Rationality, Rationality And Subjective Rationality

The book focuses on the impact of individuals within organizations and how organizational efficiency or rationality is getting deep into our individuality. The author states that the modern organizations and the way their administration work are the results of heavily borrowed principles of rationality and objectivity from the sciences. It has resulted in a one-sided focus of placing the rational goals of the organization above, and often in place of, those of the individual members of the organization. Denhardt relates science and administration by putting examples of many scientific theories which relate to the human and natural aspect of everyone’s lives.

Rational decision is a state of being agreeable to reasons. The correct decision is not just reasoned but it is also optimal for solving a problem. Mr Weekes, the operation manager, employed series of analytical steps to review possible outcomes for problems by discussing it with managers to come up withdevise particular courses of action.

According to Morgan he describes how organizations “are designed like machines, and their employees are in essence expected to behave as if they were parts of the machine” (Morgan, 13). Organizations that are “designed and operated as if they were machines are … usually called bureaucracies” (Morgan, 13). One of the benefits of having a bureaucracy is that it allows employees to work on one key function of the organization. It can enhance the organization’s internal controls and safeguard its assets by making people responsible to depend on others in order to carry out a specific

Bureaucracies are meant to be efficient and get the job done, but their process of going about it isn’t always right. The way they are ran can result in the dehumanization of their workers, and can make them feel as if they’re parts of a machine rather than actual human beings. They are stuck in, as Weber called it, an iron cage because their lives are dictated by multiple rules and guidelines that they have to follow. This layout which is meant to be efficient, can end up being the exact opposite of that. Regardless whether or not bureaucracies are successfully completing their task, there’s a high chance that on the inside there is dissatisfied, improperly trained workers unable to act like anything but robots.

In the next section the book presents two types of theories: game theory and behavioral theory. Game theory was created over 2,500 years ago by the Chinese military (Ho & Weigelt, 1997). It has only entered the business environment recently but still uses the same concepts and is a tool for doing strategic analysis. Game theory is essentially a way to make decisions. How will it affect your company? How will it affect your competitor? It takes into account cause and effect, considering all possibilities and what resources will be needed. The second theory offered is behavioral theory. This theory investigates why it is that managers often make irrational decisions that may negatively affect the future of the organization. Often, managers make decisions based on their own biases and not necessarily rational like the game theory.

The rational choice theory states that people make decisions in a rational but also in a self- interested manner (Class Notes 4/4/2017). Bounded rationality is the theory that when individuals make decisions, their rationality is limited by the information they have as well as the time available to make the decision. The time constraints and lack of full information are what differentiates bounded rationality and the rational choice theory. However, the garbage can model is said to represent most real life organizational decisions as they are random and unsystematic (Class Notes 4/4/2017). This model of organizational decision making is a collection of problems and solutions. The problems look

Bureaucracy was one of the most popular theories developed and is used in some modern organisations such as the NHS and the Police. Through the years bureaucracy has developed a bad reputation for de-humanizing jobs (Grey, 30) “In the ideal-type, people are no more than parts in a well-oiled machine –devoid of passion, prejudice and personality”, although some people prefer this structure (Handy, 22) “No one, it seems, approves of bureaucracy except, interestingly, lots of people in organisations who like to know where they stand.”

In sociological theories, bureaucracy denotes either a means of management, or a particular kind of organization. Such organizations tend to have homogenous characteristics, including regularized procedure, the existence of a discretionary budget, a tendency to expand their resources continuously and progressively, and impersonal relationships with much competition for political position within the organization. 'Bureau', is a French word meaning desk; thus, 'Bureaucracy' in literal sense is to manage through a desk or office, so a form of organization heavily involved with written documents or in these days their electronic equivalent. Most economic theories of bureaucracy

Abstract: The theory of bureaucracy was proposed and published by Marx Weber (1947). Although there are some studies on this perspective were discussed before him, those theories did not form as systematic theory. After Weber, the issue of bureaucracy becomes a hot topic in the field of social organization. Almost all well-known scholars such as Martin and Henri have published their views on it. Bureaucracy adapted as the traditional organizational model during industrial society, essentially, bureaucracy could exist rational. This essay firstly will review the principle of bureaucracy in organization based on organizational design perspective. Secondly, it will analyze the strengths and weakness of

Owing to limited rationality of man, Herbert Simon contends that most decisions are based on limited rationality, that is, the organization is working like a brain. It would be impossible for organizations to attain perfection since their members have limited information-processing abilities (Morgan, G, 1997)

Empiricism is based from sensory experience and observed facts. This view emphasizes that “scientific knowledge can be derived only from sensory experience” (Alligood, 2014, p. 15). Examples of sensory experience are seeing, feeling and hearing facts. This approach is labeled the research-then-theory strategy. An example that Alligood provides is that “formulating a differential diagnosis requires collecting the facts and then devising a list of possible theories to explain the facts” (2014, p. 16). Empiricists believe that reason alone does not give knowledge (Markie, 2017).

The difficulties that were accompanied with this approach led to deviation from the rational model. Complexity of modern organizations and the limited cognitive ability of decision makers were most influencing factors in the deviation . The decision makers were unable to operate under perfect rationality conditions. The information about a decision was mostly unavailable or unclear, and open to different interpretations. Also, the criteria of evaluating alternative solutions were not agreed upon. It also required very long time and a lot of energy of the decision makers to pursue a maximizing outcome. These constrains led to a conclusion that the absolute rational model is unreachable.

Parker’s budgeting decision is a good example of an individual acting with bounded rationality. This term was introduced by Simon in 1957 (as cited in Tolbert & Hall, 2008) to argue that normative models of decision making, which assume fully rational and objective judgement (Teale, Dispenza, Flynn & Currie, 2003), are unrealistic because human rationality is limited. Parker’s judgement may have seemed rational to him, but it was not rational for the organisation, a subtle distinction about rationality made by Storing (as cited in Tolbert & Hall, 2008). Parker’s judgement was also not rational in that he did not have all available knowledge and awareness of risk, which are the conditions of normative models (Teale et al, 2003) and the “official theory” of management (Anthony, as cited in Teale et al, 2003, p. 14). For example, Parker did not know about the variations in the terrain when he made his decision, and he also assumed that the assistant workers could work at the same physical rate that he could. Both of these limitations were factors resulting in a risk to on-time task completion.

This report will discuss about the approach to rational decision making process. It discusses how an everyday problem faced by management can be tackled by using

Another key idea of the Systems Rationalism Era was the elimination of judgement. It was decided that when managers had to make a judgement there was a large amount of doubt in their mind. It was thought that if systems of rational choice were in place, doubt could be reduced and that general decision making could be improved. It was thought that a strict set of logical guidelines would inevitably lead to better performance. Judgement elimination was centred on the idea that society and democracy could be strengthened through the intelligent application of rational analysis to social problems (Witzel 2012). The belief was that in order for judgement to be eliminated, managers needed to be taught the expected practical actions and principles for various management situations. It was decided that they would need to be taught through specialist training in order to act correctly. This did not promote a system of natural decision making. It consisted of a set of learned responses to situations that were thought to overcome certain difficulties.