Organization theory and design: Lecture 36

Organization theory and design: Lecture 36 provides students with content about: organizational decision making; critique; problems of coordination and horizontal structures; championed bounded rationality model;... Please refer to the lesson for details!

Organizational Decision Making

36

Carnegie Model

• Championed bounded rationality model for individual

decision making

• Research by Carnegie indicated that organizational

level decision making involved many managers and

not just top management

• Management coalitions are needed for organizational

level decision making for two reasons

1 organizational goals are ambiguous and operative goals of

departments are often inconsistent, so a coalition is required

2 individual humans have cognitive limitations, they can’t identify

all that’s needed for decision making

Carnegie Model

• Opposite to management science approach, this

model does not assume that analysis can uncover all possible alternatives

• This model points out that through managerial

coalitions and consensus a major portion of the

organizational decision making is and can be covered

– Satisficing rather than optimization

• Programmed problems can be solved relying on past

patterns, non programmed problems demand

bargaining and conflict resolution and hence the need for coalitions

• The model is ideal for problem

identification stage

• Problems of coordination and horizontal structures

• Possibilities of conflicts, confrontations

• Can be time consuming and laborious