ABSTRACT
How do organizations think? Take the example of a typical research university in the
United States. From football and food halls to fraternities and fund-raising, aerospace
engineering and anthropology to women’s studies and zoology, the admissions office and
board of trustees to the faculty senate and student government, universities, similar to
other complex organizations, are characterized by multiple interactions between
individuals and groups with inconsistent interests and identities rather than by the
independent action of any single decision maker or group of individuals (March, 1997).
