The garbage can model of organisational behaviour: A theoretical reconstruction of some of its variants Klaus G. Troitzsch Institute for IS Research, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany Available online 28 January 2008 Abstract The paper introduces the structuralist concept of theory reconstruction with a trivial model from physics and afterwards applies it to several versions of the garbage can model of organisational behaviour. It shows that simulation and theory reconstruction are to some extent equivalent. The paper also presents a new version of the garbage can model and discusses several results of the simulation model. Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Garbage can model; Organisational behaviour; Simulation; Axiomatisation 1. Non-statement view and the structuralist concept of theory reconstruction The structuralist concept of theory reconstruction – the ‘‘non-statement view” of theories – introduced in the 1970s by Sneed [6] and elaborated upon by Stegmu ¨ ller [7] and his successors (cf. [1]) formulates a number of expli- cit requirements on designing, formulating and formalising theories in the empirical sciences. Balzer et al. [1] used a metaphor according to which ‘‘empirical science consists of a large, but finite number of elementary units or ‘building blocks’, which [they] call ‘theory elements”’. Theory elements in turn consist of a ‘‘‘vocabulary’ or ‘con- ceptual structure’ and some empirical law, which can be formulated with this vocabulary together with a spec- ification of the things to which this law is intended to apply” – the set of intended applications of this theory element. Theory elements can be connected by ‘‘intertheoretical links” and then form a theory net [1, p. xx]. A theory element is defined as an ordered pair of the so-called core and the set of intended applications. The core, in turn, consists of several sets of models, and the definition of these sets of model contains exactly the terms which are necessary to speak about the theory in question. Balzer et al. [1] mention that ‘‘in ordinary language and in informal contexts within empirical science the term ‘model’ is used in an ambiguous way” (for a recent discussion from the point of view of computer science about the usage of the term in everyday science see [9, pp. 266–267]) and recommend the following solution: Much like mathematicians and logicians, they always ‘‘use ‘model’ in the sense of the thing depicted by a picture (=by a theory)”. This usage of the term also appears in ordinary language where a man or a woman can be called the model of a painting. Thus they recommend calling an economic process a model of an economic theory. 1569-190X/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.simpat.2007.11.019 E-mail address: kgt@uni-koblenz.de Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory 16 (2008) 218–230 www.elsevier.com/locate/simpat