Passing the buck in the garbage can model of organizational choice

Fioretti, Guido (2009): Passing the buck in the garbage can model of organizational choice.

Abstract

We reconstruct Cohen, March and Olsen's Garbage Can model of organizational choice as an agent-based model. In the original model, the members of an organization can postpone decision-making. We add another means for avoiding making decisions, that of buck-passing difficult problems to colleagues. We find that selfish individual behavior, such as postponing decision-making and buck-passing, does not necessarily imply dysfunctional consequences for the organizational level.

The simulation experiments confirm and extend some of the most interesting conclusions of the Garbage Can model: Most decisions are made without solving any problem, organization members face the same old problems again and again, and the few problems that are solved are generally handled at low hierarchical levels. These findings have an implication that was overseen in the original model, namely, that top executives need not be good problem-solvers.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Organizational Decision Making; Garbage Can Model; Postponing Decisions; Buck-Passing
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D23 - Organizational Behavior ; Transaction Costs ; Property Rights; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D89 - Other; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D79 - Other

References

Jonathan Bendor, Terry M. Moe, and Kenneth W. Shotts. Recycling the garbage can: An assessment of the research program. American Political Science Review, 95(1):169–190, 2001.

Kathleen M. Carley. Efficiency in a garbage can: Implicat ions for crisis man-agement. In James G. March and Roger Weissinger-Baylon, editors, Ambiguity and Command: Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision-Making, chap-ter IX, pages 195–231. Pitman Publishing Inc., Marshfield, 1 986.

Kathleen M. Carley. Measuring efficiency in a garbage can hierarchy. In James G. March and Roger Weissinger-Baylon, editors, Ambiguity and Command: Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision-Making, chapter VIII, pages 165–194. Pitman Publishing Inc., Marshfield, 1986.

Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 17(1):1–25, 1972. Reprinted as [5], [6].

Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. A garbage can model of organizational choice. In James G. March and Roger Weissinger-Baylon, editors, Ambiguity and Command: Organizational Perspectives on Military Decision-Making, chapter Appendix, pages 311–336. Pitman Publishing Inc., Marshfield, 1986.

Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. A garbage can model of organizational choice. In James G. March, editor, Decisions and Organizations, chapter XIV, pages 294–334. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1988.

Paul J. DiMaggio and Walter W. Powell. The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Socio-logical Review, 48(2):147–160, 1983. Reprinted in [15].

Guido Fioretti and Alessandro Lomi. An agent-based representation of the garbage can model of organizational choice. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 11(1), 2008.

Guido Fioretti and Alessandro Lomi. The garbage can model of organizational choice: An agent-based reconstruction. Simulation Modelling Practice and The-ory, 16(2):192–217, 2008.

Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann. Decision Making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment . The Free Press, New York, 1977.

James G. March. A Primer on Decision Making. The Free Press, New York, 1994.

John W. Meyer and Brian Rowan. Institutionalized organizations: Formal struc-ture as myth and ceremony. The American Journal of Sociology, 83(2):340–363, 1977.

Johan P. Olsen. Garbage cans, new institutionalism, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, 95(1):191–198, 2001.

John F. Padgett. Managing garbage can hierarchies. Administrative Science Quar-terly, 25(4):583–602, 1980.

Walter W. Powell and Paul J. DiMaggio. The New Institutionalism in Organiza-tional Analysis. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.

Leonard Savage. The Foundations of Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1954.