Forty years ago, Herbert Simon reminded public managers of the limits of rationality, or the bounded rationality, of the individual decision maker. New analytical techniques from the sciences of complexity now provide a means to measure the complexity in the environment of public managers using actual organizational data. Time series analysis is used to examine data from the external environment of two urban police divisions. Results of the analysis reveal that the complexities of the environment of public organizations may serve as an inhibition to rational decision making that extends beyond the limits of the individual proposed by Simon.
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