Its Rational Suite of software and information management software continued to suffer due to low demand and transactional rollover into the next quarter.

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In their classic paper published in 1992, sociologists Stephen Barley and Gideon Kunda demonstrated that management ideology has oscillated between normative and rational control for over a century, in phases of approximately 30 years.

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When the acquisition closes in the first quarter, Rational will be the fifth division within IBM software, along with Websphere, DB2 database, Tivoli management products and Lotus collaborative software.

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"If you approach it from a rational approach it's insane, " said Klaus Jacob, a Columbia University professor who specializes in disaster risk management.

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