The long-standing unitary-actor assumption in strategy research -- treating firms as monolithic entities with coherent preferences -- misses that organizations are coalitions of individuals with diverse and often conflicting goals. Although behavioral perspectives have challenged this assumption, the field lacks an operational method for deriving an organizational utility function from the disparate preferences of its members and the specific structures used to aggregate them. We develop a mathematical framework that (i) maps individual utility functions into choice probabilities via a random-utility model, (ii) combines those probabilities using an explicit aggregation structure (e.g., unanimity or polyarchy), and (iii) recovers an organizational utility function that rationalizes the collective behavior. This establishes organizational utility functions as operationally meaningful: they summarize and predict organizational choice, yet are generally not simple averages of members' utilities. Instead, aggregation structures systematically reshape preferences -- unanimity approximates the pointwise minima of underlying utility functions, amplifying risk aversion; polyarchy approximates the pointwise maxima, promoting risk-seeking. We illustrate strategic implications in Cournot competition and principal-agent settings, showing how internal aggregation structures shift competitive and collaborative outcomes. Overall, the framework provides a parsimonious way to retrofit unitary-actor models with behaviorally grounded organizational preferences, reconciling the coalition view of the firm with rigorous and tractable strategic analysis.

翻译：战略研究中长期存在的单一行动者假设——将企业视为具有一致偏好的单一实体——忽略了组织是由具有多样且往往相互冲突目标的个体所组成的联盟。尽管行为视角已对此假设提出挑战，但该领域仍缺乏一种可操作的方法，用于从组织成员的不同偏好及其用于聚合这些偏度的具体结构中推导出组织效用函数。我们开发了一个数学框架，该框架（i）通过随机效用模型将个体效用函数映射为选择概率，（ii）使用明确的聚合结构（例如全体一致或多元决策）组合这些概率，以及（iii）恢复一个能够合理化集体行为的组织效用函数。这确立了组织效用函数在操作上的意义：它们总结并预测组织选择，但通常并非成员效用的简单平均。相反，聚合结构系统地重塑了偏好——全体一致近似于底层效用函数的逐点最小值，放大了风险规避；多元决策近似于逐点最大值，促进了风险寻求。我们通过古诺竞争和委托-代理情境阐释了其战略意义，展示了内部聚合结构如何改变竞争与合作的结果。总体而言，该框架提供了一种简洁的方法，用基于行为的组织偏好来改进单一行动者模型，从而将企业的联盟观与严谨且易处理的战略分析相统一。