Organizational Learning

James March, since his earlier work with Herbert Simon, has continued to challenge the assumptions of rational theorists. "March agrees with Weick that actions often precede rather than follow goals, that preferences are not precise or stable" (Scott p. 109). Often the decision process is more important than the outcome.

Rather than a single decision maker, March sees organizations as having a loose, shifting coalitions that continually shift organizational goals and preclude an assumption of stable rationality. "Processes of exchange, combat, compromise and alliance supplant images of a hierarchy of goals or of means-ends chains linking partipants throughout the organization" (Scott p. 110).