As an important school of management, decision theory focuses on rational decision-making, that is, how to choose a "satisfactory" action plan from various possible options. Herbert simon is the main representative of the decision-making school. This school absorbed the research results of system theory, behavioral science, operational research and computer science, and formed an independent management school in the 1970s.
The theoretical basis of decision-making school is economic theory, especially consumer choice theory, that is, under the premise of certain rationality, through the comparison and choice of various behaviors, the total utility or marginal utility is maximized. Therefore, they are also the main decision-making objects of decision-making theory school.
The school of decision theory attaches great importance to the study of the behavior and quality of decision makers themselves. In their book Organization, Simon and March regard "decision maker" as an independent management model, that is, they think that all members of an organization are decision makers who choose means reasonably to achieve a certain goal.
Simon pointed out that the important function of managers in an organization is decision-making.
1, decision-making includes four main stages:
(1) Find out the basis of decision-making, that is, collect information;
② Find a possible action plan;
(3) Choose among various action plans, that is, choose one plan from various alternatives according to the current situation and the forecast of future development;
④ Evaluate the selected scheme and its implementation. The last step in the decision-making process is also a key step to ensure the feasibility and smooth implementation of the selected scheme. After a comprehensive summary, it is found that in these four stages, company managers and their staff spend a large part of their working time investigating the economic, technological, political and social situations to identify new situations that need new actions.
2, decision-making is divided into programmed decision-making and non-programmed decision-making.
The so-called programmed decision-making is those routine decisions with routine and repeatability, and a set of routine procedures can be formulated to deal with them. For example, the order pricing of ordinary customers, the ordering of office supplies and the salary arrangement of sick employees.
The so-called non-programmed decision-making refers to those decisions that have not happened in the past, or whose exact nature and structure are uncertain or complicated, or whose role is very important and need to be handled in the way of doing it now. For example, a company decides to establish a profit-making organization in a country that has never operated before, research and development of new products and so on. However, it is difficult to absolutely distinguish between these two decisions. There is no obvious dividing line between them, but a continuum like a spectrum.
3. Different types of decision-making need different decision-making skills. Decision-making technology is divided into traditional technology and modern technology. Traditional technology is a classic technology, which has been used by some managers and organizations from the recorded history to the present generation. Modern technology is a series of new technologies developed after the Second World War.
* * Organizational design is an old problem in organizational theory. Simon's new contribution to organizational design theory is that his organizational design theory is based on his decision-making theory. Organizational design should be conducive to organizational decision-making, as well as information transmission and information processing necessary for decision-making. To this end, he thinks:
① The design of organizational structure should start with the establishment of organizational goal system, which is not only an important basis for defining organizational structure, but also an important factor affecting organizational decision-making environment.
② Division of labor. Simon's emphasis on organizational division of labor does not refer to the division of business content, but to decompose the organization of the whole decision-making system into relatively independent subsystems, so as to minimize the dependence between subsystems and give them full decision-making power, thus maximizing the decentralization of decision-making power.
③ The focus of the organization. Simon thinks that the environment of modern organizations is "rich in information". However, due to the limited ability of organization members, organizations must spend their limited ability on important decision-making tasks.
(4) the power allocation of the organization. Simon thinks that centralization and decentralization have their own advantages and disadvantages from the perspective of organizational decision-making, so he emphasizes that decentralization and centralization should be appropriate rather than absolute, because organizational activities are collective activities, and there must be a certain centralized coordination mechanism to successfully achieve organizational goals. However, if it is excessively centralized, it will lead to the decision-makers being overburdened and unable to concentrate on major decision-making issues, and it will also cause problems such as inaction of lower-level personnel and decision-making being divorced from reality.
In a word, Simon's research method of administrative organization with decision as the core changes the research focus of administrative organization from the static level of system, legal system and structure to the dynamic research of decision-making process. At present, this research trend of public administration, which is dominated by decision and policy, has become one of the schools of western administration.