For over 30 years, James March has made a sustained and innovative contribution to the field of organizational theory. In this series of lectures, previously unpublished in English, March explores the problems of leadership. These problems, he proposes, are dealt with more effectively in works of great literature than in management textbooks. Reading 'War and Peace' or 'Don Quixote', according to March, allows us to develop a critical ability which complements the techniques we acquire elsewhere.

March uses literature to present a range of moral dilemmas related to leadership - questions concerning the balance between private life and public duties, between ingenuity and innocence, between diversity and integration, and between the expression and the control of sexuality. He encourages us to explore ideas that are subversive, unpalatable, and which may not work in the short term, but which allow organisations to adapt in a rapidly changing world.

James G. March is Fred H. Merrill Professor of Management and Professor of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University. He has inspired generations of students with his work in organizational theory. His previous publications include 'Decisions and Organizations' (Blackwell Publishing, 1989), 'Behavioral Theory of the Firm' (Blackwell Publishing, Second Edition, 1992) and 'The Pursuit of Organizational Intelligence' (Blackwell Publishing, 1998).

Thierry A. Weill is Professor of Technology Management at Ecole des Mines in Paris. From 2000 to 2002, he acted as scientific advisor to the Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin. He is the author of two books, over 40 scientific papers, and several patents. He chairs a monthly workshop on technology and innovation management.

Introduction: A chronicle of speculations about organizational decision-making 1

Part I The Allocation of Attention

1 Organizational structure and pricing behavior in an oligopolistic market 25

2 Models in a behavioral theory of the firm 37

3 Financial adversity, internal competition and curriculum change in a university 61

4 Managerial perspectives on risk and risk-taking 76

Part II Conflict in Organizations

5 The business firm as a political coalition 101

6 The power of power 116

7 Implementation and ambiguity 150

Part III Adaptive Rules

8 Footnotes to organizational change 167

9 A model of adaptive organizational search 187

10 Learning from experience in organizations 219

11 Decision-making and postdecision surprises 228

Part IV Decision-Making under Ambiguity

12 The technology of foolishness 253

13 Bounded rationality, ambiguity and the engineering of choice 266

14 A garbage can model of organizational choice 294

15 The uncertainty of the past: organizational learning under ambiguity 335

16 Performance sampling in social matches 359

17 Ambiguity and accounting: the elusive link between information and decision-making 384

18 Information in organizations as signal and symbol 409

19 Gossip, information and decision-making 429

Index 443