Conflict, Chaos, and the Art of Institutional Design

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ganz, Scott C.
• 署名单位: Georgetown University; American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2023.1662
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: Organizational design; organization and management theory; decision making and theory of the firm; power and politics; computer simulations

摘要

The metaphor of an organization as a garbage can is often invoked as a playful insult. However, as was recognized early on by management theorists studying garbage can ideas, the unpredictability arising from garbage can decision making has the potential to be adaptively rational for organizations facing complex task environments. The chaos produced by preference conflict and fluid participation in collective decision making can aid in search by enabling organizations to escape local performance peaks or competency traps. The decades old hypothesis that conflict and chaos could promote adaptively rational search, however, has largely been overlooked in research on organizational design. This paper uses an agent-based model to evaluate these competing views and, in the process, identify conditions under which garbage can decision making is adaptively rational for executives searching for high-quality strategies. I show that the biased and chaotic outcomes that emerge as a result of garbage can decision making-the very features of garbage cans that lead them to be perceived to be dysfunctional-can facilitate short-term exploitation and long-term exploration of uncertain technical landscapes when organizations engage in serial judgment of local alternatives if internal conflict over desired outcomes is not too extreme. I conclude that decision-making routines that encourage chaotic conflict are robust to bounded rationality and complex task uncertainty and thus should be included in the organizational designer's portfolio.