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Showing posts from May, 2012

The World is Watching

The World is Watching: Will G20 Countries Lead this June at the Earth Summit? Three years ago, the Group of 20 countries pledged to phase out environmentally-harmful and ineffective subsidies. The leaders of these twenty influential countries have since made many other promises to deal with climate change and the range of global sustainability challenges, including at the recently concluded Clean Energy Ministerial. As countries meet this week to set the agenda for 2012, they should commit to showing leadership where it counts.  This June, we need to turn pledges into real actionsstarting at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, and continuing through to the Rio+20 Earth Summit (read  here and  here for ideas). NRDC, with Stakeholder Forum and Road to Rio+20, recently launched the Earth Summit Watch – a country-by-country progress tracker of the ambition (or lack thereof) of preparations before we all meet in Rio.  The UN recently announced that 130 heads of state are alrea

Simon's Theory of Administrative Behavior

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Simon's Theory of Administrative Behavior   Simon (1976) clarified the processes by which goal specificity and formalization contribute to rational behavior in organizations (Scott p. 45). He criticized Fayol's platitudes and Taylor's "economic man" assumptions, proposing the "administrative man" who pursues his self-interests but often doesn't know what they are, is aware of only some of the possible decision alternatives, and is willing to settle for an adequate solution than continue looking for an optimal one (p. 45). Simon distinquishes between the decisions a person makes to enter or leave an organization and the decisions they make as a participant. Organizations simplify decisions and support participants in the decisions they need to make. Organizations simplify decisions by restricting the ends toward which activity is directed. Goals supply the value premises that underly decisions. Value premises (assumptions of desirable ends )