Garbage can model
The mix of garbage in a single can also depend on the speed at which the garbage is collected and removed from the scene, for example, how long before problems, solutions, or participants move on to other choice opportunities, or, depending on how long the current choice opportunity remains available.
The organization operates based on trial and error procedures, learning from accidents of past experiences, and pragmatic inventions of necessity.
[2] In situations of ambiguity, decision making moves away from ideas of reality, causality, and intentionality, to thoughts of meaning.
Therefore, decisions become seen as vehicles for constructing meaningful interpretations of fundamentally confusing worlds, instead of outcomes produced by comprehensible environments.
Organized anarchies need structures and processes that symbolically reinforce their espoused values, that provide opportunities for individuals to assert and confirm their status, and that allow people to understand to which of many competing claims on their attention they should respond.
Prior to the garbage can model, the decision process was imagined very differently, as visually displayed, based on references from the foundational literature, in the figures below.
Examples may include the signing of contracts, hiring and firing employees, spending money, and assigning tasks.
[2][1] This arena can be the type of organization (government, school, university) or the greater setting in which this interaction is occurring.
Decisions arise from the constraints of access structures and deadlines interacting with the time-dependent flows of problems, solutions, and participants.
At that time, James G. March was both the Dean of the School of Social Sciences (1964–1969), and a professor of psychology and sociology at the University of California, Irvine (1964–1970).
Olsen, therefore, gained an interest to examine collective, as opposed to individual, decision making, and how routines and chance may affect the decision-making process.
[1] In this paper, the authors used version 5 of the programming language Fortran to translate their ideas into a computer simulation model of a garbage can decision-making process.
Understanding how these decision arenas operate provide tools to successfully manage what could otherwise be a problematic decision-making process.
[2] The enthusiast realizes that the planning is in large part symbolic, and is an excuse for participants to interact and generate meaning.
Characteristics of the garbage can model that were seen by others as disadvantages, such as flexible implementation, uncoordinated action, and confusion, are viewed as advantages by the enthusiast.
[2] This can be accomplished by bringing up different problems and solutions, which will slow the decision-making process down and make it more complex.
Also, trade fairs have been found to be organizational forms that have permeable, fluid participation, and diversified and spontaneous in terms of individual goals and actions, once again displaying traits characteristic of the model.
[7] Students constantly enter and leave the institution, and the faculty and staff working there for longer periods of time may have many competing demands on their attention and resources, such as course instruction, research, and conference travel.
University senates, in particular, provide an opportunity to see the characteristics of organized anarchy and the garbage can model in action.
[3] These senates largely serve symbolic meaning making functions for participants to express themselves through their membership, commitment to professional values, and maintaining relationships.
Problems arise from current events, and can gain or lose focus based on media coverage.
[11] The academic field of psychology is much more a loose collection of ideas and theories, rather than a coherent structure with a shared intellectual paradigm.
Joanne Martin recognized these characteristics of organized anarchy, and applied an adapted version of the garbage can model to the psychological research process.
[11] The garbage can model continues to appear in academic articles, textbooks, and the press, being applied across many diverse domains.
Features of organized anarchy have increased in modern times, and many attempts have been made to contribute to the theoretical discourse of the garbage can model by extending it to include new components.
For example, fluid participation, a key characteristic of organized anarchy, has greatly increased since the original model was formulated.
[12] Some recent research has sought to contribute to the theoretical discourse of the model, by finding leadership style to be a key predictor of decision structure in organized anarchy.
[13] Other recent research has found problems with the computer simulation model used in the original article by Cohen, March, and Olsen, suggesting that decision making styles have not been sufficiently analyzed.
Some of these papers attempt to attach elements of economic reasoning based on rational action assumptions onto the model.
[15] Many of the volume's chapters address the problem of agency, to which the garbage can model offered a solution based on a temporal, instead of a consequential, ordering of organizational events.
