Administrative Decision-Making Processes
Organizations are often structured in ways which empower a single individual or small group to make key decisions. In democratic systems, these decision makers are usually expected to obtain advice from affected parties and then make a decision which advances the interests of the whole organization while fairly resolving competing interests. Such administrative decision makers may be business owners, department heads, government officials, judges, mayors, governors, and so forth. In some cases these people derive their power from legal, political, or economic processes which are widely regarded as legitimate. In other cases the decision makers may derive their power from illegitimate processes which depend upon physical force, violence, and intimidation to maintain control. While administrative decision making processes are widely used and and can be highly efficient, they depend upon the wisdom and altruism of the decision maker. This in turn requires some effective mechanism for replacing decision makers who act in ways which violate accepted standards of fairness. In cases where these mechanisms do not exist, administrative decision makers can become tyrants.
Administrative Decision Making
The pioneering scholar of the theory of decision making in organizations, was Herbert Simon. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and was one of the most celebrated political scientist, economist, sociologist and also a psychologist. His body of work covers topics from administration to cognitive psychology to artificial intelligence. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his most important work, the decision making process of the organizations. Therefore, for the sake of our discussion we shall refer to the theories and concepts provided by Simon for the administrative decision making.
In his book Administrative Behavior: a Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organizations, he makes a very remarkable statement that decision making is the heart of administration. He went on to add further that the logic and psychology of human choice determine the administrative theory. The entire premise of Simon’s work is based on the logical rational model as mentioned earlier, but it is important to understand rationality within this particular context of decision making.
In Simon’s work, rationality becomes a variable and he was aware of the limitations of human rationality as well which are not static but depend on the environment of the organization in which the decisions take place. According to Simon, the task of the administration should be to design such an environment in which the individual approach becomes as rational as practicably be possible.