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Organization Studies
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Simon and Polanyi on Rationality and Knowledge

Kent D. Miller

Michigan State University, USA, millerk{at}bus.msu.edu

Organizational researchers cite Simon and Polanyi without adequately acknowledging and dealing with the disparities in their perspectives on rationality and knowledge. This study explains the views of Simon and Polanyi and traces their disparities to differing underlying philosophical perspectives. Simon's research emphasized cognition over action, explicit knowledge over tacit knowledge, mechanistic information processing over human judgment, and means over ends. Polanyi provides counterbalancing emphases for each of these orientations in his explanation of skillful performance. The latter portion of this study draws conclusions about the perspectives of Simon and Polanyi and identifies implications for research on rationality and knowledge management.

Key Words: bounded rationality • tacit knowledge • epistemology • knowledge management • ethics • creativity

This version was published on July 1, 2008

Organization Studies, Vol. 29, No. 7, 933-955 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840608090532
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