Normative Pressures on Decision-Making

The normativity of decision-making — that is, the extent to which decision-making is determined and conditioned by prevailing cultural or societal norms — is a theme that has rarely been properly addressed despite its decisive role in shaping decision-making, organizational development, interorganizational relations, and transactions in late modern society. In developed countries, the foundation of normativity lies in the legal order, which in practice influences almost everything that organizations do. Alongside it, however, a set of ideologically and morally grounded frameworks and principles have emerged to condition decision-making and action. The consolidation of these new normative foundations has accelerated during the decades following the Second World War.