The limited rationality is a concept used in Sociologie and Micro-économie. It relates to the study of the behavior of an individual (called actor here) vis-a-vis a choice (the purchase of a product,…). It supposes that the economic actor has a rational behavior, but that its rationality is limited in terms of cognitive capacity and information available. Consequently, the actor generally will stop with the first choice which he will consider satisfactory.

In other words, the actor is rational (if he prefers has with B and B with C, one can deduce from it that he prefers has with C). However, at the time of a complex choice, he less seeks to study the whole of the possibilities that to find a solution reasonable in a situation of uncertainty. He will generally stop with the first option which will satisfy the concrete situation, while avoiding consuming too much time to carry out his choice (see Effet Tetris).

One deviates then from the one of the postulates first of the Micro-économie, which wants that the actor is fully rational concerning the situation considered.

This concept was forged by Herbert A. Simon and opened the way with research by means of data-processing models and the artificial intelligence.

Thesis of Simon

See also: Herbert Simon

Simon will develop starting from the assumptions of the neo-classic currents a ethologic construction of the decision-making process in the company and focuses this process on the actor and either on the assumption of the invisible Main of the Concurrence. He proposes two " déblocages" design of the Undertaken like privileged place of the rational decision:

First releasing

The behavior of the man is induced by information. The actor reacts to the informational stimuli.

Within the company, operation depends on the relative position of the actors. The manager who decides influences the executant so that it acts in an effective way and coordinate. It is a behavior described as administrative. It is the result of a choice of the actors according to their place in the organization. The choices are not reasoned, but procedural and to choose an action a renunciation of another action implies. It is a selection process says “reflex”. The actions are not guided by a rational thought but by the practice, the ethos. The man is not regarded as an individual, a subject, but like an actor.

Second releasing

Since the rationality of the individual is limited, the organization must help and support the thought of the individual.

• the actor dowry being immersed in a loop information/decision nothing to let pass and to be able to decide;
• information must be organized because its access is limited on the market.

The reflection of the actor is limited by his environment which conditions its decision. The problem is built at the same time as the actor solves it. Each one is determined according to what he imagines to be the strategy of the other.

The knowledge of all the options being impossible, the actor should not seek an optimal but satisfactory solution. The decision will be made compared to the known options, therefore the result of the decision will influence the environment.

Individual rationality is limited by the practices and the reflexes, the values, the perception of the context, the design of the objectives to be reached, the extent of knowledge and information. It cannot be rational taking into consideration goal of the organization that if it is able to arrive there by its own way, by having a clear knowledge of the goals of the organization and clear information of the conditions of its actions.

Conclusion

The conclusion can be summarized by this equation: means + goal + information = behavior

That implies that the organization holds part of the solution: it is information because it feeds the decision.

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