The Consequences of Decision-Making

Nils Brunsson is one of the leading European organization theorists who has written and researched decision-making in organizations. He has often questioned the rationality of decision-making, and argued that it is as important to understand other consequences of decision-making apart from choice - such things as mobilizing action, allocating responsibility, and legitimizing organizations. These consequences of decisions can influence decision-making and the assumptions about feasible norms that provide their context. Decisions often run counter to actions and are part of what Brunsson calls organizational hypocrisy. Decisions can substitute for action, or decrease the probability of the action they call for. The norm of rationality is far from obvious: sometimes decision-makers can recommend systematic irrationality. This book collects together a wide-range of Nils Brunsson's most important writing on decision-making, brought together in one volume for the first time, with an introduction from the author.

1 - Decision as Institution
2 - Deciding for Responsibility and Legitimation: Alternative Interpretations of Organizational Decision-Making
3 - The Irrationality of Action and Action Rationality: Decisions, Ideologies, and Organizational Actions
4 - Implementing Reforms
5 - Responsibility as an Impediment to Influence - The Case of Budgeting
6 - Industrial Policy as Implementation or Legitimation
7 - Organized Hypocrisy
8 - Ideas and Actions: Justification and Hypocrisy as Alternatives to Control

Nils Brunsson is a Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics, where he holds the City of Stockholm Chair in Management. He is the chairman of the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score). He has published numerous books and articles in the field of organizations. His main research focus has been decision theory and the institutional analysis of organizations. His current interests include organizational aspects of globalization.