Reconciling garbage cans and rational actors: Explaining organizational decisions about environmental hazard management

Abstract This paper argues that the garbage can model of organizational choice is an accurate description of organizational decision making for complex problems, but that the rational choice decision making model still applies to decisions of low and high importance. Choice situations in general are sensitive to variation in bureaucratic procedure and interest group attention. Decision importance, however, functions as an exogenous constraint on process-based explanations of observed organizational behavior. Importance is defined in terms of causal complexity and attention. For low importance decisions, causal complexity is low and so decision rules are relatively easy to apply. For high importance decisions, attendance is high and so adherence to formal policy is more likely. It is in the middle importance decisions, where causal complexity is sufficient to require interpretation of decision rules, and attention scarce enough that random groups or processes can dominate decision making, that consistent decision making is most severely constrained. These ideas are tested and confirmed in analysis of Environmental Protection Agency decisions for hazardous waste management at Superfund sites. The findings show that variation in the decision making process and variation in interest group participation are significant to explaining priorities. More specifically, decision importance has a U-shaped relationship with priorities, indicating that formal decision rules apply more in low and high importance decisions.