Question

Why do you believe “garbage can” is important to the study of public organizations? If possible, provide an example that illustrates the concept.

Answer 1

The 'Garbage Can Theory' describes the chaotic reality of organizational decision making in organized anarchy. Organized anarchies are organizations, or decision situations, characterized by problematic preferences, unclear technology, and fluid participation. The garbage can model is one where all of the organization's historical decisions and solutions are thrown into a metaphorical can. When a problem arises, the decision-makers are able to reach into the can to find a solution to their current problem.

Public organizations deal with multiple stakeholders making the decision making difficult that takes care of each and every stakeholder. Using this model, it will be easier for public organizations to make decisions as they have been used earlier. This will also help in the study of that specific organization as the kind of decisions taken can be studied and their impact on the stakeholders can be analyzed.

For Example, a school administration needs to make a decision about the school resources and how to use them, so that all stakeholders are happy. Stakeholders would include students, their parents, school teachers, school boards and non-teaching staff.