A Viable Systems Approach (vSa) to Social Neurosciences

Decision making process is part of everyday life of organizations and it continuously depends and has an influence on the contexts in which organizations themselves live and operate. Traditionally, studies on decision processes have referred to articulated procedures, mainly based on calculus, thus giving the process a rational characterization (von Neumann, Morgenstern, 1947). However, recent studies on bounded rationality (Simon, March, 1958), as well as on the the decision intended as a social construction (Cohen, March, Olsen, 1972) put emphasis on the influence that non-rational elements have on decision processes. An essential contribution to addressing the current complexity and the unpredictability of the markets, as well as the behavior of businesses operators comes from two fields of study: behavioral economics and neuroscience, as well as from the link between these two disciplines: the so-called “neuroeconomics”. To face these issues related to decision making in complex contexts, in this work, we will refer to the conceptualization of the Viable Systems Approach (vSa) that distinguishes between two kinds of decisions, the ones related to problem solving and the ones related to decision making (Barile, 2009). According to vSa, we can define problem solving as the adoption of theories, models, techniques and tools that are already known; in this sense, we can define it as the ability to use the existing knowledge, as the problems decision-maker faces is not related to the availability of information, as it is related to the knowledge gap experienced that results from the lack of interpretation capabilities. Decision making, instead, is related to the need to identify or develop new theories, models, techniques, and tools that aren’t already known to the decision maker. According to these concepts, which are the factors that bring to a right or wrong choice, and which elements of knowledge can contribute to define a solution to a given problem? The Viable Systems Approach (VSA), with the notions of consonance and resonance, measures the appropriateness of a specific decision. Such model bases its dynamics on the following concepts: information variety, interpretation schemes, and value categories, that will be described in what follows.