On Rational Decision Making

The occasion of this meeting marks one more incident in peaceful international existence. The very spirit of the meeting itself, in which intellectuals and managers of different nations meet to discuss their mutual problems, is a sign of our times. We of Canada and the USA have learned to develop sound international relationships just as we are learning to establish sound relationships between science and management.

Management science and the profession of operations research are both based on the general supposition that sound relationships between different parties in a decision making situation do exist and can be found by diligent search and research. We follow the pathway of a great historical precedent, which generally goes under the name of rationalism. The precedent says that sound relationships between different parties in a decision making situation can be established by means of reason. It goes on to say that reason is something that all men share, and that when men come to understand clearly, they inevitably will decide in the same ways.

Management Technology, ISSN 0542-4917, was published as a separate journal from 1960 to 1964. In 1965 it was merged into Management Science.