ABSTRACT
Organizations can be viewed from many perspectives. In this chapter they are seen as the almost irreversible consequences of assumptions and decisions made in the past. Few of the key decisions can be reversed without affecting decisions that came after them or without negating some that preceded them. Clearly, decision making in a complex organizations is not, and cannot be, a matter of one decision at a time dependent upon which issues happened to show up in the chief executive's office on a random Monday morning. The subject of decision making in sets is followed by showing the importance of the order of decision making in determining the final outcome. This chapter ends by re-addressing another aspect of decision making in complex organizations that strongly determines what they are, why they are, and where they might go or not go; namely, making sound decisions when insufficient information is available to prove them sound.
