Cultural and Historical Rules Define Rationality in Achieving Goals

At the same time it has to do with the way in which the individual reaches those needs. The action taken to reach the needs, goals, should be according to specific guidelines, thus rules. Those rules are culturally and historically defined. These rules state the actions that are allowed for the individual to take in order to reach his or her goal, but also state the actions that are "not-done". For example driving a car can be rational and not rational depending on the way one drives the car. On a certain highway the speed limit Is km/h.

If someone drives faster than 100 km/h then he or she will get a speeding ticket. If one drives 100 km/h then the driving Is rational because It Is according to the rules and one drives with the goal of not getting a speeding ticket. If one decides to drive km,'h it is not rational anymore because the driving is not done according to the rules even though one can have a goal of getting to the destination faster. This definition of rationality is not to be confused with the rational choice theory. Rational choice theory uses a specific and narrower definition of "rationality" simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that maximizes personal advantage. " ("Rational choice theory," 2014) This means that according to the rational choice theory an action is rational If It Is the best action. An action Is the best action If one checks all the options one has and then comes to the conclusion that this action gives me the most benefits for the least amounts of costs.

For example if one has the choice beet;en going outside in the winter with a coat or without, the benefits of going outside with the coat outweigh that of going outside without the coat. One would in this case choose to go outside with the coat according to the rational choice theory. As I mentioned before rationality consists of goals and rules. Every individual or organization can choose which goals he or she wants to achieve. The rules on the other hand are not something which is exclusively the matter of an individual or single organization.

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The rules are imposed on Individuals or organizations by the society around them. The society decides what the rules are based on assembling. "Assembling Is the ongoing retrospective development of plausible Images that rationalize what people are doing. " (College, 2011, p. 63) them. This interpretation differs between different cultures, and even between efferent individuals in one culture. This perceiving and interpreting of the world is an ongoing process, it happens all the time. It is retrospective, meaning that we review the sense that we made of what happened.

So we sense what we sensed with new data. It is plausible because it is never perfect, but rather good enough for the things we sense and people that sense it. It is an image because we try to represent the thing that we sense in the form of models, plans or mental maps. Because sneaking is different for different people, the rules that come out of this sneaking is also different. This in turn results in different rationalities, because the rules that are used are different. As suggested in the book there could be different rationalities at play at the same time in an organization.

For example the finance department can have as a rationality to be completely honest about the financial state of the organization. At the same time the finance department can have as a rationality to give a positive financial state of an organization. Those two rationalities can in times of financial setbacks collide with each other. Another example can be found with the employees. The first rationality of the employee could e to earn as much money as possible. At the same time the employee can have as a second rationality to work as less as possible.

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