Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options

The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented

THE ASSOCIATION OF HOSPITAL AND PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS WITH TREATMENT INITIATION AMONG VETERANS WITH STAGE I, II, OR III LUNG, COLON OR RECTAL CANCER

Evidence suggests that underserved patients such as black patients and rural residents experience less timely, high quality cancer treatment resulting in increased upstaging, increased patient anxiety, and higher cancer-specific mortality. In addition to black race and rural residence, cancer treatment disparities have been associated with sociodemographic, clinical factors, and hospital-level factors. Recognizing the importance of hospital-level factors, the overall objective of this dissertation was to determine the extent to which race, rurality, and hospital-level factors influence the timing of treatment initiation for cancer patients. This dissertation used data from the Veterans Health Administration (VA): the Epidemiology of Cancer in Veterans database, linked with data from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse, the VA Central Cancer Registry and the 2009 VA Oncology Facilities Survey. Hospital-level factors evaluated included receiving cancer treatment at a hospital with the following resources: a colorectal and/or lung cancer-specific tumor board; a mechanism to track patients from diagnosis through posttreatment care; a measurement system to track the hospital’s adherence to guideline-based cancer care and timelines of care. In this dissertation, the outcome, timely cancer treatment, was defined as receipt of first course of treatment (evidence of surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiation, chemoradiation) within 10 weeks of diagnosis. Our results suggest a centralization of oncology-specific resources in urban areas, resulting in increased access to the resources evaluated in this study for black veterans who were more likely to live in urban areas. In contrast, rural veterans are vulnerable to this centralization due to fewer specialists living in rural areas and increased rural hospital closures. We also found that receiving treatment at facilities with differential hospital-level cancer resources is associated with racial disparities in cancer treatment: receiving treatment at a hospital with cancer-specific tracking was associated with increased odds of receiving timely treatment. Finally, we found evidence that receiving treatment in a hospital that tracks the timeliness and guideline concordance of its cancer care was associated with a 4-percentage point reduction in racial disparities in timely cancer treatment. The results of this dissertation suggest that access to hospital-level factors plays an important role in cancer treatment disparities.Doctor of Public Healt

Can firms be both broad and deep? Exploring interdependencies between horizontal and vertical firm scope

Firms can be horizontally diversified, with considerable breadth, or vertically integrated, with great depth. This study explores how breadth and depth affect each other as influenced by capability requirements and coordination demands. Using construction industry data, we assess the interdependence between contractors’ portfolios of building types (horizontal scope) and the extent of integration of the activities needed to complete each project (vertical scope). We find that vertical and horizontal scope have a negative interdependency only when contractors face managerial constraints due to coordination challenges. Further, we show that this effect can be mitigated through organizational structures that centralize key functions. Our findings highlight the importance of coordination in the theory of the firm, as we link firm boundaries to managerial coordination and internal organization

International Research Networks in Pharmaceuticals: Structure and Dynamics

Knowledge production and scientific research have become increasingly more collaborative and international, particularly in pharmaceuticals. We analyze international research networks on the country level in different disease groups. Our empirical analysis is based on a unique dataset of scientific publications related to pharmaceutical research. Using social network analysis, we find that both the number of countries and their connectivity increase in almost all disease groups. The cores of the networks consist of high income OECD countries and remain rather stable over time. We use network regression techniques in order to analyze the dynamics of the networks. Our results indicate that an accumulative advantage based on preferential attachment and point connectivity as a proxy for multi-connectivity are positively related to changes in the countries' collaboration intensity.International Cooperation, Pharmaceuticals, Research Networks, Network Dynamics, MRQAP

The management of distributed processing

"December 1978." Highlights of a conference held at MIT's Endicott House in Dedham, Mass., March 29-31, 1979.Includes bibliographical references.by John F. Rockart, Christine V. Bullen, John N. Kogan

Urban form and planning in the information age: Lessons from literature

This paper focuses on the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) and urban form, and on urban planning response to spatial and economic consequences of ICT. It starts with literature-based review of how urban environments in the United States change with technological advances and explanations of the relationship between ICT and urban form. The paper also includes a discussion of the manner in which ICT impact is handled by urban planning. The literature review points to insufficient attention to the dynamics between ICT and urban planning and increasing gap between physical and economic development implications of ICT. It is the role of urban planners to balance the consideration of the physical and economic aspects against the prospects and opportunities offered by ICT.

Spatial Structure and Productivity in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Recent concepts as megaregions and polycentric urban regions emphasize that external economies are not confined to a single urban core, but shared among a collection of close-by and linked cities. However, empirical analyses of agglomeration and agglomeration externalities so-far neglects the multicentric spatial organization of agglomeration and the possibility of ‘sharing’ or ‘borrowing’ of size between cities. This paper takes up this empirical challenge by analyzing how different spatial structures, in particular the monocentricity – polycentricity dimension, affect the economic performance of U.S. metropolitan areas. OLS and 2SLS models explaining labor productivity show t

Information Technology, Organizational Form, and Transition to the Market

The paper reviews theories of information technology adoption and organizational form and applies them to an empirical analysis of firm choices and characteristics in four transition economies: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. We argue that these economies have gone through two major structural changes-one concerning new technology and another concerning ownership and boundaries of firms-and we consider if and how each one of the two structural changes has affected the other. We test the impact of firm size, integration, and ownership on the extent of new information technology adoption (measured by growth in the fraction of employees using personal computers or computer-controlled machinery), and the impact of information technology on changes in the boundaries and the ownership structure of enterprises, drawing upon a sample survey of 330 firms.transition, economy, Earle, technology, organizational, form, Pagano, Lesi, Upjohn