who was herbert a simon 
herbert a simon 1916 2001 was an american economist and political scientist who won the nobel memorial prize in economic sciences in 1978 for his contributions to modern business economics and administrative research he is widely associated with the theory of bounded rationality which states that individuals do not make perfectly rational decisions because of both cognitive limits the difficulty in obtaining and processing all the information needed and social limits personal and social ties among individuals 1simon earned his ph d from the university of chicago in 1943 after graduating he worked in research and held teaching posts at a handful of universities before joining the carnegie mellon university faculty in 1949 he taught there for more than 50 years as a professor of administration psychology and computer science he also had a hand in the establishment of several of carnegie mellon s departments and schools including the graduate school of industrial administration which is now known as the tepper school of business 1in addition to the nobel memorial prize in economics simon received the a m turing award in 1975 for his work in computer science including his contributions to the area of artificial intelligence 2 he also won the u s national medal of science in 1986 3simon authored dozens of journal articles and 27 books during his lifetime including administrative behavior 1947 the sciences of the artificial 1968 and models of bounded rationality 1982 4herbert a simon and bounded rationalityherbert a simon and his theories on economic decision making challenged classical economic thinking including the ideas of rational behavior and the atomistic individualism of economic man rather than subscribing to the idea that economic behavior was rational and based upon all available information to secure the best possible outcome for an individual optimizing simon believed decision making was about achieving outcomes that were good enough for the individual based on their limited information and balancing the interests of others simon called this satisficing his term was a combination of the words satisfy and suffice 1according to simon because humans cannot possibly obtain or process all the information needed to make fully rational decisions they instead seek to use the information they do have to produce a satisfactory result or one that is good enough he described humans as being bounded by their own cognitive limits 1in addition to cognitive limits simon also wrote about how personal relations and social organizations constrain decision making this means that individuals often do not make decisions considering only their own interests or the individual s utility maximization but must negotiate exert power over or otherwise navigate the interests of others and the rules of the institutional setting within which they operate 1together these cognitive and social limits and the way they shape decision making are commonly known as the theory of bounded rationality under bounded rationality decision makers must settle for finding satisfactory solutions to the problem or problems in front of them while being mindful of how other decision makers in the company are solving their own problems within these bounds decision making can still be rational in that it consists of comparing the relative costs benefits and risks to achieve a desired result bounded rationality would also go on to become a foundational element in behavioral economics which at times also questions whether human decision making is really rational at all 