Discusses the problems, values, rationales, psychology, and equilibrium of administrative organization

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

Business & Money

Simon, Herbert A.

Management & Leadership

Free Pr

A set of related papers dealing with the meaning of causality in simulataneous dynamic equation systems. Investigation of the systems which only approximately satisfy the conditions enabling the definition of causality, leads to a set of limiting theorems concerning the dynamic behavior of such systems over time, and estimation procedures for the parameters of such systems. Implications of these theorems for some well-known propositions in economics and other social sciences are considered.

Essays on the Structure of Social Science Models

Ando, Albert

Fisher, Frank M.

International

Mit Pr

Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports As Data (Bradford Books)

While psychologists have often employed the technique of protocol analysis—or the use of the subject's own verbal reports as data—in exploring cognitive processes, the nature and reliability of the method have been poorly understood. This book finally puts protocol analysis on firm ground by examining its underlying assumptions, techniques, and limitations. It addresses such key questions as what sorts of reports about what sorts of mental events are reliable; what the role of the investigator's interpretations should be in helping to understand such data; and what mental events cannot be explained by protocols. The authors describe a general theory of cognitive processes and structure, which, they argue, accounts for verbalization and verbal reports. The theory is presented in the form of an information processing model. Major issues surrounding the use and validity of verbal reports are taken up and empirical studies are discussed within the framework of the model. While the book focuses on reports of cognitive processes, the concepts and models it employs can be extended to such areas of verbal behavior as psychophysics, survey design, and measurement of personality traits. A Bradford Book

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Ericsson, K. Anders

Psychology & Counseling

Since the publication of Ericsson and Simon's ground-breaking work in the early 1980s, verbal data has been used increasingly to study cognitive processes in many areas of psychology, and concurrent and retrospective verbal reports are now generally accepted as important sources of data on subjects' cognitive processes in specific tasks. In this revised edition of the book that first put protocol analysis on firm theoretical ground, the authors review major advances in verbal reports over the past decade, including new evidence on how giving verbal reports affects subjects' cognitive processes, and on the validity and completeness of such reports. In a substantial new preface Ericsson and Simon summarize the central issues covered in the book and provide an updated version of their information-processing model, which explains verbalization and verbal reports. They describe new studies on the effects of verbalization, interpreting the results of these studies and showing how their theory can be extended to account for them. Next, they address the issue of completeness of verbally reported information, reviewing the new evidence in three particularly active task domains. They conclude by citing recent contributions to the techniques for encoding protocols, raising general issues, and proposing directions for future research. All references and indexes have been updated.

Protocol Analysis - Rev'd Edition: Verbal Reports as Data

Bradford Books

Now highly expanded in length and in the sweep of its intellectual design—the range of its consideration of social and economic systems has been extended and there is new material on human psychology—this book has been highly regarded and widely referenced since its publication in 1969. In that year a review in Science stated that "Herbert Simon is one of the leaders in the present development of a science of complex information processing. His contributions have been seminal in several different fields, yet always unified in their attempt to develop a precise and adequate theory of complex systems, whether social, political, or economic organizations or thinking, feeling, creating brains and computer-programmed models. The Sciences of the Artificial is a thoughtful synthesis of Simon's conception of complexity—how it arises, how it can be studied by a scientist, and how it can be coped with, adapted to, and understood by intelligent entities such as human beings and 'artificial intelligence' programs.... It is authoritative and at the same time provocative—a rare combination." "Artificial" is used in a very specific sense in this book: to denote systems that have a given form and behavior only because they adapt (or are adapted), in reference to goals or purposes, to their environment. Thus both man-made artifacts and man himself, in terms of behavior, are artificial. This edition contains three entirely new chapters—"Economic Rationality: Adaptive Artifice," "Remembering and Learning: Memory as External Environment," and "Social Planning: Designing the Evolving Artifact"—which have been interspersed among the original four: "Understanding the Natural and the Artificial Worlds," "The Psychology of Thinking: Embedding Artifice in Nature," "The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial," and "The Architecture of Complexity."

The Sciences of the Artificial (2nd edition)

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Herbert Simon in 1978. At Carnegie-Mellon University he holds the title of Professor of Computer Science and Psychology. These two facts together delineate the range and uniqueness of his contributions in creating meaningful interactions among fields that developed in isolation but that are all concerned with human decision-making and problem-solving processes. In particular, Simon has brought the insights of decision theory, organization theory (especially as it applies to the business firm), behavior modeling, cognitive psychology, and the study of artificial intelligence to bear on economic questions. This has led not only to new conceptual dimensions for theoretical constructions, but also to a new humanizing realism in economics, a way of taking into account and dealing with human behavior and interactions that lie at the root of all economic activity. The sixty papers and essays contained in these two volumes are grouped under eight sections, each with a brief introductory essay. These are: Some Questions of Public Policy, Dynamic Programming Under Uncertainty; Technological Change; The Structure of Economic Systems; The Business Firm as an Organization; The Economics of Information Processing; Economics and Psychology; and Substantive and Procedural Reality. Most of Simon's papers on classical and neoclassical economic theory are contained in volume one. The second volume collects his papers on behavioral theory, with some overlap between the two volumes.

Models of Bounded Rationality, Volume 1: Economic Analysis and Public Policy

Economics

Models of Bounded Rationality, Volume 2: Behavioral Economics and Business Organization

Offering alternative models based on such concepts as satisficing (acceptance of viable choices that may not be the undiscoverable optimum) and bounded rationality (the limited extent to which rational calculation can direct human behavior), Simon shows concretely why more empirical research based on experiments and direct observation, rather than just statistical analysis of economic aggregates, is needed.Throughout Herbert Simon's wide-ranging career―in public administration, business administration, economics, cognitive psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and computer science―his central aim has been to explain the nature of the thought processes that people use in making decisions.The third volume of Simon's collected papers continues this theme, bringing together work on this and other economics-related topics that have occupied his attention in the 1980s and 1990s: how to represent causal ordering formally in dynamic systems, the implications for society of new electronic information systems, employee and managerial motivation in the business firm (specifically the implications for economics of the propensity of human beings to identify with the goals of organizations), and the state of economics itself.Offering alternative models based on such concepts as satisficing (acceptance of viable choices that may not be the undiscoverable optimum) and bounded rationality (the limited extent to which rational calculation can direct human behavior), Simon shows concretely why more empirical research based on experiments and direct observation, rather than just statistical analysis of economic aggregates, is needed.The twenty-seven articles, in five sections, each with an introduction by the author, examine the modeling of economic systems, technological change: information technology, motivation and the theory of the firm, and behavioral economics and bounded rationality.

Models of Bounded Rationality, Vol. 3: Emperically Grounded Economic Reason

Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial intelligence adds a chapter that sorts out the current themes and tools -- chaos, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms -- for analyzing complexity and complex systems. There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter "Economic Reality" has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon's thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems.

The Sciences of the Artificial - 3rd Edition

Continuing his exploration of the organization of complexity and the science of design, this new edition of Herbert Simon's classic work on artificial intelligence adds a chapter that sorts out the current themes and tools -- chaos, adaptive systems, genetic algorithms -- for analyzing complexity and complex systems. There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter "Economic Reality" has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon's thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems.

The Sciences of the Artificial

The MIT Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Simon, Herbert A.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Simon, Herbert A.