Agenda Setting and Bounded Rationality

Abstract

<p>This chapter reviews the existing scholarship on agenda setting, focusing on two aspects of human choice. The first aspect centers on behavioral analyses of choice, especially cognitive limits to rationality (e.g., limits to the human attention span, the process of satisficing, and the use of heuristics), directed at understanding how individuals prioritize action. The second aspect focuses on organizational choice, with an emphasis on the impacts of information processing, search processes, and organizational structure. The chapter examines linkages between micro and macro processes, showing how studies of organizations and broader political systems based on a model of comprehensive rationality fail. Focusing on behavioral foundations allows for a more accurate and holistic explanation of issue prioritization (agenda setting) in complex organizations based on behavioral models of choice. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future directions of research.</p>

Business Ethics Decision-Making: Examining Partial Reflective Awareness

“…However, at the individual level, there are not many differences in the approach to the ethical dilemmas involving different aspects of life, which shows the transferability of the decision-making patterns applied to ethical dilemmas in different aspects of life at the individual level. In addition, the organizational level in business ethics deals with another aggravating factor, that is, aggregation of individual behavior [4][5][6][7][8][9]. The theories within the business ethics framework have been developing in such a direction to become focused on individual behavior and [1] systematize the theoretical development into three areas: Moral Automaticity, Moral Schemas, and Moral Heuristics Research.…”

“…That relevance of the employees' ethical principles and their alignment with the company's policies lies in the possibility of their impact on the design and implementation of policies, especially the ones related to sustainability and corporate responsibility. The intertwinement of individual and organizational behavior is a subject of research from the organizational, psychological, and educational perspective [5][6][7]. The focus is commonly placed on the individual's decision-making competencies and the trade-off between the maximization of personal benefits and practicing virtuous behavior.…”