James G. March
Overview
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
and the Stanford University School of Education
Stanford University School of Education
The Stanford University School of Education , is one of the seven schools of Stanford University. It is the second-oldest school of education in the United States, after NYU...
, best known for his research on organizations and organizational decision making.
March is highly respected for his broad theoretical perspective which combined theories from psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and other behavioural sciences
Behavioural sciences
The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic observation, and disciplined...
. As a core member of the Carnegie School
Carnegie School
The "Carnegie School" was a so-called "Freshwater" economics intellectual movement in the 1950s and 1960s based at Carnegie Mellon University and led by Herbert Simon, James March, and Richard Cyert....
, he collaborated with the cognitive psychologist
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
on several works on organization theory. March is also known for his seminal work on the behavioural perspective on the theory of the firm
Theory of the firm
The theory of the firm consists of a number of economic theories that describe the nature of the firm, company, or corporation, including its existence, behavior, structure, and relationship to the market.-Overview:...
along with Richard Cyert
Richard Cyert
Richard Michael Cyert was an American economist and statistician who served as the sixth President of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.-Early life:...
(1963).
Quotations
No organization works if the toilets don't work, but I don't believe that finding solutions to business problems is my job.
On artistic sensibility.
... we sometimes find that such heresies have been the foundation for bold and necessary change, but heresy is usually just crazy. Most daring new ideas are foolish or dangerous and appropriately rejected or ignored. So while it may be true that great geniuses are usually heretics, heretics are rarely great geniuses.
On leadership and the relation between madness, heresy, and genius.
I am not now, nor I have ever been, relevant.
Said each year during the beginning of classes at Stanford.