Decision premises, decision cycles and decomposition

This paper deals with firms as both users and generators of productive knowledge and decision-making skills. Human cognitive powers and human knowledge are often insufficient for the formal logic of choice, but well adapted to pattern making and pattern matching; shared patterns are part of organizational and social capital. From problem identification to the review of outcomes, decision processes are guided by decision premises, and complexity is decomposed by fallible organizational design; thus cognitive repertoires develop (and sometimes deteriorate) over time.