One author stands out for his contributions to the evolving field of organizations and management: James March. He was the co-author of the two books that were particularly influential in initiating the field which is now broadly recognized as behavioural theories of organizations: A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, written with Richard Cyert, and Organisations, written with Herbert Simon. This article outlines part of the evolution of March’s framework that he has developed in order to understand human action in often-complex (...) situations. It also includes some notes on Richard Cyert’s contributions. March’s framework became clear and was shaped by his background at the interdisciplinary environment at Carnegie Mellon in the 1950s and 60s. The non-rational and adaptive aspects of human decision-making and behaviour have figured more prominently in March’s work as time has gone on. (shrink)

: The work of Herbert A. Simon has drawn increasing attention from modern scholars who argue that Simon's work changed during the Cold War. This is due to the fact that Simon seemingly changed the substance of his research in the 1950s. This paper argues that Simon did not change in any significant way, but was lead by his interest in decision making and rationality into areas of economics, political science, sociology, psychology, organization theory, and computer science. He used elements (...) of different disciplines to address his overall interest and there is therefore a considerable continuity in Simon's work. This paper also provides part of a background for the recent increase of interest in Simon's ideas by providing some details of the RAND Corporation and the Ford Foundation's support of scientific research through the post war years in general, and their connections to the behavioral science research at Carnegie Mellon University in particular. (shrink)