✅ Garbage Can Approach

Proposed by: Cohen, March, and Olsen (1972)

🔹 Core Idea:

In complex or loosely structured organizations, decisions do not follow a linear, rational process. Instead, problems, solutions, people, and choices float around independently — like items in a garbage can — and sometimes they collide randomly to form a decision.

🔹 Key Features:

• Decisions are often made by chance or coincidence, not logic.

• “Organized anarchy”: unclear problems, fluid participants, shifting priorities.

• Emphasizes the role of timing, availability of people, and opportunity.

🔹 Example:

A company buys a new software tool not because it was needed, but because someone happened to propose it during a budget surplus meeting.

🔹 Best Used When:

• The organization has ambiguous goals.

• There is high uncertainty or chaos.

• Decisions appear disconnected from problems.