The Economics of Organizational Design : Theoretical Insights and Empirical Evidence

This volume closes the gap between a growing stream of theoretical work on the economics of firms' organization that addresses topics as the depth of the managerial hierarchy, the delegation of decision power, and the determinants of organizational innovation, and available empirical findings produced by qualitative work in management, business history and organizational sociology. It also relies on the results of large-scale quantitative studies on the organization of firms to substantially extend our understanding of these important issues. In the last thirty years, the theoretical economic literature has shown growing interest in organizational design. However, this literature has had only very limited interaction with applied work on the internal organization of firms. In addition, studies on organizational design have often focused on different aspects of the subject, and utilised differing methodological tools. Literature on organizational design has therefore tended to be fragmented and split by discipline. The authors synthesize the existing interdisciplinary quantitative evidence on organizational design and provide a new empirical framework to extend our understanding of the determinants of organizational design, its evolution and its effects on firm performance. Key topics such as the corporate hierarchy, the delegation of decision power, the determinants of organizational innovations are all examined in depth.--Résumé de l'éditeur Front Matter....Pages i-xxii Introduction: A New View of Organizational Design....Pages 1-22 A New Quantitative Empirical Methodology for the Analysis of Organizational Design and Dynamics....Pages 23-56 The Determinants of the Allocation of Decision Authority....Pages 57-107 The Determinants of the Corporate Hierarchy....Pages 108-134 Evidence on the Determinants of Organizational Dynamics....Pages 135-191 The Effects of Organizational Design on Firm Performance....Pages 192-222 Conclusions....Pages 223-228 Back Matter....Pages 229-272 This book synthesizes the existing quantitative evidence on organizational design, bringing together the growing stream of theoretical work on the economics of firms' organization and available empirical findings produced by qualitative work in management, business history and organizational sociology. "The authors synthesize the existing interdisciplinary quantitative evidence on organizational design and provide a new empirical framework to extend our understanding of the determinants of organizational design, its evolution and a firm's performance."--Jacket