Incremental decision making
Allison (1987) suggests a second ‘organisational process model’ of
decision making which stresses that organisations normally operate
without explicitly defining objectives through a repertoire of
standard operating proceduresreflecting the parochial views of its
constituent departments. To put the idea more simply: departments
in organisations go on dealing with standard situations in their usual
set ways without relating these to overall organisational objectives.
In a non-standard situation, or if acceptable performance standards
are not being met, then incremental (i.e. bit-by-bit) changes will be
made. A limited search will be made for the first satisfactory solution
that can be found. This is what Simon (1959) calls satisficingrather
than optimisingbehaviour. Usually a small modification of standard
operating procedures is introduced, rather than a new solution from a
blank sheet.
Allison also stresses organisations’ preference for avoiding the
disruptive effects of uncertainty and conflict by concentrating on
short-term problems rather than long-term planning (which would
involve discussion of goals and values), by using ‘rule of thumb’
decision rules based on short-term feedback, and attempting to
negotiate away uncertainties in the environment.
The various authors mentioned react to this (largely shared)
perception of organisational decision making in different ways.
Allison is mainly concerned to formulate a realistic descriptive
model of decision making. Lindblom (1959) argues that in a pluralist
society incremental decision making may not only be inevitable but
also desirable. Simon (1977) made sophisticated suggestions for
improving the management of organisations in the light of these
observations.
Allison puts forward a third model which he describes as a
‘governmental (bureaucratic) politics’ one. To emphasise its general-
ity and to avoid confusion with Weber, we shall refer to it as the
political bargaining model. Briefly, this third model of Allison’s
stresses that social decisions may be often be more appropriately seen
as political resultantsrather than as either individual rational choices
or even as organisational outputs. Essentially policy making is seen as
the outcome of a gamebetween playersoccupying positions. The
outcome is the result of bargaining between players and is dependent
on (among other things) their bargaining skill, their resources and222 POLICIES