Chapter 5: Intelligence and Decision Making

In this chapter we shall explore aspects of actor decision making and its connection with organizational intelligence. Decision-making is not only about making a single decision, but is also connected with making a flow of decisions, made either sequentially or in parallel. Such decisions are both connected to variety and choice, and the capacity to make decisions is ultimately connected to intelligence. Intelligence and decision making come together where intelligent decisions are needed, thereby enhancing the possibility of a social collectives behaving both effectively and viably.

Intelligent behavior can be a function of both unitary and plural actors. A great deal of work has been done in psychology to model processes of unitary actor intelligence, but the notion of intelligence for a plural actor is relatively new. An attempt will be made to formulate the basis of a theory of plural actor intelligence through a metaphor developed from unitary actor conceptualizations, and moderated by Schwaninger’s notions of organizational intelligence. Additional conceptualizations come from Artificial Intelligence.