Rationality of Organizations - Essay Example

Rationality of Organizations Rationality is a very important concept in the literature of Herbert A. Simon. Simon has used the term rational in different ways that vary on the basis of the extent of his analysis. For example, on one hand, Simon has used rationality in the context of the rationality of organization whereas on the other hand, Simon has spoken of rationality as concerned with the behavior of individuals within an organization. The first context imparts a need to realize Simon’s perspective on rationality as one signifying an efficient organization. Simon argued that efficiency, in the broadest sense of the term is “often used as a virtual synonym for rationality” (Simon, 1991a, p. 490). Efficiency itself is a fundamental necessity of an organization both for the top management and the organizational workers. The theory of administration is “concerned with how an organization should be constructed to accomplish its work efficiently” (Davis, 1996). There are two important elements in a rational organization i.e. goals’ specificity, and formalization. Specificity of goals establishes allocation of resources by laying out rules and regulations for specific activities so that they can be accomplished in a regulated manner. Formalization, on the other hand, is a strategy of standardizing behavior of the organizational personnel. If these two elements are present in an organization, top management can form stable expectations from the organizational personnel and a rational organizational system comes into being. Dr. Frederick Winslow Taylor tried to rationalize organizational personnel by analyzing the ways in which the amount of output can be maximized with the minimal use of resources (Montemurro, n.d., p. 2). Some ways in which this can be achieved include distribution of work responsibilities between workers and managers, establishment of incentive system on the basis of performance, scientific training of workers, development of science for the responsibilities of each worker, and timely achievement of goals on the part of all workers. Taylor thinks that if the efficiency of the organizational personnel is increased in the scientific manger, this would not just increase opportunities for them to get more work, but would also play a role in improving the quality of life. Some problems that surface out of scientific management include workers’ tendency to rebel against the mundaneness in a standardized system, and workers’ tendency to reject the incentive system because of the need to show optimal productivity constantly and fulfilling an unrealistic expectation of the top management from them. Organizational personnel as human beings have certain limitations that constrain them in their attempt to identify the most suitable alternative in practice. Even if there are some normative mathematical models to offer guidance in the selection of the best alternative which considers the constraints, they do not necessarily offer support in practice. Decisions are often ignorant of the recognition of consequences or preferences when organizational personnel resolve to identify an alternative’s consequences. For example, a wholly theoretical visualization of the process of budgeting is concerned with budget as a rational document. Such visualization suggests that good budgeting’s characteristic feature is its tendency to be rational or comprehensive. Good budgeting should be accurate, intelligible, and capable of universality. Good budgeting “should be detailed and should include all of the estimated revenues and expenditures of a government…and should present all the information necessary for intelligent interpretation and action” (Marini, 1992). According to Arthur Smithies, the demand of rational procedure of budgeting is to consider the expenditures in relation to the revenues and to visualize the budget as a whole so that it may lead to all of the final expenditure commitments (Smithies, 1955). When multiple stakeholders are involved in an organization, enabling action imparts the need to develop their commitment to the decision. The resulting design of the processes of decision making is influenced by this. Uncertainty of commitment is treated instead of identifying alternatives. Such an adaptive and socially aware use of decisions is more complex as compared to the rational process of decision-making which sometimes seems irrational. However, these processes not only enable the choices but also assignment of responsibility, mobilization, and legitimization of organizations each of which is an important component in the progress of projects. Both global rationality and limited rationality are fundamentally cognitive processes of rationality. Both types of rationality are characteristic of an instrumental, calculative, or purposive type of reasoning. Max Weber has analyzed such reasoning quite thoroughly. The concept of the transformation of what originally is a means to an end-into-itself was first introduced by Max Weber. He originally noted that actions meant to be means get independent instead of becoming goal-oriented thus losing their original meaning or end (Weber cited in Loewith, 1970, p. 114). Means-ends types of problem solving and analyses are completely cognitive processes wherein man’s social experience is assumed to be preceded by thought. This suggests that the means-end rational analysis is personal mind’s calculative process in which an individual draws a connection between one of a variety of roles and a given end that is specified by the top management. Such means-ends thinking “is a key component of human problem-solving skill (Simon, 1991b, p. 220). The ends of the workers are just milestones in the way of achievement of the managerial objectives. Rationality, here, “has to do with the construction of means-ends chains of this kind” (Simon, 1976, pp. 62-65). This reveals the fact that means-ends rationality plays a pivotal role in the administrative choice. According to the administrative rational model of Simon, efficiency cannot be reconciled as the dominant concern with the citizens’ needs. This is particularly observed in terms of the influence of efficient operations in the different kinds of bureaucratic agencies (Denhardt, 1984). The dominating element in the bureaucratic structures is instrumental rationality. This obfuscates the more universal and traditional understanding of the reason rather than hiding it outright. The more intensely the means-ends rationality dominates everyday life, the more obscure the cognizance of the organizational personnel becomes of the traditional reason’s broader aspects. Adoption of the means-ends rationality in the situations experienced in an organization on daily basis play a role in the bureaucratization of the work life of the organizational personnel. This rationality leads to the existence’s rationalization which originates in the connection of means with ends when this rationality becomes the daily activity and mode of reflection. The amount of scientific research on performance as well as decision-making behavior highlighting the inability of organizational personnel to make choices that are fully rational is overwhelming (Cronquist, 2012). However, rationality still remains the most idealized and prevailing viewpoint in many large scale innovation companies and businesses. Company management and leaders encourages rational decisions and actions so much that the corporate organizational systems’ actors often have to disguise the processes of decision-making as rational processes so that their decisions may be accepted and the explorative trial-and-error actions can be legitimized. There is a need to manage the complexity of decision-making in the contemporary age that focuses upon innovation from perspectives that are more structured, explorative, and socially aware. Contemporary organizations are in a need of adopting a flexible yet structured approach to decision-making. While the concept of rationality of organizations is supported by many theorists, there are also many theorists who argue against rationality of organizations and throw light upon its harmful effects. According to one perspective, rational decision making in an organization may in fact be a cause of unethical behavior in cases where it reduces certain emotional experiences such as guilt. Many emotions like guilt and sympathy play a fundamental role in inhibiting immoral behaviors and promoting moral behaviors in an organization. For example, the research carried out by Schachter and Latane (1964) found that people tranquilized with Chlorpromazine, which is a drug that reduces the emotional experience had a higher tendency of executing such immoral behaviors as cheating. The desirability of decision-making that is completely rational is indeed questionable. While rational decision making is supportive of ethics in certain situations, this aspect of rational decision making cannot be generalized for all types of situations. Rational decision-making can thus be described in terms of “a double-edged sword, making it particularly important to consider the effects of individual’s emotions on the ethical implications of being rational” (Zhong, 2005). An in-depth analysis of the various issues in the possibility of organizations to become fully rational suggests that in a vast majority of cases, an organization cannot become fully rational. However, many organizations can, and actually are, close to rational. While the positive outcomes of the rationality of an organization cannot be overemphasized, this fact can also not be denied that rationality of organizations is not much consistent with the demands of the contemporary trends and circumstances from an organization. In the highly dynamic circumstances in which an organization has to function in the present age, it often becomes unrealistic and difficult to conduct management in a scientific manner. The concept of rationality of an organization is debatable and there is significant and comparable number of theorists on either side of the argument. References: Cronquist, J 2012, Rational decision making in large innovation organizations, [Online] Available at www.googal.se [accessed: 19 February 2014]. Davis, CR 1996, Organization theories and public administration, Business & Economics. Denhardt, R 1984, Theories of public organization, Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Loewith, K 1970, ‘Webers interpretation of the bourgeois-capitalist world in terms of the guiding principle of "rationalization."’ In D. Wrong (Ed.), Max Weber (pp. 101-122). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Marini, JA 1992, The Politics of Budget Control: Congress, the Presidency, and the Growth of the Administrative State, Taylor & Francis. Montemurro, VA n.d., Frederick Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management and the Multiple Frames for Viewing Work Organizations Offered by Bolman & Deal, Carlson, and Pfeffer, St. John’s University, [Online] Available at http://www.cassie-memorial.org/sjuweb/Coursework%20Web/EDU%205571/PDF/Taylor/Taylor%20Essay.pdf [accessed: 20 February 2014]. Schachter, S, and Latane, B 1964, ‘Crime, cognition, and the autonomic nervous system,’ In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on Motivation (v 12). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Simon, HA 1976, Administrative behavior (3rd ed.). New York: Free Press. Simon, HA 1991b, Models of my life. New York: Basic Books. Simon, HA 1991a, Public Administration, Transaction Publishers. Smithies, A 1955, The Budgetary Process in the United States, Mc-Graw Hill Book Company. Zhong, C 2005, The Ethical Dangers of Rational Decision Making, Northwestern University, [Online] Available at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.116.9959&rep=rep1&type=pdf [accessed: 19 Feb. 2014]. Read More