SUBSTANTIVE AND PROCEDURAL RATIONALITY
Substantive Rationality
• Identification of the best / most appropriate / optimal
individual and collective human condition in a particular context.
• Pure substantive rationality embraces the canons and methods of
empirico-analytic sciences as the more effective means of
documenting/effecting optimal human conditions, i.e., a science
of human behavior and social organization.
Procedural Rationality
• Procedural rationality focuses on the means for both realizing and
grounding operationalizing substantively rational decisions
• Pure procedural rationality embraces the canons of empirico-analytic
science as the most effective means of realizing substantively
rational human conditions, I.e., a science of decision making.
COMPREHENSIVE-RATIONAL PLANNING
1) Develop an ordered set of (valued) goals and objectives.
2) Develop a set of all feasible alternative strategies/actions.
3) Systematically assess this set of all alternative
strategies/actions.
4) Select and implement that alternative which maximizes the
goals.
SIMON’S CRITIQUE
(Models of Man, 1957)
 The human cognitive capacity to formulate and solve complex
problems are highly limited compared to the demands of real
world problems.
 There are practical limits to human rationality, given the vast
uncertainties involved.
 We can only embrace bounded rationality in decision making.
 We cannot find solutions which optimize or maximize goals.
 We can only satisfice, that is, find solutions that are “good
enough most of the time”.
COMPREHENSIVE-RATIONAL PLANNING PROCESS
1) Develop an ordered set of (valued) goals and objectives.
2) Develop a set of all feasible alternative strategies/actions.
3) Systematically assess this set of all alternative
strategies/actions.
4) Select and implement that alternative which maximizes the
goals.
INCREMENTAL PLANNING PROCESS
1) Set few simple unordered goals.
2) List few alternative strategies and actions which occur to you.
3) Compare these based on experience / hunches .
4) Suggest some possible consequences.
5) Select one which seems both feasible and meets the limited goals.
6) Keep iterating this process until the outcomes seem good
enough .
RATIONAL-COMPREHENSIVE
INCREMENTAL
(Root)
(Branch)
• selection of ends (goals) discrete
from analysis of means (actions)
 values (goals) and analysis of
actions intertwined
• ends
 ends and means selection
intertwined
means analysis
 good policy systematically
linked to ends (goals)
 agreement on policy/plan without
agreement on its link to ends (goals)
• analysis is comprehensive
 analysis is highly limited
• theory important
 experience important
• systematic analysis important
 judgement important
PRINCIPLES OF COMPREHENSIVE - RATIONAL PLANNING
1) Systematic ordering of ends (goals and objectives).
2) Separation of ends (value issue) and means (instrumental issue).
3) Comprehensive in identifying alternative means.
4) Comprehensive in analyzing alternative means.
5) Choice of the best solution, i.e., optimal means related to ends (goals).
PRINCIPLES OF INCREMENTAL PLANNING
1) Interdependence of ends (goals) and means (strategies/actions).
2) Ends and means selected simultaneously
.
3)
Identify and evaluate alternative means informally/piecemeal.
4) Proceeds via iterative, successive limited comparisons.
5) Selection of a good, but not the best alternative.
STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF INCREMENTAL PLANNING
Strengths
• Since only incremental changes are proposed, predictions are firmer.
• Meets conservative requirements, i.e.,
- Consistent with Laissez - Faire processes
- Promotes stability
- Maintains the status quo.
• Characterizes actual, rather than idealized decision - making behavior.
• Produces plans with a high level of political feasibility.
Weaknesses
• Maintains status quo; social inertial.
.
• Dampens innovation..
• Predictions/assessments are essentially
.
self- fulfilling.
• Some problems have no past history, e.g., acute energy shortage.
• Political feasibility is only one requirement of good plans/policies.
CRITICISMS OF C-R PLANNING
C-R PLANNING PROCESS
1. Develop a comprehensive, ordered set of goals and objectives.
2. Develop an exhaustive set of alternative means for attaining goals.
3. Analyze this exhaustive set alternative means.
4. Select and implement that alternative which maximizes goal
attainment.
CRITICISMS
• Disparity between requirements of the (normative) model and
human cognitive capacities.
• Social decision centers frequently lack the agreed upon set of goals
required to evaluate alternatives
• In the real world, cannot really separate facts and values, means
and ends.
• Cannot assess all consequences of all alternatives.
• The rational model is thus rejected as unrealistic and undesirable.
CRITICISMS OF INCREMENTAL PLANNING
INCREMENTAL PLANNING PROCESS
1. Set a few simple, unordered goals.
2. List a few alternatives which occur to you.
3. Compare these alternatives
4. Select one of the alternatives which seems feasible.
5. Keep iterating this process.
CRITICISMS
• Mirrors laissez fare processes.
• No collective guidance or regulatory instrumentality; decisions
generally reflect the interests of only the most powerful stakeholders.
• Dampens innovation; incremental decisions unlikely to lead to
social innovations without more general goals and strategies.
• Reinforces social inertia and the status quo.
• Inappropriate for fundamental decisions; unresponsive to novel
changes in the external environment.
• See also Dror's critique.
MIXED-SCANNING PLANNING PROCESS
Level One (Prescriptive)
1. Develop an ordered set of general goals.
2. Develop a general, but comprehensive set of alternatives.
3. Develop a general, but systematic assessment of alternates, i.e.,
analysis of fairly global variables and factors.
4. Select and implement a general course of action which maximizes
attainment of the general goals.
5. Re-iterate when systemic stresses reach predefined thresholds.
Level Two (Incremental; Prescriptive-Descriptive)
1. Develop a set of specific, partially ordered goals linked to the more
general goals (developed in Level One).
2. Develop a set of modest (goal - related) alternatives.
3. Compare the apparent consequences/impacts of various alternatives.
4. Select the course of action most likely to attain the (specific) goals.
5. Continue iterating until the system moves toward the general goals.
LEVEL I
Decision Processes
General
Goals
General
Strategies
LEVEL II
Decision Processes
Specific
Goals
Specific
Strategies/
Actions
a .2
a .1
B
a .n
...
a .3
COMPREHENSIVE- A
RATIONAL
2
A
7
6
1
INCREMENTAL
3
4
a.1
MIXED-SCANNING
A
a.2
8..
.
5
a.3
a.4
B
B+/-
DROR'S TYPOLOGY OF DECISION MODELS
• Pure Rational Model
o Systematically ordered goals/values.
o Complete set alternative means and predicted outcomes.
o Selection of the best, i.e., optimal, alternative.
• Economically Rational Model
o Purely rational in so far as it is economical do so.
o Accepts some extra
-rational properties
• Sequential - Decision Model
o Assumes informational needs met only when implemented.
o Non-action impossible or more costly than action.
o Can't get information analytically or extrapolate.
• Satisficing Model
o Accepts human cognitive limitations.
o Search for the alternative which is good enough.
o Based on experiential knowledge, but analysis is rigorous.
• Incremental - Change Model
o Assumes the slow evolution of policies and plans.
o Accepts human cognitive limitations and uncertainty.
o Requires little prediction of consequences.
o Reinforces status quo; past policies fairly satisfactory.
o Little innovation is needed or available.
• Extra-Rational Model
o Not a variant of pure
-rational model (as are the others).
o Based on superiority of intuition, informed judgment, "hunches" of
knowledgables, human synthetic capacity, experiential impressions.
CHANGING CONCEPTS OF RATIONAL D-M
Classical Decision-Making Models Assume:
• Homo-Economicus (optimization of choice).
• One decision maker.
• Focus on one goal.
• Decides in one step.
Current Decision-Making Models Assume:
• Multiple Actors (Stakeholders).
• Embracing multiple preference orderings (goals and objectives).
• Operating in complex decision - making environments..
• Requiring multiple procedures.
• Executed by individuals embracing multiple axiological/ideological postures.
Changing Views of Rational Decision-Making Behavior:
• Means optimal behavior.
• Means goal-oriented behavior.
• Means explainable behavior
THE GARBAGE CAN DECISION MODEL
(Cohen et al, 1972)
"An organization is a collection of choices looking for
problems, issues and feelings looking for a decision
situation in which they may be aired, solutions looking for
issues to which they may be a answer, and decisions
makers looking for work ... To understand (decision making)
processes within organizations, one can view a choice
opportunity as a garbage can into which various kinds of
problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they
are generated."
PLANNING THEORY DEVELOPMENTS
• Emphasis Shifted From Substantive to Procedural Issues
• From what to do, to how to go about doing it.
• Comprehensive- Rational Planning
• "Scientification" of Decision Making (Post WW. II), e.g.,
Operations Research
Cybernetics
Artificial Intelligence
General Systems Theory
• Assumes Classical "Economic Man”,i.e., optimization of choice
• Simon's Critique
• Bounded Rationality; Satisfycing
• Phase Models of Decision Making
• Lindblom's Critique of Comprehensive-Rational Planning
• Incrementalism
• Etizioni's Synthesis
• Mixed Scanning; Bi-level decision processes.
• Variants of the Above...