and to avoid the congestion,pollutionand
land costs of high-density areas stimulate
decentralization into suburbs and beyond,
whereas at larger scales the negativeexternal-
itiesof large cities encourage movement to
smaller settlements (cf.counter-urbanization).
Decentralization is facilitated by reliance
on roads for the movement of goods and
individuals. rj
decision-making The process whereby
alternative courses of action are evaluated
and a decision taken. The decision-making
perspective attracted great interest after it
was introduced to geography during the
1960s as part of the behavioural movement
(seebehavioural geography). It broadened
traditional perspectives, making them more
realistic with respect to human practice.
The crux of the decision-making perspec-
tive is the recognition that real-world location
decisions are seldom if ever optimal in the
sense of maximizing profits or minimizing
resourcesused. Similarly, consumer behav-
iour hardly ever accords with the rational cal-
culus of utilities assumed in conventional
economic formulations. The all-knowing and
perfectly able economic actor ofneo-classical
economicsbears only slight resemblance to
actual human beings.
Sub-optimal location decision-making may
be incorporated into conventionallocation
theoryby the use ofspatial margins to profit-
abilitywithin which some profit is possible
anywhere and the business is free to locate
away from the optimal (profit-maximizing)
location at some pecuniary cost. However, this
tells us nothing about how actual choice of
location is arrived at within the economically
determined constraints.
A step further was taken by Allen Pred
(1967, 1969) in his concept of thebehavioural
matrix. According to this, decision-makers
have a position in a matrix with the informa-
tion available on one axis and the ability to use
it on the other. The more information and the
greater the ability, the higher is the probability
of a ‘good’ location within the spatial margin;
that is, near the optimal location on cost/rev-
enue grounds. Decision-makers with very lim-
ited ability and information are more likely to
locate beyond the margins and fail, but a good
location could still be chosen by chance.
Pred was greatly influenced by H.A. Simon’s
(1957) concept ofsatisficing behaviour,as
an alternative to the unrealistic optimizing
capacity attributed to ‘economic man’ (sic).
Decision-makers were viewed by Simon as
considering only a limited number of
alternatives, choosing one that is broadly satis-
factory rather than optimal. The introduction
of a more realistic perspective on location
decision-making corresponded with a similar
move in the study of business behaviour in
general, within a broad context of industrial
organization.
The decision-making perspective inloca-
tional analysisfollowed two routes: theoret-
ical and empirical. The search for a theoretical
framework for studies of location behaviour
under conditions ofriskanduncertainty
led geographers and regional scientists into
such fields asgame theoryand organization
theory, and more recently to use large-scale
simulationmodels, as inagent-based mod-
elling (cf. artificial intelligence). The
light shed on actual decision-making was very
limited, however.
An empirical approach promised more, in
a field where the emphasis is so much on
individual practice. There was a tradition of
survey analysisin industrial location studies
well before the behavioural movements
penetrated the subject. Such research often
revealed the importance of ‘purely personal’
factors. Later empirical research preferred
to take sets of firms and examine the actual
process of decision-making. Some perceived
problem (such as undercapacity) sets in
motion a sequence of decisions beginning with
whether to expandin situ, to set up a branch
or to acquire an existing plant; the sequence
continues with the process of searching for a
site, the evaluation of alternatives, the final
decision and thefeedback of the learning
experience into some subsequent decision of
a similar nature. This empirical approach held
out the prospect of generalizations that relate
the process of location decision-making to
the nature of the organization concerned
(cf.search behaviour).
After many years of behavioural studies of
industrial location decision-making, the find-
ingsseemedtopromise more than it was able
to deliver. A critique was mounted by Doreen
Massey (1979), who pointed to objections on
epistemological grounds (seeepistemology)
to the practice of adoptingideal typecon-
structs (whether ‘economic man’ or some
‘satisficing man’) and of making a distinction
between behaviour that accords with the
ideal type and that which must be attributed
to other factors. Massey argued that the
focus on individual decision-making distracts
attention from the structural features of the
economyto which firms react, and that whatGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_D Final Proof page 144 1.4.2009 3:15pmDECISION-MAKING