Garbage Can Model - Explained
What is the Garbage Can Model of Organization?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 22nd, 2024
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What is the Garbage Can Model?
The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, created by Cohen, March & Olsen, is an organizational choice model to inform decisions about the internal organization of a business.
An Organization is compared to a garbage can. An Organization is a collection of:
- Choices looking for problems.
- Issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired.
- Solutions looking for issues to which they might be the answer.
- Decision makers looking for work.
One can view a choice opportunity as a garbage can into which various kinds of problems and solutions are dumped by participants as they are generated.
How is the Garbage Can Process Employed?
The garbage can process is shown to be one in which problems, solutions, and participants move from one choice opportunity to another in such a way that the nature of the choice, the time it takes, and the problems it solves all depend on a relatively complicated intermeshing of elements.
These include:
- the mix of choices available at any one time,
- the mix of problems that have access to the organization,
- the mix of solutions looking for problems, and
- the outside demands on the decision makers.
What are Organized Anarchies?
The Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice identifies organized anarchies are organizations characterized by problematic preferences, unclear technology, and fluid participation.
Such organizations can be viewed for some purposes as collections of choices looking for problems, issues and feelings looking for decision situations in which they might be aired, solutions looking for issues to which they might be an answer, and decision makers looking for work.
Assumptions of the Garbage Can Model?
The garbage can model assumes that structures influence outcomes of garbage can decisions by:
- Affecting the time pattern of the arrival of problems, choices, solutions, and decision makers;
- Determining allocation of energy; and
- Establishing linkages among the various streams of resources.