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The new science of management decision
01 Jan 1960-
About: The article was published on 1960-01-01 and is currently open access. It has received 3562 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Decision support system & Decision analysis.
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TL;DR: Models are proposed that show how organizations can be designed to meet the information needs of technology, interdepartmental relations, and the environment to both reduce uncertainty and resolve equivocality.
Abstract: This paper answers the question, "Why do organizations process information?" Uncertainty and equivocality are defined as two forces that influence information processing in organizations. Organization structure and internal systems determine both the amount and richness of information provided to managers. Models are proposed that show how organizations can be designed to meet the information needs of technology, interdepartmental relations, and the environment. One implication for managers is that a major problem is lack of clarity, not lack of data. The models indicate how organizations can be designed to provide information mechanisms to both reduce uncertainty and resolve equivocality.
8,674Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparative model of organizations as interpretation systems is proposed, which describes four interpretation modes: enacting, discovering, undirected viewing, and conditioned viewing, each mode is determined by management's beliefs about the environment and organizational intrusiveness.
Abstract: A comparative model of organizations as interpretation systems is proposed. The model describes four interpretation modes: enacting, discovering, undirected viewing, and conditioned viewing. Each mode is determined by (1) management's beliefs about the environment and (2) organizational intrusiveness. Interpretation modes are hypothesized to be associated with organizational differences in environmental scanning, equivocality reduction, strategy, and decision making.
4,824Â citations
Cites background from "The new science of management decis..."
...Organizational decisions may be influenced by coalition building and political processing (Cyert & March, 1963); by incremental decision steps (Lindblom, 1959; Mintzberg, Raisinghani, & Theoret, 1976); by systems analysis and rational procedures (Leavitt, 1975); anid by programmed responses to routine problems (March & Simon, 1958; Simon, 1960)....
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TL;DR: A large-scale analysis of tweets reveals that false rumors spread further and faster than the truth, and false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information.
Abstract: We investigated the differential diffusion of all of the verified true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.
4,241Â citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze organizational functioning from the perspective of social cognitive theory, which explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation, and apply it in a series of experiments of complex managerial decision-making.
Abstract: This article analyzes organizational functioning from the perspective of social cognitive theory, which explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation. In this causal structure, behavior, cognitive, and other personal factors and environmental events operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally. The application of the theory is illustrated in a series of experiments of complex managerial decision making, using a simulated organization. The interactional causal structure is tested in conjunction with experimentally varied organizational properties and belief systems that can enhance or undermine the operation of the self-regulatory determinants. Induced beliefs about the controllability of organizations and the conception of managerial ability strongly affect both managers' self-regulatory processes and their organizational attainments. Organizational complexity and assigned performance standards also serve as contributing influences. Path analys...
2,835Â citations
TL;DR: In this paper, three dimensions of causal structure are considered-causal agency, logical structure, and level of analysis-theorists' assumptions about the nature and direction of causal influence.
Abstract: This article concerns theories about why and how information technology affects organizational life. Good theory guides research, which, when applied, increases the likelihood that information technology will be employed with desirable consequences for users, organizations, and other interested parties.
But what is a good theory? Theories are often evaluated in terms of their content-the specific concepts used and the human values served. This article examines theories in terms of their structures-theorists' assumptions about the nature and direction of causal influence. Three dimensions of causal structure are considered-causal agency, logical structure, and level of analysis. Causal agency refers to beliefs about the nature of causality: whether external forces cause change, whether people act purposefully to accomplish intended objectives, or whether changes emerge unpredictably from the interaction of people and events. Logical structure refers to the temporal aspect of theory-static versus dynamic-and to the logical relationships between the "causes" and the outcomes. Level of analysis refers to the entities about which the theory poses concepts and relationships-individuals, groups, organizations, and society.
While there are many possible structures for good theory about the role of information technology in organizational change, only a few of these structures can be seen in current theorizing. Increased awareness of the options, open discussion of their advantages and disadvantages, and explicit characterization of future theoretical statements in terms of the dimensions and categories discussed here should, we believe, promote the development of better theory.
2,277Â citations