Thursday, October 10, 2024

garbage can model of organizational choice

 
A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice

   Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen

   Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25

   March 1972

   Administrative Science Quarterly  is currently published by Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell university. 

Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, March 1972

   (Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972  )
   ____________________________________


Cohen, March, Olsen 

   •  “Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities 
      lead first to the generation of decision alternatives, then to a 
      examination of their consequences, then to an evaluation of those 
      consequences in terms of objectives, and finally to a decision, this 
      type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.”, 
      p.2, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage 
      Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 
      Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972

p.2
Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities lead first to 
   (λ) the generation of decision alternatives, 
        then to 
   (μ) an examination of their consequences, 
        then to 
   (ν) an evaluation of those consequences 
        in terms of objectives, and finally to 
   (ξ) a decision, 
        this type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.

   •  “Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have
      formulated the question well, you often do not know what the 
      question is in organizational problem solving [OPS] until you know 
      the answer.”, p.3, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. 
      Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative
      Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972

   •  “..., one can view a choice opportunity as a garbage can into which
      various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants
      as they are generated.  
       The mix of garbage in a single can depends on the 
        (ο) mix of cans available, on 
        (π) the labels attached to the alternative cans, on 
        (ρ) what garbage is currently being produced, and on 
        (σ) the speed with which garbage is collected and 
        (τ) removed from the scene.”, 
      p.2, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and  Johan P. Olsen, 
      ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative 
      Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972d

   •  “Problems are worked upon in the context of some choice, but choices 
      are made only when the shifting combinations of problems, solutions, 
      and decision makers happen to make action possible.”, p.16, Michael D.
      Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of 
      Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 
      Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972  

Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, March 1972

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

p.2
THE BASIC IDEAS
   Decision opportunities are fundamentally ambiguous stimuli. This theme runs through several recent studies of organizational choice.2 
   2  We have based the model heavily on seven recent studies of universities:  Christensen (1971), Cohen and March (1972), Enderud (1971), Moode (1971), Olsen (1970, 1971), and Rommetveit (1971).  The ideas, however, have a broader parentage.  In particular, they obviously owe a debt to Allison (1969), Coleman (1957), Cyert and March (1963), Lindblom (1965), Long (1958), March and Simon (1958), Schilling (1968), Thompson (1967), and Vickers (1965). 

p.2 
From this point of view, an organization is a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work. 

p.2
   To understand processes within organizations, one can view a choice opportunity as a garbage can into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they are generated.  The mix of garbage in a single can depends on the mix of cans available, on the labels attached to the alternative cans, on what garbage is currently being produced, and on the speed with which garbage is collected and removed from the scene. 

   •  “..., one can view a choice opportunity as a garbage can into which
      various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants
      as they are generated.  The mix of garbage in a single can depends 
      on the mix of cans available, on the labels attached to the 
      alternative cans, on what garbage is currently being produced, and 
      on the speed with which garbage is collected and removed from the 
      scene.”, p.2, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, 
      ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative 
      Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

p.2
   Such a theory of organizational decision making must concern itself with a relatively complicated interplay among the generation of problems in an organization, the deployment of personnel, the production of solutions, and the opportunities for choice. 

p.2
Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities lead first to the generation of decision alternatives, then to an examination of their consequences, then to an evaluation of those consequences in terms of objectives, and finally to a decision of what actually happens.

p.2
Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities lead first to       (λ) the generation of decision alternatives, 
        then to 
   (μ) an examination of their consequences, 
        then to 
   (ν) an evaluation of those consequences 
        in terms of objectives, and finally to 
   (ξ) a decision, 
        this type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.

   •  “Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities 
      lead first to the generation of decision alternatives, then to a 
      examination of their consequences, then to an evaluation of those 
      consequences in terms of objectives, and finally to a decision, this 
      type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.”, 
      p.2, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage 
      Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 
      Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972

pp.2-3
In the garbage can model, on the other hand, a decision is an outcome or interpretation of several relatively independent streams within an organization. 
   Attention is limited here to interrelations among four such streams

   Problems.  Problems are the concern of the people inside and outside the organization.  They might arise over issues of lifestyles; family; frustrations of work; careers; group relations within the organization; distribution of status, jobs, and money; ideology; or current crises of mankind as interpreted by the mass media or the nextdoor neighbor.  All of these require attention. 

   Solutions.  A solution is somebody's product.  A computer is not just a solution to a problem in payroll management, discovered when needed.  It is an answer actively looking for a question.  The creation of need is not a curiousity of the market in consumer products; it is a general phenomenon of processes of choice.  Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have formulated the question well, you often do not know what the question is in organizational problem solving until you know the answer. 

   •  “Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have
      formulated the question well, you often do not know what the 
      question is in organizational problem solving [OPS] until you know 
      the answer.”, p.3, Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. 
      Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative
      Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972
      ([ iterative problem-solving technique:  the iterative cycle     ])
      ([  could be minutes (25-minutes), hours (2-hours), days, weeks, ])
      ([  months, years (59-years), centuries (inter-generational);    ])
      ([  how fast and how slow you can evolutionary iterate depends   ])
      ([  on the kind of bundle you come up with, that might lead to   ])
      ([  the next questions, that could provide the insight to the    ])
      ([  next stage of the iterative process; whether you come up     ])
      ([  answer or not depends on the ‘Garbage Can Model of           ])
      ([  Organizational Choice’                                       ]) 

   Participants.  Participants come and go.  Since every entrance is an exit somewhere else, the distribution of “entrances” depends on the attributes of the choice being left as much as it does on the attributes of the new choice.  Substantial variation in participation stems from other demands on the participants' time (rather than from features of the decision under study).  

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated.  

p.3
Attention will be concentrated here on examining the consequences of different rates and patterns of flows in each of the streams and different procedures for relating them. 

p.8 
   By resolution.  Some choices resolve problems after some period of working on them.  The length of time may vary, depending on the number of problems.  This is the familiar case that is implicit in most discussions of choice within organizations. 

p.8
   By oversight.  If a choice is activated when problems are attached to other choices and if there is energy available to make the new choice quickly, it will be made without any attention to existing problems and with a minimum of time and energy. 

p.8
   By flight.  In some cases choices are associated with problems (unsuccessfully) for some time until a choice more attractive to the problems comes along.  The problems leave the choice, and thus it is now possible to make the decision. The decision resolves no problems; they having now attached themselves to a new choice. 

p.8
   Some choices involve both flight and resolution──some problems leave, the remainder are solved. 

p.10
The system, in effect, produces a queue of problems in terms of their importance, to the disadvantage of late-arriving, relatively unimportant problems, and particularly so when load is heavy. 

pp.10-11
   Seventh (7th), important choices are less likely to resolve problems than unimportant choices.  Important choices are made by oversight and flight.  Unimportant choices are made by resolution. 

p.11
This property of important choices in a garbage can decision process can be naturally and directly related to the phenomenon in complex organizations of important choices which often appear to just happen. 

p.11
   Eighth (8th), although a large proportion of the choice are made, the choice failures that do occur are concentrated among the most important and least important choices.  Choices of intermediate importance are virtually always made.  

p.11
   In a broad sense, these features of the process provide some clues to how organizations survive when they do not know what they are doing.  Much of the process violates standard notions of how decisions ought to be made. 

p.11
When objectives are charged to discover some alternative decision procedures which permit them to proceed without doing extraordinary violence to the domains of participants or to their model of what an organization should be.  It is a hard charge, to which the process described is a partial response. 

pp.11-12
A choice that might, under some circumstances, be made with little effort becomes an arena for many problems.  The choice becomes almost impossible to make, until the problems drift off to another arena.  The matching of problems, choices, and decision makers is partly controlled by attributes of content, relevance, and competence; but it is also quite sensitive to attributes of timing, the particular combinations of current garbage cans, and the overall load on the system. 

p.16
The garbage can process is one in which problems, solutions, and participants move from one choice opportunity to another in such a way that the nature of the choice, the time it takes, and the problem it solves all depend on a relatively complicated intermeshing of elements. These include the mix of choices available at any one time, the mix of problems that have access to the organization, the mix of solutions looking for problems, and the outside demands on the decision makers. 

p.16
The garbage can process is one in which 
   (θ) problems, 
   (ι) solutions, and 
   (κ) participants 
  move from one choice opportunity to another in such a way that 
      (α) the nature of the choice, 
      (β) the time it takes, and 
      (γ) the problem it solves all depend on a relatively 
     complicated intermeshing of elements. These include 
         (δ) the mix of choices available at any one time, 
         (ε) the mix of problems that have access to the organization, 
         (ζ) the mix of solutions looking for problems, and 
         (η) the outside demands on the decision makers. 

   Problems.  Problems are the concern of the people inside and outside the organization.  They might arise over issues of lifestyles; family; frustrations of work; careers; group relations within the organization; distribution of status, jobs, and money; ideology; or current crises of mankind as interpreted by the mass media or the nextdoor neighbor.  All of these require attention., p.3   

   Solutions.  A solution is somebody's product.  A computer is not just a solution to a problem in payroll management, discovered when needed.  It is an answer actively looking for a question.  The creation of need is not a curiousity of the market in consumer products; it is a general phenomenon of processes of choice.  Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have formulated the question well, you often do not know what the question is in organizational problem solving until you know the answer., p.3   

   Participants.  Participants come and go.  Since every entrance is an exit somewhere else, the distribution of “entrances” depends on the attributes of the choice being left as much as it does on the attributes of the new choice.  Substantial variation in participation stems from other demands on the participants' time (rather than from features of the decision under study)., p.3 

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated.  

p.16
   A major feature of the garbage can process is the partial uncoupling of problems and choices. 
p.16
Although decision making is thought of as a process for solving problems, that is often not what happens. 
p.16
Problems are worked upon in the context of some choice, but choices are made only when the shifting combinations of problems, solutions, and decision makers happen to make action possible.  Quite commonly this is after problems have left a given choice arena or before they have discovered it (decisions by flight or oversight). 

   •  “Problems are worked upon in the context of some choice, but choices 
      are made only when the shifting combinations of problems, solutions, 
      and decision makers happen to make action possible.”, p.16, Michael D.
      Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of 
      Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 
      Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972  

   By flight.  In some cases choices are associated with problems (unsuccessfully) for some time until a choice more attractive to the problems comes along.  The problems leave the choice, and thus it is now possible to make the decision. The decision resolves no problems; they having now attached themselves to a new choice., p.8  

   By oversight.  If a choice is activated when problems are attached to other choices and if there is energy available to make the new choice quickly, it will be made without any attention to existing problems and with a minimum of time and energy., p.8  

   By resolution.  Some choices resolve problems after some period of working on them.  The length of time may vary, depending on the number of problems.  This is the familiar case that is implicit in most discussions of choice within organizations., p.8  

p.16
The garbage can model is a first step toward seeing the systematic interrelatedness of organizational phenomena which are familiar, even common, but which have previously been regarded as isolated and pathological.
p.16
Measured against a conventional normative mode of rational choice, the garbage can process does appear pathological, but such standards are not really appropriate. 
p.16 
The process occurs precisely when the preconditions of more normal rational models are not met. 

p.16
   It is clear that the garbage can process does not resolve problem well. 
p.16
But it does enable choices to be made and problems resolved, even when the organization is plagued with goal ambiguity and conflict, with poorly understood problems that wander in and out of the system, with a variable environment, and with decision makers who may have other things on their minds. 

pp.16-17
   There is a large class of significant situations in which the preconditions of the garbage can process cannot be eliminated.  In some, such as pure research, or the family, they should not be eliminated. 

   (Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972  )
  <--------------------------------------------------------------------------> 

Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, March 1972

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

p.2
THE BASIC IDEAS
   Decision opportunities are fundamentally ambiguous stimuli. This theme runs through several recent studies of organizational choice.2 
   2  We have based the model heavily on seven recent studies of universities:  Christensen (1971), Cohen and March (1972), Enderud (1971), Moode (1971), Olsen (1970, 1971), and Rommetveit (1971).  The ideas, however, have a broader parentage.  In particular, they obviously owe a debt to Allison (1969), Coleman (1957), Cyert and March (1963), Lindblom (1965), Long (1958), March and Simon (1958), Schilling (1968), Thompson (1967), and Vickers (1965). 

p.2 
From this point of view, an organization is a collection of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer, and decision makers looking for work. 

p.2
   To understand processes within organizations, one can view a choice opportunity as a garbage can into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they are generated.  The mix of garbage in a single can depends on the mix of cans available, on the labels attached to the alternative cans, on what garbage is currently being produced, and on the speed with which garbage is collected and removed from the scene. 

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

p.2
   Such a theory of organizational decision making must concern itself with a relatively complicated interplay among the generation of problems in an organization, the deployment of personnel, the production of solutions, and the opportunities for choice. 

p.2
Significant parts of contemporary theories of management introduce mechanisms for control and coordination which assume the existence of well-defined goals and a well-defined technology, as well as substantial participant involvement in the affairs of the organization.  Where goals and technology are hazy and participation is fluid, many of the axioms and standard procedures of management collapse. 
p.2
   This article is directed to a behavioral theory of organized anarchy. 
p.2
A model for describing decision making within organized anarchies is developed, and the impact of some aspects of organizational structure on the process of choice within such a model is examined. 

p.2
Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities lead first to the generation of decision alternatives, then to an examination of their consequences, then to an evaluation of those consequences in terms of objectives, and finally to a decision, this type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.

p.2
Although it maybe convenient to imagine that choice opportunities lead first to  
   (λ) the generation of decision alternatives, 
        then to 
   (μ) an examination of their consequences, 
        then to 
   (ν) an evaluation of those consequences 
        in terms of objectives, and finally to 
   (ξ) a decision, 
        this type of model is often a poor description of what actually happens.

   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

pp.2-3
In the garbage can model, on the other hand, a decision is an outcome or interpretation of several relatively independent streams within an organization. 
   Attention is limited here to interrelations among four such streams

   Problems.  Problems are the concern of the people inside and outside the organization.  They might arise over issues of lifestyles; family; frustrations of work; careers; group relations within the organization; distribution of status, jobs, and money; ideology; or current crises of mankind as interpreted by the mass media or the nextdoor neighbor.  All of these require attention., p.3  

   Solutions.  A solution is somebody's product.  A computer is not just a solution to a problem in payroll management, discovered when needed.  It is an answer actively looking for a question.  The creation of need is not a curiousity of the market in consumer products; it is a general phenomenon of processes of choice.  Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have formulated the question well, you often do not know what the question is in organizational problem solving until you know the answer., p.3  

   Participants.  Participants come and go.  Since every entrance is an exit somewhere else, the distribution of “entrances” depends on the attributes of the choice being left as much as it does on the attributes of the new choice.  Substantial variation in participation stems from other demands on the participants' time (rather than from features of the decision under study)., p.3   
   Choice opportunities.  These are occasions when an organization is expected to produce behavior that can be called a decision. Opportunities arise regularly and any organization has ways of declaring an occasion for choice.  Contracts must be signed; people hired, promoted, or fired; money spent; and responsibilities allocated., p.3   

p.3
Attention will be concentrated here on examining the consequences of different rates and patterns of flows in each of the streams and different procedures for relating them. 

p.8 
   By resolution.  Some choices resolve problems after some period of working on them.  The length of time may vary, depending on the number of problems.  This is the familiar case that is implicit in most discussions of choice within organizations. 

p.8
   By oversight.  If a choice is activated when problems are attached to other choices and if there is energy available to make the new choice quickly, it will be made without any attention to existing problems and with a minimum of time and energy. 

p.8
   By flight.  In some cases choices are associated with problems (unsuccessfully) for some time until a choice more attractive to the problems comes along.  The problems leave the choice, and thus it is now possible to make the decision. The decision resolves no problems; they having now attached themselves to a new choice.   
p.8
   Some choices involve both flight and resolution──some problems leave, the remainder are solved. 

p.10
The system, in effect, produces a queue of problems in terms of their importance, to the disadvantage of late-arriving, relatively unimportant problems, and particularly so when load is heavy. 

pp.10-11
   Seventh (7th), important choices are less likely to resolve problems than unimportant choices.  Important choices are made by oversight and flight.  Unimportant choices are made by resolution. ([ because important choices would  required difficult implementation program or application of complicated solution, and would required complex interaction with the customers, the clients, or the end-users, important choices are less likely to resolve problems ; by definition, important choices are addressing the type of problems that are chronic or enduring, highly difficult to resolve successfully to the participating stakeholders (political), and might involved changing the underlying structure of the foundation and the fundamental re-arrangement to relationship within the tribe (power relation and redistribution). ])  

p.11
This property of important choices in a garbage can decision process can be naturally and directly related to the phenomenon in complex organizations of important choices which often appear to just happen. 

p.11
   Eighth (8th), although a large proportion of the choice are made, the choice failures that do occur are concentrated among the most important and least important choices.  Choices of intermediate importance are virtually always made.  

p.11
   In a broad sense, these features of the process provide some clues to how organizations survive when they do not know what they are doing.  Much of the process violates standard notions of how decisions ought to be made. 

p.11
When objectives are charged to discover some alternative decision procedures which permit them to proceed without doing extraordinary violence to the domains of participants or to their model of what an organization should be.  It is a hard charge, to which the process described is a partial response. 

pp.11-12
A choice that might, under some circumstances, be made with little effort becomes an arena for many problems.  The choice becomes almost impossible to make, until the problems drift off to another arena.  The matching of problems, choices, and decision makers is partly controlled by attributes of content, relevance, and competence; but it is also quite sensitive to attributes of timing, the particular combinations of current garbage cans, and the overall load on the system. 

p.16
The garbage can process is one in which problems, solutions, and participants move from one choice opportunity to another in such a way that the nature of the choice, the time it takes, and the problem it solves all depend on a relatively complicated intermeshing of elements. These include the mix of choices available at any one time, the mix of problems that have access to the organization, the mix of solutions looking for problems, and the outside demands on the decision makers. 

p.16
The garbage can process is one in which 
   (θ) problems, 
   (ι) solutions, and 
   (κ) participants 
  move from one choice opportunity to another in such a way that 
      (α) the nature of the choice, 
      (β) the time it takes, and 
      (γ) the problem it solves all depend on a relatively 
     complicated intermeshing of elements. These include 
         (δ) the mix of choices available at any one time, 
         (ε) the mix of problems that have access to the organization, 
         (ζ) the mix of solutions looking for problems, and 
         (η) the outside demands on the decision makers. 

   Problems.  Problems are the concern of the people inside and outside the organization.  They might arise over issues of lifestyles; family; frustrations of work; careers; group relations within the organization; distribution of status, jobs, and money; ideology; or current crises of mankind as interpreted by the mass media or the nextdoor neighbor.  All of these require attention., p.3   

   Solutions.  A solution is somebody's product.  A computer is not just a solution to a problem in payroll management, discovered when needed.  It is an answer actively looking for a question.  The creation of need is not a curiousity of the market in consumer products; it is a general phenomenon of processes of choice.  Despite the dictum that you cannot find the answer until you have formulated the question well, you often do not know what the question is in organizational problem solving until you know the answer., p.3   

   Participants.  Participants come and go.  Since every entrance is an exit somewhere else, the distribution of “entrances” depends on the attributes of the choice being left as much as it does on the attributes of the new choice.  Substantial variation in participation stems from other demands on the participants' time (rather than from features of the decision under study)., p.3    
p.16
   A major feature of the garbage can process is the partial uncoupling of problems and choices. 
p.16
Although decision making is thought of as a process for solving problems, that is often not what happens. 
p.16
Problems are worked upon in the context of some choice, but choices are made only when the shifting combinations of problems, solutions, and decision makers happen to make action possible.  Quite commonly this is after problems have left a given choice arena or before they have discovered it (decisions by flight or oversight). 

p.8 
   By flight.  In some cases choices are associated with problems (unsuccessfully) for some time until a choice more attractive to the problems comes along.  The problems leave the choice, and thus it is now possible to make the decision. The decision resolves no problems; they having now attached themselves to a new choice., p.8  

p.8 
   By oversight.  If a choice is activated when problems are attached to other choices and if there is energy available to make the new choice quickly, it will be made without any attention to existing problems and with a minimum of time and energy., p.8  

p.8 
   By resolution.  Some choices resolve problems after some period of working on them.  The length of time may vary, depending on the number of problems.  This is the familiar case that is implicit in most discussions of choice within organizations., p.8  

p.16
The garbage can model is a first step toward seeing the systematic interrelatedness of organizational phenomena which are familiar, even common, but which have previously been regarded as isolated and pathological.
p.16
Measured against a conventional normative mode of rational choice, the garbage can process does appear pathological, but such standards are not really appropriate. 
p.16 
The process occurs precisely when the preconditions of more normal rational models are not met. 

p.16
   It is clear that the garbage can process does not resolve problem well. 
p.16
But it does enable choices to be made and problems resolved, even when the organization is plagued with goal ambiguity and conflict, with poorly understood problems that wander in and out of the system, with a variable environment, and with decision makers who may have other things on their minds. 

pp.16-17
   There is a large class of significant situations in which the preconditions of the garbage can process cannot be eliminated.  In some, such as pure research, or the family, they should not be eliminated. 

   (Michael D. Cohen; James G. March; and Johan P. Olsen, ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Mar., 1972), pp.1-25, March 1972  ) 
  <--------------------------------------------------------------------------> 
πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα


 

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