Working Paper Series, Department of Industrial Economics & Strategy, Copenhagen Business School
No 02-7:
The Rhetorical Dimensions of Bounded Rationality: Herbert A. Simon and Organizational Economics
Nicolai J. Foss
Abstract: I discuss the rhetorical dimensions of bounded rationality
in two different, yet related, contexts, namely in the practice of
organizational economists and in Herbert Simon’s key attempts to persuade
economists to take bounded rationality seriously, his Ely lecture and his
Nobel Prize lecture. I discuss various reasons why Simon failed to convince
his contemporaries, among other things, the absence of clear definitions of
bounded rationality and heuristics for incorporating it into economic
models. Simon’s failures in these respects help explaining the very modest,
and mainly “rhetorical,” use of bounded rationality in the works of
organizational economists.
Keywords: Herbert Simon, bounded rationality, organizational economics, rhetoric.; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: B41; D23; M1; (follow links to similar papers)
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