How Decisions Happen in Organizations

This essay is a story about how we might think about decisions and decision making in organizations. The story is divided into three major parts. The first part is based on a vision of decisions as resulting from intendedly rational choice. Such a vision is the dominant portrayal of decisions in social science. This vision of decisions is elaborated by considering developments associated with problems of uncertainty, ambiguity, risk preference, and conflict. The second part of the story is based on a vision of decisions as driven by a logic of appropriateness implemented through a structure of organizational rules and practices, not by a logic of consequence. The discussion of rules and rule following is extended by considering the ways in which rules of behavior evolve through experience, selection, and diffusion. The third part of the story examines ideas about decision making that challenge standard ideas of decision altogether, visions that picture the outcomes of decisions as artifactual rather than as central to understanding decision making. These visions are exemplified by discussions of networks, temporal orders, symbols, and the development of meaning. This essay was originally presented at the Third Annual Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Los Angeles on October 10, 1990. Author's present address: James G. March, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5015.