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Organisation and Decision

What does it mean that organisations consist of communicating decisions (on this subject we recommend strongly the book from Luhmann, ‘Organisation and Decision’)? Every decision made has three features in organisations:

• It creates conditions for other decisions. Thus it becomes an element of the organisational system. (Once the board of directors has decided, then the area manager can make further decisions)

• It creates a reference point for other decisions or it limits such references. (After the board of directors has decided, the area manager must withdraw an earlier decision and make a different one)

• It restricts time by laying down by selectively defining the future, because it gives the present a clear direction. (Once the board of directors has decided, the area manager can no longer make certain decisions for the future)

Therefore, decisions stand in relation to other decisions. They enable or hinder, they alternatively complicate or facilitate life, they support or handicap each other, they provide resources or withdraw them. They only make sense in the context of other decisions and only become effective when other decisions are triggered from them.