Herbert Simon decision making model

Answer 1

Any decision involves a choice selected from a number of alternatives, directed toward an organizational goal or subgoal. Realistic options will have real consequences consisting of personnel actions or connections modified by environmental facts and values. In practice, some of the alternatives may be conscious or unconscious; some of the consequences may be unintended as well as intended; and some of the means and ends may be imperfectly differentiated, incompletely related, or poorly detailed.

The task of rational decision making is to select the alternative that results in the more preferred set of all the possible consequences. This task can be divided into three required steps:

1. the identification and listing of all the alternatives;
2. the determination of all the consequences resulting from each of the alternatives; and
3. the comparison of the accuracy and efficiency of each of these sets of consequences.