Decoding Decision Making: From Economic Man to Gamesman Models

Every manager in the tourism and hospitality world makes dozens of decisions a day, from approving a banquet menu to choosing a new property location. But how exactly are these decisions made? Are managers cool, calculating optimisers who weigh every option? Or do gut instincts and personal biases creep in more than we’d like to admit? Decision-making theorists have wrestled with these questions for decades, and three classic models stand out: the Econologic or Economic Man Model, the Bounded Rationality or Administrative Man Model, and the Implicit Favourite or Gamesman Model. Together, they reveal a fascinating spectrum, from pure logic to pure intuition, that helps explain why tourism leaders behave the way they do under pressure.

Why studying decision-making models matters 🔗

Decision-making is the heart of management. Whether a hotel general manager is setting room rates or a travel agency owner is selecting a new GDS partner, the quality of these choices shapes profit, guest experience, and long-term reputation. Yet real decisions rarely match the neat flowcharts found in textbooks. Studying these three models offers a clearer view of how the human mind navigates complex organisational choices, and where it tends to slip.

Each model rests on different assumptions about the decision-maker. The econologic model assumes perfect rationality. The bounded rationality model accepts that human thinking has limits. And the implicit favourite model admits that intuition often arrives at the answer before reasoning catches up. Let’s unpack each one.

The econologic or economic man model 🔗

The econologic model is the oldest and most idealistic of the three. It pictures the decision-maker as a perfectly rational being, sometimes called Homo economicus, who acts in a thoroughly logical, self-interested, and optimising manner. The economic man is portrayed as an agent who is consistently rational and narrowly self-interested, pursuing subjectively defined ends in an optimal way .

Core assumptions of the model 🔗

The model rests on a few bold assumptions. The decision-maker is believed to have full access to information, unlimited cognitive capacity, and stable preferences. According to scholars at Stanford, the perfect rationality of homo economicus imagines a hypothetical agent who has complete information about the options available, perfect foresight of consequences, and the ability to solve a complex optimization problem that maximizes personal utility . In short, the economic man is assumed to know everything, weigh everything, and choose the absolute best option every time.

How the process unfolds 🔗

If a tourism manager actually behaved this way, the process would look like this. First, the manager would identify the problem clearly, say, declining occupancy in the off-season. Next, they would generate every possible alternative, from price discounts and new packages to overseas marketing campaigns and corporate tie-ups. Then they would gather complete data on each option, calculate expected outcomes, rank them by value, and pick the alternative that delivers the maximum return. The process is sequential, exhaustive, and aimed entirely at maximising the outcome.

Where the model falls short 🔗

While elegant on paper, the econologic model has been heavily criticised. As behavioural economists point out, real-world choices rarely match this ideal. Information is usually incomplete, time is short, and emotions creep in. Pioneers like Herbert Simon, Daniel Kahneman, and Amos Tversky have shown that humans regularly deviate from this rational ideal. Still, the model is far from useless. It serves as a benchmark, a yardstick against which messier real-life decisions can be measured.

The bounded rationality or administrative man model 🔗

If the economic man is a textbook ideal, the administrative man is your everyday reality. This model was proposed by Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon, who argued that human decision-making is constrained by the realities of the workplace. According to research on bounded rationality, rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal .

Why rationality is bounded 🔗

Simon noticed that managers don’t have superhuman brains. They face cognitive limits, time pressure, incomplete information, and noisy environments. Simon’s theory proposed that individuals satisfice rather than maximize because they cannot evaluate all potential alternatives and their consequences due to their limited cognitive and information-processing abilities, time constraints, and incomplete knowledge . This insight earned him the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics and reshaped how we think about organisational behaviour.

The concept of satisficing 🔗

Simon coined a now-famous term, satisficing, by blending “satisfy” and “suffice.” Instead of striving for the best possible answer, the administrative man looks for an answer that is “good enough.” Imagine a tour operator looking for a new ground handler in Sri Lanka. Rather than evaluating every possible vendor on the island, they will set basic criteria like reliability, fleet size, and price band, then pick the first vendor that meets those standards. Done. Move on. The decision is acceptable, even if a slightly better option might have existed three calls later.

Sequential search and aspiration levels 🔗

The administrative man searches sequentially. They consider one or two alternatives at a time, compare each against a personal aspiration level, and stop when something fits. This is why hotel HR managers often hire the first candidate who comfortably ticks the boxes rather than running endless interviews. The decision-maker also leans on heuristics, intuition, and past experience to simplify complex problems. As one analysis explains, decision-makers simplify complex problems, search for solutions sequentially rather than considering all options simultaneously, and rely on past experiences and intuition .

Why this model resonates with managers 🔗

The bounded rationality model is descriptive rather than prescriptive. It explains what people actually do, not what they ought to do. For tourism professionals dealing with shifting demand, unpredictable weather, last-minute cancellations, and supplier issues, satisficing is often the only practical strategy. Trying to optimise every choice would lead to paralysis. The administrative man model tells managers it is okay to settle for “good enough” when the cost of finding the perfect answer outweighs the benefit.

The implicit favourite or gamesman model 🔗

The third model is perhaps the most surprising. The implicit favourite model, also called the gamesman model, was developed by Per Soelberg in 1967. He observed graduating business students during their job-hunting process and found something fascinating about how their choices were really being made.

What Soelberg discovered 🔗

Soelberg noticed that students often picked their favourite job offer very early in the recruiting process, sometimes before all interviews were complete. But they would not stop there. They continued comparing other offers, gathering more data, and going through the motions of a thorough evaluation. The catch? The additional research wasn’t aimed at finding the best option. It was aimed at justifying the option they had already secretly chosen. According to analyses of Soelberg’s findings, we often make our choice early in the process and then spend the rest of our time justifying it .

The role of the confirmation candidate 🔗

In the model, the decision-maker keeps one or two other strong alternatives around, known as confirmation candidates. These exist mainly to make the comparison look thorough. The decision rules used to evaluate options are quietly distorted to favour the implicit favourite. Information is selectively interpreted. Weights are nudged. The end result feels logical, but it was rigged from the start.

Non-programmed decisions and intuition 🔗

The implicit favourite model deals primarily with non-programmed decisions. These are novel, unstructured, high-stakes choices like selecting a first job, choosing a business partner, or picking a city to expand a hotel chain into. Programmed decisions, by contrast, are routine and repetitive, like processing guest check-ins or applying standard cancellation rules. Because non-programmed decisions are emotionally loaded, intuition often takes the lead while reasoning plays catch-up.

Strengths and dangers 🔗

This model is not always a bad thing. Experienced managers often have years of pattern recognition baked into their gut feelings. A veteran hotelier walking into a property might sense a problem with the front desk culture within minutes, even before reviewing any KPI dashboards. That instinct is real and valuable. However, the implicit favourite model becomes risky when the early preference is rooted in bias, like favouring a candidate from one’s own region or college, or when crucial red flags get filtered out during the so-called rational evaluation.

This pattern is closely linked to confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out information that supports our existing beliefs while sidelining anything that contradicts them. In tourism management, where personal relationships, brand loyalties, and gut calls often shape vendor and partnership choices, the gamesman model captures a great deal of real-world behaviour.

Comparing the three models at a glance 🔗

Each model captures a different slice of reality. The econologic model assumes a perfect optimiser working with full information. The bounded rationality model paints a more realistic picture of a manager juggling cognitive limits, satisficing in real time. The implicit favourite model peels back another layer, showing that even our “rational” comparisons are sometimes elaborate justifications for choices we have already made. Tourism leaders rarely operate purely in one mode. A revenue manager might use econologic logic to set rate parities, satisfice when picking a software vendor, and operate as a gamesman when hiring a new sales head whose energy simply “felt right.”

How tourism managers can use these insights 🔗

The practical takeaway is awareness. By recognising which model is driving a particular decision, managers can challenge themselves to slow down, gather better data, or invite dissenting opinions when stakes are high. For routine, programmed decisions, satisficing is efficient and sensible. For high-impact, non-programmed decisions like opening a new resort or signing a multi-year distribution contract, knowing the gamesman trap can prevent expensive mistakes.

The bigger picture 🔗

Decision-making models are not just academic theories. They are mirrors that show us how messy, beautiful, and very human the process of choosing really is. The economic man is the goal we aspire to. The administrative man is who we usually are. And the gamesman is who we secretly become when emotions take the wheel. Recognising all three at work in our own thinking is the first step towards making sharper, more honest decisions in the tourism workplace.

What do you think? Looking at your own recent decisions at work or in life, which of these three models best describes how you actually decided? And could awareness of the implicit favourite trap have changed any of your past choices?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_economicus
2. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bounded-rationality/
3. https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/be-academy/courses/behavioral-economics-theory-and-practice/lessons/lesson-1-introduction/topic/rational-choice-in-standard-economic-theory/
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality
5. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/puar.13540
6. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/decision-making/models-of-decision-making-rational-administrative-and-retrospective-decision-making-models/25658
7. https://slm.mba/mmpc-001/decision-making-models-economic-bounded-rationality-implicit-favourite/