Herbert Simon - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Herbert Alexander Simon (born on June 15th, 1916 with Milwaukee, Wisconsin, dead on February 9th, 2001 with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) was “Nobel Prize” of economy in 1978).

It initially was interested in the cognitive Psychologie and the limited Rationalité ( Bounded Rationality ) which constitutes the heart of its thought. At the economic level its work questioned the effectiveness of the Fordisme and called into question the theories Néo-classique S. Its studies on limited rationality led it to be interested in the organizations and the procedures of decisions as to the Artificial intelligence (containing data processing) of which it is one of the pioneers to the the United States. It received with Allen Newell, in 1975 the Prix Turing, principal distinction in Informatique.

Biography

Herbert Simon was born in 1916 in Wisconsin. His/her father engineer in the field of electricity had made studies with Darmastad in Germany before emigrating into 1903 with the the United States. Simon very young person was introduced with the idea that the human behavior could be studied scientifically, by the youngest brother of his mother, Harold Merkel, which studied the economy at the University of Wisconsin in Madison with John Rogers Commons. He entered in 1933 to the Université of Chicago where he studied social sciences and mathematics in particular under the aegis of Henry Schultz an econometer specialist in the mathematical economy. These studies led it to be interested in the field of the decision making in the organizations which became the subject of its thesis in political science that it supported in 1943 with the Université of Chicago. In Chicago, it studied political science under the direction of Harold Lasswell and Charles Edward Merriam and like them, it was subject to the influence of Graham Wallas, a professor of the London School off Economics which dice 1908, had stressed the importance of psychology and the institutions in the political arena and economic. Among those which influenced it, Simon also quotes the economist Richard T. Ely, Norman Angell, the author of the book The Great Illusion and Progress and Poverty of Henry George.

From 1939 to 1942, Simon was director of a group of research to the the University of California (Berkeley), then he taught off political science with the Illinois Institute Technology . Of return to Chicago, it took part in seminars of Cowles Commission given by Jacob Marschak and Tjalling Koopmans which directed then students like Kenneth Arrow, Lawrence Klein or Don Patinkin. At that time, he also studies the General Théorie of Keynes, the econometric novel methods as well as the first papers of Paul Samuelson. Under the direction of Marschak and Sam Schurr, it took part in an exploratory study on the economic effects of atomic energy. In 1948, he was member of Economic Cooperation Administration charged to manage the Marshall plan.

From 1949, it off integrates the Graduate School Industrial Administration into the Carnegie Institute off Technology of Pittsburgh. Its goal and that of the team of teachers of this school are then to develop a teaching of the life of the businesses resting on the basic research in economy and behavioral science. It was helped later in this task by Franco Modigliani and John Muth. With the beginning of the year fifty with David Hawkins it découvere the theorem of Hawkins-Simon on the conditions of the existence of a positive solution in the matrices of input-output. From 1954, it is convinced that the best way of studying the resolution of the problems was to use the computers, that led so that it called the Artificial intelligence.

Simon also made party, at the end of the Sixties of the economic committee of the experts of the President. He was used one year under the administration as Lyndon Johnson and three years under that of Richard Nixon. He was also member of the national Academy of Sciences of the United States.

Simon and limited rationality

decision and reason

In its work of 1947, Administrative Behavior , Simon distinguishes between

the objectively rational decision fruit from a behavior aiming at maximizing the values given in a given situation
the subjectively rational decision maximizes the chances to arrive to fine a data according to real knowledge of the individual
a consciously rational decision comes out from a process conscious of adaptation of the means for purposes. It becomes intentionally rational if the adaptation is made in a deliberated way.
a rational decision from the point of view of the organization serves the objectives of the organization.
a personally rational decision it obeys the intentions of the individual

Limit of individual rationality

Like " each human organism lives in an environment which produces million bits of new information each second but the apparatus of perception does not certainly admit more than 1000 bits a second and probably moins" the reason can be only limited and functioning in incomplete information. It results from this two consequences according to Claude Parthenay

the agent is dependant on the medium in which it lives which in a certain way sorts information
there will be a difference between action and realization of the ends

Procedural rationality

For Simon. " The procedure of rational computation is interesting only if it is not commonplace - i.e. when the answer subtantiellement rational to a situation is not immediately obvious. If you pose a part of twenty-five hundreds and one part of ten hundreds front indicate a subject and him that it can take one or the other, not both, it is easy to envisage which it will choose but difficult to learn something from his procedures cognitives". The procedure becomes important to study when the agent does not have complete information. Indeed in this case it cannot find the solution optimal and it will stop its searchs for information when it has to find a solution satisfying its needs (satisficing). If the study of the procedures and the organizations is important at Simon it is that it is advisable despite everything to make best the possible decisions and thus to follow processes which bring to the solution nearest to the optimum.

Organization and rationalization of the decision

August 1st

For Simon the interest of the organization in the decision-making process is triple

creation and the use of routine procedures makes it possible to better face uncertainty
the organization makes it possible frationnement to divide the decision-making process between several agents
of decision making makes it possible to limit the risk of error and can help with the corrections of the errors of decisions.

The coherence of the decisions inside the organization is allowed by

the Autorité which is based on a system of sanctions and reward.
the honesty which consists in for the individual integrating the objectives of the company. This one depends on what the organization brings to the individual in exchange of his docility and the capacity of the individuals to widen their " horizons humains" i.e. d'" to accept that our fate is related to the fate of the entire world " For Simon " we can, without entering in contradiction with the doctrines of the egoistic embarrassment (selfish embarrassment) to introduce mechanisms for the evolutionary change of a very whole company which impose social criteria in the process of sélection"