Organizational Goals and Decision Making: A Summary, Exercises of History

Download Organizational Goals and Decision Making: A Summary and more Exercises History in PDF only on Docsity! 160 A Specific Price and Output Model can be built and can be made to predict well. However, we have been interested in building a model that embodies the actual decision-making process. Our reasons for this position have been amplified elsewhere in this book. We do not believe a radically different model can be built that captures the actual decision process and predicts as well. Because our objective is to understand the actual process, we have not attempted to minimize the number of assumptions, the number of variables, or the number of inputs to the model. The department store model is a specific application of the general model described in this book. The evidence supports the specific model and thereby presents corroborative evidence for the general model. We would not argue that the evidence is conclusive. It is not. It is, however, consistent with the model. The model lends itself to further elaboration and testing- and the world is full of firms for further empirical study. Notes 1 This chapter is based on an unpublished working paper by R. M. Cyert, J. G. March, and C. G. Moore. Mr Moore did the bulk of the field research and shared fully in the development of the model. 2 This statement may not portray the process accurately. During the period we observed it was not possible to determine the interactions between the sales estimates and the goals. They always tended to be consistent with each other but it was difficult to determine the extent to which an implicit goal of "equal or exceed last year's sales" influenced the estimates. 3 We do not mean to imply that the department consciously uses such a rule. Although the rule was inferred from a study of actual behavior, the head of the department did not describe his estimation rule in these terms. 7 A Summary of Basic Concepts in the Behavioral Theory of the Firm In its classic form, economic theory is simply a language designed to provide a systematic framework within which to analyze economic problems. Such a role was assigned to theory by Marshall and is clearly implicit in contemporary theory. In this view theory performs two major functions. On the one hand, it is an exhaustive set of general concepts. Any variable observed in the system can be assigned to an approprjate niche. The theory is a set of filing cabinets with each drawer bearing the title of an economic concept. Within each file drawer there is a set of folders for each economic variable relevant to the concept. Within each folder there is a further breakdown in terms of the factors affecting the variable. At the same time, the theory is a statement of critical relations among system variables. These relations may be assumptions about interdependence among variables, about the functional form of the interdependences, or about broad structural attributes of the system. As an example in classic theory, consider the concept of market demand. The usual treatment of demand involves (1) a description of demand in terms of a "demand curve," (2) the decomposition of the market demand curve into individual demand curves, and (3) the specification of individual demand in terms of individual preference orderings and the concept of utility. Within such a filing system we establish relations between external events and demand phenomena (e.g., a relation between demand for a particular commodity and money income) by introducing relational concepts (e.g., income elasticity). One of the most important requirements for the usefulne~s of t~eory conceived in this general way is the requirement tha~ all - 162 A Summary of Basic Concepts important variables in the system be conveniently represented within the concepts of the theory. The theory of the firm seems to meet this requirement reasonably well for the kinds of problems with which it has usually been faced (e.g., the perfectly competitive market). However, the theory has not been adequate to cope with oligopolistic markets. The theory outlined in this volume specifies an alternative framework and an alternative set of key relations for dealing with the modern "representative firm" -the large, multiproduct firm operating under uncertainty in an imperfect market. 7.1 Goals, Expectations, and Choice The basic framework for analysis we have proposed, like the classic one, has two major organizing devices: (1) it has a set of exhaustive variable categories; (2) it has a set of relational concepts. The exhaustive categories are implicit in the organization of this volume. We have argued that we can analyze the process of decision making in the modern firm in terms of the variables that affect organizational goals, the variables that affect organizational expectations, and the variables that affect organ­ izational choice. Organizational goals Quite simply, we have identified two sets of variables affecting the goals of an organization. The first set influences the dimensions of the goals (what things are viewed as important). Within this set of variables, we can cite the composition of the organizational coalition, the organizational division of labor in decision making, and the definition of problems facing the organization. Thus, we have argued that organizational goals change as new participants enter or old participants leave the coalition. We have argued that the operative goals for a particular decision are the goals of the subunit making that decision. Finally, we have argued that goals are evoked by problems. The second set of variables influences the aspiration level on any particular goal dimension. Here we have identified essentially three variables: the organization's past goal, the organization's past performance, and the past per­ formance of other "comparable" organizations. The aspiration f A Summary of Basic Concepts 163 level is viewed as some weighted function of these three variables. Organizational expectations Expectations are seen as the result of drawing inferences from available information. Thus, we consider variables that affect either the process of drawing inferences or the process by which information is made available to the organization. With respect to inference drawing, we have not attempted to reflect all of the recent efforts in the psychology of individual choice. However, we have identified some simple pattern-recognition variables (e.g., linear extrapolation) and the effect of hopes on expectations. With respect to the process by which information is made available, we have cited particularly variables affecting search activity within the firm. Affecting the"· intensity and success of search are the extent to which goals are achieved and the amount of organizational slack in the firm. Affecting the direction of search are the nature of the problem stimulating search and the location in the organization at which search is focused. • Organizational choice Choice takes place in response to a problem, uses standard operating rules, and involves identifying an alternative that is acceptable from the point of view of evoked goals. Thus, the variables that affect choice are those that influence the definition of a problem within the organization, those that influence the standard decision rules, and those that affect the order of consideration of alternatives. The standard decision rules are affected primarily by the past experience of the organization and the past record of organizational slack. The order in which alternatives are considered depends on the part of the organization in which the decision is being made and past experience in considering alternatives. In the earlier chapters 3 to 5, we have tried to elaborate on this simple structure in order to develop meaningful and useful theories of organizational goals, expectations, and choice. We think it is possible to subsume any variable within the theory of business decision making under one or more of these categories. - 168 A. Summary of Basic Concepts uncertain world and quasi-resolved goals. It will be learned because by and large it will permit the organization to meet the demands of the members of the coalition. Negotiated environment Classical models of oligopoly ordi?arily assume that firms make some predictions about the be~avtor of their environment, especially those parts of the envuonment represented by competitors, suppliers, c~stom~rs, and o.ther parts of the organization. Certainly such constde~attons are tmportant to any decisions made by the firm. ?ur st~dtes, however, .lead us to the proposition that firms wtll devt.se and negottate an environment so as to eliminate the uncertamty. Rather than treat the environment as exogenous and to be predicted, they seek ways to make it controllable. . In the case of competitors, one of the consptcuous mea~s of control is through the establishment of industry-wide conventional practices. If "good business practice" is standardized (through trade associations, journals, word of mouth, external co~sultant~, etc.), we can be reasonably confident that all compett~ors wtll follow it. We do not mean to imply that firms .necessa.nly. enter into collusive agreements in the legal sense; our tmpresstO.n ts that ordinarily they do not, but they need not do so to achteve the same objective of stability in competitive practices. . For example, prices are frequently ~t on the basts of conventional practice. With time, such vanables as the rate of mark-up, price lines, and standard costing procedures. become customary within an industry. Some effects of such practtces were indicated in chapter 6. The net result of such activity with. respect to prices (and comparable activity with reg~rd to sup~hers. and customers) is that an uncertain environment ts made qutte htghly predictable. . . , . Such negotiation among firms ts not obvtously. colluston. for profit maximization. Rather, it is an attempt to avotd uncertamty while obtaining a return that satisfies the profit and. ~t~er demands of the coalition. The lack of a profit-maxtmtzmg rationale is suggested by (1) the stability of the practic~s. over time and (2) the occasional instances of success.by firms wtlhng ~o violate the conventional procedures (e.g., dtscount houses m retailing). In a similar fashion, the internal planning process (e.g. , the A Summary of Basic Concepts 169 budget) provides a negotiated internal environment. A plan within the firm is a series of contracts among the subunits in the firm. As in the case of industry conventions, internal conventions are hyperstable during the contract period and tend to be relatively stable from one period J:o the next (e.g. , in resource allocation). As a result, they permit each unit to avoid uncertainty about other units in making decisions. 7.2.3 Problemistic search In the framework proposed in this volume, the theory of choice and the theory of search are closely intertwined. Necessarily, if we argue that organizations use acceptable-level goals and select the first alternative they see that meets those goals, we must provide a theory of organizational search to supplement the concepts of decision making. In our models we assume that search, like decision making, is problem-directed. By problemistic search we mean search that is stimulated by a problem (usually a rather specific one) and is directed toward finding a solution to that problem. In a general way, problernistic search can be distinguished from both random curiosity and the search for understanding. It is distinguished from the former because it has a goal, from the latter because it is interested in understanding only insofar as such understanding contributes to control. Problemistic search is engineering rather than pure science. With respect to organizational search, we assume three things: 1 Search is motivated Whether the motivation exists on the buyer or seUer side of the alternative market, problemistic search is stimulated by a problem and depressed by a problem solution. 2 Search is simple-minded It proceeds on the basis of a simple model of causality until driven to a more complex one. _ 3 Search is biased The way in which the environment is viewed and the communicatio~ about the environment that are processed through the organization reflect variations in training, experience, and goals of the participants in the organization. Motivated search Search within the firm is problem-oriented. A problem is recognized when the organization either fails to satisfy one or more of its goals or when such a failure can be anticipat¢d in the immediate future. So long as the problem is not solved, - 170 A Summary of Basic Concepts search will continue. The problem is solved either by discovering an alternative that satisfies the goals or by revising the goals to levels that make an available alternative acceptable. Solutions are also motivated to search for problems. Pet projects (e.g., cost savings in someone else's department, expansion in our own department) look for crises (e.g., failure to achieve the profit goal, innovation by a competitor). In the theory we assume that variations in search activity (and search productivity) reflect primarily the extent to which motivation for search exists. Thus, we assume that regular, planned search is relatively unimportant in inducing changes in existing solutions that are viewed as adequate. Simple-minded search We assume that rules for search are simple-minded in the sense that they reflect simple concepts of causality. Subject to learning (see below), search is based initially on two simple rules: (1) search in the neighborhood of the problem symptom and (2) search in the neighborhood of the current alternative. These two rules reflect different dimensions of the basic causal notions that a cause will be found "near" its effect and that a new solution will be found "near" an old one. The neighborhood-of-symptom rule can be related to the subunits of the organization and their association with particular goals and with each other. A problem symptom will normally be failure on some goal indicator. Initial reaction, we assume, will .be in the department identified with the goal. Thus, if the problem is the failure to attain the sales goal, the search begins in the sales department and with the sales program. Failing there , it might reasonably proceed to the problem of price and product quality and then to production costs. The neighborhood-of-existing-policy rule inhibits the movement of the organization to radically new alternatives (except under circumstances of considerable search pressure). Such an inhibition may be explained either in terms of some underlying organizational assumptions of continuity in performance functions or in terms of the problems of conceiving the adjustments required by radical shifts. When search, using-the simple causal rules, is not immediately successful, we assume two developments. First, the organiza­ tion uses increasingly complex ("distant") search; second, the • A Summary of Basic Concepts 171 organization introduces a third search rule: (3) search in organizationally vulnerable areas. The motivation to search in vulnerable areas stems from two things. On the one hand, the existence of organizational slack will tend to. lead search activity in the direction of slack parts of the organization. On the other hand, certain activities in the organization are more easily attacked than others, simply because of their power position in the system. One general phenomenon is the vulnerability of those activities in the organization for which the connection with major goals is difficult to calculate concretely (e.g., research in many firms). In either case, a solution consists in either absorbing slack or renegotiating the basic coalition agreement to the disadvantage of the weaker members of the coalition. Bias in search We assume three different kinds of search bias: (1) bias reflecting special training or experience of various parts of the organization, (2) bias reflecting the interaction of hopes and expectations, and (3) communication biases reflecting unres?lved conflict within the organization. Bias from prior expe~1ence or training is implicit in our assumptions of search learnmg (b~low), l<><:al specialization in problem solving (above), and s~b~mt goal d1~ferentiation (above). Those parts of the orgamzatton responsible for the search activities will not neces­ sa~ily see i~ the env~ronment what those parts of the organization usmg the mformat10n would see if they executed the search themselves. The bias in adjusting expectations to hopes has the cons~quence of decreasing the amount of problem-solving time reqm~ed _to solve a pr~blem and of stimulating the growth of orgamzat10nal slack durmg good times and eliminating it during ~ad. W~ assume that communication bias can be substantially tgnored m our modefs.except under conditions where the internal biases in the firm are all (or substantially all) in the same direction or where biases in one direction are located in parts of the organization with an extremely favorable balance of power. 7.2.4 Organizational/earning Organizations learn: to assume that organizations go through t~ same processes of learning as do individual human beings seems - 172 A Summary of Basic Concepts unnecessarily naive, but organizations exhibit (as do othe~ social institutions) adaptive behavior over time. Just as adaptations at the individual level depend upon phenomena of the human physiology, organizational adaptation uses individual m~mbe~s ~f the organization as instruments. However, we believe It IS possible to deal with adaptation at the aggregate level of .th.e organization, in the same sense and for the sam~ r~asons tha~ I.t IS possible to deal with the concept of orgamzat10nal decision making. . We focus on adaptation with respect to three different phas~s of the decision process: adaptation of goals, adaptation m attention rules, and adaptation in search rules. We assume t~at organizations change their goals, shift. their atte~tion, a~d revise their procedures for search as a functton of their expenence. Adaptation of goals The goals with which we deal are in the form of aspiration levels, or - in the more general case - search equivalence classes. In simple terms, this means that on ~~ch dimension of organizational goals there are a number of cntlcal values- critical, that is, from the point of view of shifts in ~earch strategy. These values change over time in reaction to expenence, either actual or vicarious. We assume, therefore, that organizational goals in a particular time period are a function of (1) organizational goals of the previous time period, (2) organizational experience wit~ respect to that goal in the previous period, and (3) ex~nen~ ~f comparable organizations with respect to the goal dimension m the previous time period. Initially at least, we would assume a simple linear function, G, = atGt-t + a2E1-1 + a3Ct- t where G is the organizational goal, E the experience of the organization, C a summary of the experience of comp~rabl.e organizations, and where a1 + a2 + a3 = 1. T~e parameters m thiS goal adaptation function are important attnbutes of the organ­ ization. a 3 reflects the organization's sensitivity to the perfor­ mance of competitors or other comparable organizations. ~~ and a reflect the speed at which the organization revises goals m the f~ce of experience. In some cases, we will want to define two values for a3 - one for when comparative experience exceeds A Summary of Basic Concepts 173 the organization's goal and a different one for when it is below the goal. Similarly, we may want to allow the effect of the organization's experience to depend on whether it exceeds or is below the goal. Adaptation in attention rules Just as organizations learn what to strive for in their environment, they also learn to attend to some parts of that environment and not to others. One part of such adaptation is in learning search behavior, which we will consider in a moment. Here we wish to note two related, but different, adaptations: 1 In evaluating performance by explicit measurable criteria, organizations learn to attend to some criteria and ignore others. For example, suppose an organization subunit has responsibility for a specific organizational goal. Since this goal is ordinarily stated in relatively non-operational terms, the subunit must develop some observable indices of performance on the goal. Among the indices objectively available to the subunit, which will be used? Observation suggests this is a typical case of learning. Subunits in the short run do not change indices significantly. However, there are long-run shifts toward indices that produce generally satisfactory results (i.e., in this case, usually show the subunit to be performing well}. 2 Organizations learn to pay attention to some parts of their comparative environment and to ignore other parts. We have assumed that one of the parameters in the goal adaptation function is a parameter reflecting the sensitivity of the organization to external comparisons. This parameter is not fixed. We would expect it to change over time as such comparisons do or do not produce results (in the form of goals) that are satisfactory to the important groups ipoooUle coalition. At the same time, we have represented by C in the goal adaptation function a summary description of comparable organizations. Concealed in such an abstract form is organizational learning with respect to what is properly comparable. With which attributes of which organizations should we compare ourselves? Although in a relatively short-run model we might reasonably consider this fixed, we would expect that in the long run we would require a model in which suqh attention factors changed. -