This paper provides an overview of the work of Herbert Simon and his ideas about rational decision making. By his own standards, Simon is an economist who works in the tradition of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. The central theme in Simon’s research is how human beings organize themselves in...

The paper discusses some fundamental features of the 'Simonian' research program in microeconomics and compare them with two streams of thought which find their roots into Simon's pathbreaking work since the '50s and '60s, namely Transaction Cost Economics and Evolutionary Economics. One argues...

The paper discusses some fundamental features of the 'Simonian' research program in microeconomics and compare them with two streams of thought which find their roots into Simon's pathbreaking work since the '50s and '60s, namely Transaction Cost Economics and Evolutionary Economics. One argues...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to evaluate the coherence of Gulick's ideas on the nature of work roles and the implications for organisational theory. Design/methodology/approach – An analysis is undertaken of Gulick's writings in the “Papers on the Science of Administration”, on...

Purpose By revisiting the agency theory literature, this paper aims to both incrementally advance historical viewpoints and reveal four prominent influences on agency theory: Weber and Simon, The Great Depression, Cooperation and the Chicago School. This is critical given that understanding the...

How many judgment and decision making (JDM) researchers have not claimed to be building on Herbert Simon's work? We identify two of Simon's goals for JDM research: He sought to understand people's decision processes---the descriptive goal---and studied whether the same processes lead to good...

Economist Frank H. Knight (1885--1972) is commonly credited with defining the distinction between decisions under ``risk'' (known chance) and decisions under ``uncertainty'' (unmeasurable probability) in his 1921 book Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. A closer reading of Knight (1921) reveals a host...