Action

Classification (Max Weber)
Function (Hans Ozbekhan)
Right action (Immanuel Kant)
Images and action (Andreas Faludi)
Rational action (James G. March and Herbert A. Simon)
Rational action (Bertram M. Gross)
Knowledge and values (Jacques Monod)
Goal-directed action (L. Bruce Archer)
Efficiency (Russell L. Ackoff and Fred E. Emery)
Strategy (Robin Roy)

Classification

[1978] Max Weber, Economy and Society, University of California Press, Berkeley

“Social action, like all action, may be oriented in four ways. It may be :
- (1) instrumentally rational (zweckrational), that is, determined by expectations at to the behavior of objects in the environment and of other human beings; these expectations are used as ‘conditions’ or ‘means’ for the attainment of the actor’s own rationally pursued and calculated ends;
- (2) value-rational (wertrational ), that is, determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behavior, indipendently of its prospects of success;
- (3) affectual (especially emotional),that is determined by the actor’s specific affects and feeling states;
- (4) traditional, that is, determined by ingrained habituation.”
(Part One, Chapter I, pp. 24-25)

Function

[1968] Hans Ozbekhan in Eric Jantsch ed., Perspectives of Planning, OECD
“In planning the main purpose of action is to create controlled change in the environment.”
(Toward a General Theory of Planning, p. 152)

Right action

[1785] Immanuel Kant, General Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals
“Every action is right which in itself, or in the maxim on which it proceeds, is such that it can coexist along with the freedom of the will of each and all in action, according to a universal law.”
“The universal law of right may then be expressed thus:
‘Act externally in such a manner that the free exercise of thy will may be able to coexist with the freedom of all others, according to a universal law'.” (Introduction, Universal Principle of Right)

Images and action

[1976, First edition 1973] Andreas Faludi, Planning Theory, Pergamon Press, Oxford
“Whenever any person engages in action, all these components (images, programmes and goals) ... come into play.” (p. 62)
“In action, some of the images held by the general memory are activated and lead to programmes relevant to the particular problem on hand.” (p. 65)

Rational action

[1966, First edition 1958] James G. March & Herbert A. Simon, Organizations, Wiley & Sons, New York
“... humans ... behave rationally, if at all, only relative to some set of ‘given’
characteristics of the situation. These ‘givens’ include
- knowledge or assumptions about future events or probability distributions of future events,
- knowledge of alternatives available for action,
- knowledge of consequences attached to alternatives,
- rules or principles for ordering consequences or alternatives according to preference.”
“Rational behaviour involves substituting for the complex reality a model of reality that is sufficiently simple to be-handled by problem-solving processes." (Chapter 6, pp. 150-151)

[1966] Bertram M. Gross, The State of the Nation
“... a comprehensive test of rational behaviour must deal with three dimensions - desirability, feasibility, and consistency.” (Chapter III, p. 126)

Knowledge and values

[1974, French Edition 1970] Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity
“Ethics and knowledge are inevitably linked in and through action. Action brings knowledge and values simultaneously into play, or into question. All action signifies an ethic, serves or disserves certain values; constitutes a choice of values, or pretends to. On the other hand, knowledge is necessarily implied in all action, while reciprocally, action is one of the two necessary sources of knowledge.” (Chapter 9, p. 161)

Goal-directed action

[1969] L. Bruce Archer in Geoffrey Broadbent and Anthony Ward eds., Design Methods in Architecture
“When a man discerns that there is a discrepancy between a condition as it is and the condition as he would like it to be, he experiences discontent. Should the feeling of discontent be sufficiently strong, the man takes action calculated to change the condition so that it more nearly approximates to the condition he desires. The condition giving rise to desire is here described as a property (of the environment), the attainment of a state of satisfaction in response to that property is described as the goal, and the action calculated to achieve it is described as a goal-directed action.”
“The presence of the unsolved problem, acting as a barrier to the achievement of the goal, is itself an undesirable condition, requiring action to remove it. The problem-solving activity is thus itself a goal-directed activity.” (The Structure of the Design Process, p. 76)

Efficiency

[1972] Russell L. Ackoff and Fred E. Emery, On Purposeful Systems, Tavistock Publications, London.
“Efficiency of a course of action: the probability that a course of action will produce a specified outcome in a specified environment if it is chosen by a specified subject.” (p. 35)
“Efficiency is commonly measured either as (1) units of input required to obtain a specified output, or (2) units of output obtained by a specified input. Neither type of measure is sufficiently general to be applied in all situations.” (p. 36)

Strategy

[1976] Robin Roy, Design Project Guide
“A strategy describes the general direction of a project and the sequence of actions (sometimes described as tactics) ...”
“... having no plan of action is a strategy, of sorts. It has been called a random search strategy (J. Ch. Jones) appropriate in novel situations of great uncertainty in which it is unwise to dismiss any proposed solution without further information ...”
“At the opposite extreme is the completely preplanned sequence of actions - a so-called prefabricated strategy - appropriate to familiar or well-tried problems ...”
“A strategy then, provides you with two things:
(a) a framework of intended actions within which to operate;
(b) a controlling intelligence enabling you to adapt your aims and actions as you learn more about the problem.” (pp. 21-23)

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