Works
- A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, 1963
- A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administrative Science Quarterly, 1972
In Tactics of Organizational Politics
Ideas
The firm as a bargaining coalition. Because the firm is a coalition, its goals are set by bargaining among members whose priorities and information differ, and members are held in the coalition by side payments. The resulting goals are compromises that must all be met, following an implicit order of priority.
Organizational slack. Cyert and March describe the firm as a coalition of groups, such as managers, workers, stockholders, and suppliers, whose goals are compromises negotiated among them and whose bargaining is largely over the distribution of side payments. Organizational slack is the difference between the firm's total resources and the payments needed to keep the coalition together; it plays a stabilizing and adaptive role, giving the firm room to meet competing demands when conditions change.
The garbage can model. Many organizations, which the authors call organized anarchies, have problematic preferences, unclear technology, and fluid participation. In them, problems, solutions, participants, and choice opportunities flow as largely separate streams, and a decision happens when they meet at a choice opportunity, so timing matters a great deal; solutions circulate looking for issues to which they might be the answer.
What it explains
March explains why organizational decisions are made through bargaining among coalition members, why spare resources ease that bargaining, and why the timing of a choice can decide which ready-made solution it attaches to. A proposal prepared in advance can be adopted when the right occasion arises.