Simon distinquishes between the decisions a person makes to enter or leave an organization and the decisions they make as a participant. Organizations simplify decisions and support participants in the decisions they need to make. Organizations simplify decisions by restricting the ends toward which activity is directed.
Goals supply the value premises that underly decisions.
The more precise the value premises, the greater effect they have on decisions. Participants in high positions make decisions with a higher value component, people in lower positions make decisions with a higher factual component. Choice of ends can only be validated by fiat or consensus, choice of means empirically. Each goal in the means-end hierarchy is an end to things below it and a mean to those above it. Activities can only be evaluated against the goals above it.