Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision Making Processes in Administrative Organization

Blurb

Administrative Behavior: a Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization is a book written by Herbert A. Simon. It asserts that "decision-making is the heart of administration, and that the vocabulary of administrative theory must be derived from the logic and psychology of human choice", and it attempts to describe administrative organizations "in a way that will provide the basis for scientific analysis". The first edition was published in 1947; the second, in 1957; the third, in 1976; and the fourth, in 1997. As summarized in a 2001 obituary of Simon, the book "reject[ed] the notion of an omniscient 'economic man' capable of making decisions that bring the greatest benefit possible and substitut[ed] instead the idea of 'administrative man' who 'satisfices—looks for a course of action that is satisfactory'". Administrative Behavior laid the foundation for the economic movement known as the Carnegie School.
The book crosses social science disciplines such as political science and economics. Simon returned to some of the ideas in the book in his later works, such as The Sciences of the Artificial.