding of classical works of Simon.
Table 1 presents the publications of Simon not for decades, but in
periods in which they highlighted some issues of greatest importance.
Chart 1. Frequencies of keywords in different publications Simon
periods.
PERIOD FREQUENCY KEY WORDS
1937 - 1946 Administration (10), municipal (10), city (7), public (3) Local (3)
urban (2); behavior
(1); decision (1) human (1).
1947 - 1956 Theories (14); organization (12), human (11) administration (11);
behavior (8);
decision (7), economic (5); science (5); rational (4), public (3), problem-solving
(2).
1957 - 1966 Computer (14); decision (14), human (14), problem-solving (12);
theory (11);
simulation (10); heuristic (7) information (7); behavior (6).
H.
A.
(1943).
ASPECTS
OF
FISCAL
CONSOLIDATION
METROPOLITAN.
Simon, HA, Shephard, RW & Sharp, FW (1943). Losses FIRE AND FIRE RISKS.
1947 to 1956
Simon, H. A. (1947). TECHNIQUE OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION.
H.A.,
Smithburg,
D.W.,
(1950). PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION.
Simon, HA, Kozometsky, G., Guetzkow, H., & Tyndall, G. (1954). Centralization
VS.
Decentralization IN THE CONTROLLER'S DEPARTMENT Organizing
1957 to 1966
Simon, H. A. (1957). MODELS OF MAN.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). ORGANIZATIONS.
Simon, H. A. (1960). THE NEW SCIENCE OF MANAGEMENT DECISION.
Holt, CC, Modigliani, Muth, J., & Simon, HA (1960). PRODUCTION
PLANNING,
INVENTORIES, AND WORK FORCE.
Ando, A., Fisher, C., & Simon, H. A. (1963). ESSAYS ON THE STRUCTURE OF
SOCIAL SCIENCE
MODELS.
Simon, H. A. (1965). THE SHAPE OF AUTOMATION.
1967 to 1979
Simon, H. A. (1969). THE SCIENCES OF THE ARTIFICIAL.
H.
A.,
&
Siklossy,
L.
(Eds.).
(1972).
MEANING
AND
REPRESENTATION: Experiments
WITH INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEMS.
Ijiri, Y., and Simon, H. A. (1977). SKEW DISTRIBUTIONS AND THE SIZES OF
BUSINESS FIRMS.
Simon, H. A. (1977). MODELS OF DISCOVERY.
Simon, H. A. (1979). MODELS OF THOUGHT (Vol. I).
1980 to 2001
Simon, H. A. (1982). MODELS OF bounded rationality (Vols. 1 & 2).
Simon, H. A. (1983). REASON IN HUMAN AFFAIRS.
Ericsson, K.A., & Simon, H. A. (1984). PROTOCOL ANALYSIS: VERBAL
REPORTS AS DATE.
Langley, P. Simon, HA, Bradshaw, GL & Zytkow, JM (1987). SCIENTIFIC
DISCOVERY:
COMPUTATIONAL EXPLORATIONS OF THE CREATIVE PROCESSES.
Simon, H. A. (1989). MODELS OF THOUGHT (Vol. II).
Simon, H. A. (1991). MODELS OF MY LIFE.
Simon, H. A. (1997). MODELS OF bounded rationality (Vol. 3).
Looking at Table 2, it is observed that the works that contributed most to the
human behavior.
The relevance of the ideas of Simon to organizational theory stands out as much
for
greatness of his propositions as the principles that led his work.
According to the author, their activities related to science have always had two
principles
Guiding: first, to work for the hardening of social science, so that it
could be better equipped with the tools they need for the difficult tasks
research, and second, to work to improve relations between natural scientists and
social scientists, so that they could contribute together with the knowledge
and skills in the many complex issues of public policy that require both
types of knowledge (Simon, 1978). Mentioning their practical experiences in
organizations, said that in his work always tried to apply their knowledge
scientific decision making in organizations and, conversely, use these
practical experiences to gain ideas for new research (Simon, 1978). In order to
disseminate their ideas, Simon worked in various institutions participated in
numerous
Congress finally had an academic and professional life quite intense.
Finally, it is worth noting that Simon, along with others, helped
better understanding of organizational phenomena. Many of the "fads" recent
Accessed
March 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Official site with full bibliography of the author, his research
interests in recent
area
of
psychology.
Available
at:
http://psy.cmu.edu/psy/faculty/hsimon/hsimon:html. Accessed
March 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Official site with other author information. Available from:
http://psy.cmu.edu/psy/faculty/hsimon/. Accessed March 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Recent research interests in computer science. Available from:
http://www.psy.cmu.edu/psy/faculty/hsimon/comp-sci.html. Accessed March 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Recent research interests in philosophy. Available from:
http://hss.cmu.edu/html/departaments/philosophi/people/directory/herbert_simon.h
tml. Accessed
in March 2001.
SIMON, H. A. Recent research interests include economics and management.
Available from:
http://www.gsia.cmu.edu/afs/andrew/gsia/workproc/roster/ful.time/simon/html.
Accessed March
2001.
SIMON, H. A. Recent research interests in computer science. Available from:
http://psy.cmu.edu/psy/faculty/hsimon/hsimon:html. Accessed March 2001.