Simon, Herbert (1916–2001)

Abstract

Simon's reputation and legacy are curious and extensive, but opaque. Many talk of bounded rationality without understanding what he meant by it. His 1978 Nobel Prize in economics shocked the economics community, which did not see him as an economist at all. His PhD thesis, eventually published as Administrative Behavior has gone to four editions, yet is not much cited by organization theorists today. His work in artificial intelligence is more identifiable, but now regarded as part of the field's history given he left no theory or model in wide use today – with the little known exception of ‘list processing,’ more due to his collaborator Allan Newell. This article argues Simon was a philosopher, the first of our neo-Weberian organizational world. Bounded rationality is Simon's core philosophical contribution and it provides a new entry point into understanding how firms are able to create new economic value. It is not a model of the human mind. Our present obsession with positivist methodologies prevents us appreciating Simon's work – but its time will come.