The following are among Simon's ideas

Simon is one of the most accomplished of administrative scientists in the study of administration using behavioral science theories.

(1) The main ideas of Simon's decision-making theory

①Decision-making study and administrative study

Simon explains his reasons for proposing to study administration in terms of decision-making behavior in the following aspects:

a. The traditional discussion of administration pays attention only to the "implementation" without paying attention to the "decision-making" before action or doing, but in fact any activity includes the "decision-making" before action or doing. The traditional discussion of administrative science only focuses on "execution" without paying attention to "decision-making" before action or doing, but in fact any activity includes both decision-making and doing.

b. The actual work of achieving the goals of an administrative organization is carried out by the operators at the lowest level of the organization, i.e., the operational level, but the non-operators above the operators have a greater influence in achieving the goals of the organization.

c. Traditional administrative scholars have confined most of their descriptions of an organization to describing the distribution of responsibilities and the formal power structure of the organization, and they have tended to pay little attention to other influences and communication systems in the organization.

d. Good or correct administrative behavior is essentially efficient administrative behavior, and the easiest way to determine the degree of efficiency is to look at the degree of rationality in the decision-making of each individual in the administrative organization.

e. Administrative activity is the activity of using the power of the majority to accomplish a certain work, and in order to use the power of the majority to accomplish the work, it is necessary to develop a technical method of applying the power of the organization, i.e., administrative procedure, and this administrative procedure, i.e., decision-making procedure, refers to the procedure of delineating which part of the decision-making should be made by each person in the organization.

②Limited Rationality and Decision Criteria

The most important feature of Simon's theory of administrative decision-making is that he develops his theory on the basis of the concept of "rationality". Simon refuted the classical economic theory, that economic man has "objective rationality" or "absolute rationality" and can maximize the interests of the point of view, proposed to "limited rationality" instead of "absolute rationality". "Absolute rationality". Simon's theoretical view is mainly through the objective rationality - "economic man" hypothesis and limited rationality - "administrative man" hypothesis to be described.

In his view, the incompleteness of knowledge, the difficulty of foreseeing the future and the limited scope of alternative behaviors determine that "objective rationality" does not exist in practical action, human behavior depends on neither the classical economists called "objective rationality", nor Freud's so-called "objective rationality". Human behavior relies on neither the classical economist's so-called "objective rationality" nor Freud's "irrationality", but the "limited rationality" between rationality and irrationality, and any organization or individual can only be regarded as a system with the ability to learn and adapt, and should not be regarded as an absolutely rational system. Any organization or individual can only be regarded as a system with the ability to learn and adapt, and should not be regarded as a system of absolute rationality. Therefore, Simon advocates replacing "economic man" with "administrative man", which is based on "limited rationality".

It is precisely this that is the basis of the "administrative man".

It is based on the recognition and analysis of the objective rationality - "economic man" hypothesis and limited rationality - "administrative man" hypothesis, Simon put forward his decision-making criterion Simon puts forward his view on decision-making criteria: the "optimization" criterion should be replaced by the "satisfactory" criterion. According to Simon, since the so-called "objective rationality" or "absolute rationality" does not exist in fact, the "optimization criterion" based on "absolute rationality" should not be used. The "optimization criterion" based on "absolute rationality" should not be taken as the criterion for decision-making; on the contrary, the criterion of "satisfactory" can only be satisfied due to the lack of talent and conditions for "optimization" in decision-making. The criterion of satisfactory decision-making, specifically, refers to deciding on a set of criteria for what constitutes a satisfactory minimum alternative at the time of decision-making, and if the proposed alternative meets or exceeds all of these criteria, then the alternative is satisfactory. In addition, Simon noted that when choices are made according to satisfactory criteria, sometimes the criteria for making the choice can themselves be varied.

3) Administrative Decision-Making Process

Simon argues that decision-making is by no means an action limited to the selection of one of several alternatives, but is a whole process that includes several stages and involves many aspects. In his view, the decision-making process consists of four stages: the first stage, which he calls "intelligence activity", whose task is to explore the environment and seek the conditions that require decision-making; the second stage, which he calls "design activity", whose task is to design, develop and analyze alternative courses of action that may be taken; and the third stage, which is to design, develop and analyze alternative courses of action that may be taken. The third stage, which he called the "choice activity", was to select an applicable course of action from the various alternatives available; the fourth stage, which he called the "review activity", was to evaluate the choices that had been made, and this fourth stage, which he called the "review activity", was to evaluate the choices that had been made, and this fourth stage, which he called the "review activity", was to evaluate the choices that had been made. The fourth stage, which he called the "review activity," is to evaluate the choices that have been made, and this fourth stage is sometimes called the stage of performing the decision-making task.

Simon argues that although all four stages are essential, they are not of equal importance to a good administrator, with the first two stages being critical and the last two secondary.

It should be noted that Simon's four-stage division of the entire decision-making process is only in a general sense. He argues that in actual decision-making activities, the stages are intertwined. Generally speaking, "intelligence activities" before "design activities", and "design activities" before "choice activities The "choice activity" is preceded by the "design activity" and the "design activity" by the "choice activity". However, the reality of the phase cycle is much more complex, with each phase of a particular decision being a complex decision-making process in its own right.

4 Types and Techniques of Administrative Decision Making

Simon in his book "The New Science of Managerial Decision Making" further develops his idea of decision making classification, and based on the type of organizational activities and decision-making techniques adopted just different, will be divided into procedural decision making and non-procedural decision making two types of decision making.

Simon argues that the total activities of an organization can be divided into two categories: routine activities that are recurring, and non-routine activities that are not recurring and cannot be dealt with in the same way as routines, but which are often more important. Decisions about the former are recurrent and structured, so they can be programmed to be applied when the activity is repeated without having to make a new decision each time, and are called programmed decisions; while decisions about the latter are emergent and cannot be programmed, so they are called non-programmed decisions.

For these two different types of decisions, Simon describes the decision-making techniques used in each of them, both traditional and modern. According to Simon, as far as procedural decision-making techniques are concerned, the traditional techniques of procedural decision-making include habits consisting of the collective memory of the members of the organization in terms of their practical knowledge, habitual skills, and operating procedures, standard operating procedures closely related to the habits, and organizational structures on top of the standard operating procedures; whereas the modern techniques of procedural decision-making include operations research, such as linear programming, dynamic programming, holistic programming, game theory, decision theory, queuing theory, probability theory and other mathematical tools as well as electronic data processing techniques such as simulation using electronic computers. As for non-procedural decision-making techniques, Simon argues that the traditional technique that people usually use in non-procedural decision-making is "judgment", which is determined by experience, intuition, and insight in some indeterminate way. With regard to modern techniques of non-procedural decision-making, Simon points out that, like the techniques of procedural decision-making, the techniques of non-procedural decision-making are undergoing a revolution in the application of exploratory problem-solving techniques, including the training of decision-makers and the development of exploratory computer programs.

(2) Contribution of Simon's Decision Making Theory

Simon is an outstanding administrative scientist, and his theory of public ****policy has made great contributions to the development of administrative science. Simon is even regarded as a synonym for "decision-making", and from the point of view of administrative science, it can be said that Simon opened up a new era of administrative research.

His research methodology and his study of the decision-making process, its main purpose is to try to establish a scientific administrative science, this effort is the most specific academic achievement is the "administrative behavior - the study of the decision-making process of the administrative organization," the book came out. The famous American administrative scientist Dwight Waldo in his book "public *** administrative research" will Simon's "administrative behavior - administrative organization decision-making process of the study of the book as an important milestone in the division of the traditional administrative school and behaviorist administrative school. Since the publication of this book, Western administrative science has begun to move into a new era, that is, to replace the traditional, full of ambiguous propositions and dogmatic statements with scientific concepts and empirical research methods.

Not only that, Simon because of his "administrative behavior - the study of decision-making process of administrative organizations" in the book widely cited in psychology, sociology and other disciplines of the research results and open up a new vision of administrative research, so that the study of administrative research from the narrow conceptual framework of a single discipline toward the The study of administrative science from the narrow conceptual framework of a single discipline to a "pan-disciplinary approach" to the road of inter-disciplinary integration. Simon provided scholars who later studied administrative phenomena with a very important research approach, namely, the decision-making research method. He made scholars focus on the study of administrative organizations from the static level of the system, legal system, structure and other research to the dynamic study of the decision-making process. Since Simon put forward the decision-making research approach, the western administrative science has been gradually focusing on the importance of decision-making, and some people even advocate the use of "public *** policy" to replace the "public *** administration". This policy-oriented public **** administrative research trend has become the mainstream of western administrative science. From this point of view, Simon is not only a pioneer in policy-making research, but also a visionary prophet standing in the forefront of the times.