Herbert A. Simon: Organizing

Herbert A. Simon was American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist. Explore interesting quotes on organizing.

Herbert A. Simon: 116 quotes4 likes

“Before we can establish any immutable 'principles' of administration, we must be able to describe, in words, exactly how an administrative organization looks and exactly how it works.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. xiv.

“We are organization watchers in our role as citizens. Increasing attention has been ﬁxed in recent years upon the functioning of society’s organizations: its large corporations and its governments. Hence this could also be described as a book for Everyman–for it proposes a way of thinking about organizational issues that concern us all.”

Herbert A. Simon

Simon (1975, p. ix); As cited in Stefano Franchi(2006) " Herbert simon, anti-philosopher http://cleinias.org/sites/default/files/Simon-anti-Philosopher-preprint.pdf." Computing and Philosophy. p. 34. <br class="br">1960s-1970s

“A major task in organizing is to determine, first, where the knowledge is located that can provide the various kinds of factual premises that decisions require.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 24.

“At the time of its initial publication, Public Administration helped to define this field of study and practice by introducing two major new emphases: an orientation toward human behavior and human relations in organizations, and an emphasis on the interaction between administration, politics, and policy. Without neglecting more traditional concerns with organization structure, Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg viewed administration in its behavioral and political contexts. The viewpoints they express still are at the center of public administration's concerns.”

Herbert A. Simon

Book abstract, 1991
1940s-1950s, Public administration, 1950

“First, most producers are employees of firms, not owners. Viewed from the vantage point of classical [economic] theory, they have no reason to maximize the profits of firms, except to the extent that they can be controlled by owners. Moreover, profit-making firms, nonprofit organizations, and bureaucratic organizations all have exactly the same problem of inducing their employees to work toward organizational goals. There is no reason, a priori, why it should be easier (or harder) to produce this motivation in organizations aimed at maximizing profits than in organizations with different goals. If it is true in an organizational economy that organizations motivated by profits will be more efficient than other organizations, additional postulates will have to be introduced to account for it.”

Herbert A. Simon

Simon (1991) "Organizations and Markets:" in: Journal of Economic Perspectives. 5 (2 Spring 1991): p. 28.
1980s and later

“In order to survive, the organization must have an objective that appeals to its customers, so that they will make the contributions necessary to sustain it. Hence, organization objectives are constantly adapted to conform to the changing values of customers, or to secure new groups of customers in place of customers who have dropped away. The organization may also undertake special activities to induce acceptance of its objectives by customers - advertising, missionary work, and propaganda of all sorts.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 114.

“Organizations and institutions provide the general stimuli and attention-directors that channelize the behaviors of the members of the group, and that provide those members with the intermediate objectives that stimulate action.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 100.

“Broadly stated, the task is to replace the global rationality of economic man with a kind of rational behavior that is compatible with the access to information and the computational capacities that are actually possessed by organisms, including man, in the kinds of environments in which such organisms exist.”

Herbert A. Simon

Simon (1955) "A behavioral model of rational choice", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 69 (1); As cited in: Gustavo Barros (2010, p. 462).
1940s-1950s

“The techniques of the practitioner are usually called 'synthetic'. He designs by organizing known principles and devices into larger systems.”

Herbert A. Simon

Simon (1945, p. 353); As cited in: Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences (2009) p. 425.
1940s-1950s

“Organizations are systems of coordinated action among individuals and groups whose preferences, information, interests, or knowledge differ. Organization theories describe the delicate conversion of conflict into cooperation, the mobilization of resources, and the coordination of effort that facilitate the joint survival of an organization and its members.”

Herbert A. Simon

Simon (1993. p. 2); Cited in Mario Catalani, ‎Giuseppe F. Clerico (1996) Decision making structures. p. 1.
1980s and later

“During and after World War II, a large number of academic economists were exposed directly to business life, and had more or less extensive opportunities to observe how decisions were actually made in business organizations. Moreover, those who became active in the development of the new management science were faced with the necessity of developing decision-making procedures that could actually be applied in practical situations. Surely these trends would be conducive to moving the basic assumptions of economic rationality in the direction of greater realism.”

Herbert A. Simon

1960s-1970s, "Rational decision making in business organizations", Nobel Memorial Lecture 1978

“We will likely also find that the nature of the problem to be solved will be a principal determinant of the mix. With our growing understanding of the organization of judgmental and intuitive processes, of the specific knowledge that of the specific knowledge that is required to perform particular judgmental tasks, and of the cues that evoke such knowledge in situations in which it is relevant, we have a powerful new tool for improving expert judgment. We can specify the knowledge and the recognition capabilities that experts in a domain need to acquire, and use these specifications for designing appropriate learning procedures.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 137.

“Organizations and institutions permit stable expectations to be formed by each member of the group as to the behavior of the other members under specified conditions.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 100.

“Administration is not unlike play-acting. The task of the good actor is to know and play his role, although different roles may differ greatly in content. The effectiveness of the performance will depend on the effectiveness of the play and the effectiveness with which it is played. The effectiveness of the administrative process will vary with the effectiveness of the organization and the effectiveness with which its members play their parts.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 252; As cited in: Herbert Simon (1996) The Sciences of the Artificial. page xii.