ABSTRACT
Among their many roles organisational decision makers have to act as micro-resource manipulators and tacticians. They try to juggle their activities so as to secure the best mixture in pursuing their objectives. They trim their sails, now one way and now another. They wonder whether to do a bit more here, a bit less there. This detailed balancing of trade-offs–a workaday, housekeeping aspect of management – is a universal and continuous process. Essentially, what the marginal analysis does is to sharpen and improve it. Although the formal theories of marginalism as developed by many economists within the last century have frequently been highly abstract and esoteric, their practical message is valid and clear. Marginalism suggests that the trade-off process is best pursued by means of strictly relevant data, quantification and optimising formulas. In a perfectly rational and predictable world, organisations of every kind would be both willing and able to do these things. In practice, marginalism can be attained only partially. But its firm and clear-eyed pursuit–in more or less modified forms– is essential for rational management.
