| Organization Man is a study of the life and work of Herbert Simon, a pioneering contributor to political science, economics, psychology, and computer science. It argues that Simon's career is best understood as a continuing effort to synthesize the sciences of choice and the sciences of control and so to create a unified science of human behavior. This was a challenging task, for the sciences of choice (operations research, game theory, decision theory, utility theory) and the sciences of control (sociology, social psychology, organization theory) were based on opposed views of human nature. The sciences of choice assumed humans to be rational choosers, maximizers of their own individual values, while the sciences of control assumed humans to be plastic creatures, powerfully shaped by their social environment.; To Simon, however, the sciences of choice and control were but channels in a larger stream, lanes in a broader highway. That broader way was the functional analysis of behavioral systems, abstractly defined.; Simon's embrace of this systems-based perspective in the postwar years led him to redefine his most basic questions. Where he first had sought to understand how social organizations affect the choices made by their individual members, he later tried to discover how our internal organization affects the ways in which we, as individuals, solve problems.; Despite these shifts, there was as much continuity as change in Simon's work. It was always characterized by his relentless pursuit of synthesis, by his steadfast faith in the power of reason, especially organized reason, and by his lasting concern that knowledge should lead to action. The sum of these views was an enduring understanding of humans as creatures of limited, but still significant, powers of reason.; Simon's understanding of humans as possessed of a "bounded rationality" had political as well as psychological roots. To Simon, choice was not possible without limits, and freedom was not feasible without bounds. In order to expand our capacities for rational action, therefore, we organize the individual and the social processing of information, constructing mental models and building formal social organizations. Without such organization---without such planning---reason itself was but a "pleasant game."... |
