Page 144 - Managing Change in Organizations

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Organizations and rationality
‘sources of rationality’ which lead to men and women constructing different argu-
ments about, and drawing different conclusions in respect of, the changes which
affect them.
Any definition of rationality must allow for the doubts which beset us all, and
for the uncertainties, vested interests and ignorance of the world in which we
live. Weick (1979, page 87) summarizes the position succinctly, as follows:
rationality is best understood in the eye of the beholder. It is his aims and how
consciously he sets out to accomplish them that constitute the clearest, most
easily specified component of rationality.

He goes on to argue that people in large organizations are unlikely to employ the
same rationality; rather, ‘organizations will have several different and contradic-
tory rationalities’. Herein lies the reason why many of us find that discussion
about the problems an organization faces (whether about the one in which we
participate, or when we listen to others) is often confused and confusing.
The literature abounds with theories of decision making (‘garbage-can model’,
March and Olsen (1976); ‘satisficing’, Simon (1957); and ‘incrementalism’,
Lindblom (1959)) which reflect this problem (although we note that they are also
attempts to deal with different ‘problems’, including the peculiar difficulties of
choice under conditions of uncertainty).
Bryman (1983) suggests that there has been a ‘retreat from rationality’ as a
consequence of attacks on the rational systems model of organization. He iden-
tifies two ways of arguing for some form of rational systems model of organiza-
tion. The first, exemplified by Weber’s writing on bureaucracy and by the
classical school (see March and Simon, 1958), has been under attack for many
years. In recent years a second wave has emerged: namely, the development of
the ‘contingency’ approach. Proponents of both views see organizations as goal-
seeking, functional systems: the first adopt a closed-system perspective; the latter
adopt an open-system view (Scott, 1981) which has been subjected to critical
scrutiny from at least four directions: the ‘garbage-can’ model, institutional,
political and Marxist approaches. Bryman (1983) concludes that scholars in the
fields of management theory and economics are now uneasy about their ‘ratio-

nalist infrastructures’. Here he refers to a rationality placing particular emphasis
on notions such as utility and profit maximization, taken from economics.
He notes that this is an extreme form of rationality and goes on to discuss ‘soft’
rationality, incorporating ideas such as Simon’s notion of ‘satisficing’ and
Watkin’s (1970) discussion of ‘imperfect rationality’. He concludes this discussion
by noting the methodological and conceptual weaknesses of the alternative
views of rationality, and of alternative models such as the political or Marxist
approach. When he discusses one empirical study of the capital investment
process, which found the economists’ version of rationality to be of little empir-
ical use (Bowers, 1970), he concludes that purposiveness had greater usefulness.
Here lie reasons for hope, he seems to suggest.
Landes (1967, page 204) provides us with a clear definition, based on the idea
of purposiveness, as follows:
Rationality may be defined as the adaption of means to ends. It is the antithesis
of superstition and magic. For this history, the relevant ends are the production

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