Determinants of Organisational Structures: An Empirical Study

This article analyses the main factors that determine the organisational structure of a sample of firms located in Catalonia, an autonomous region in the northeast of Spain. The variables studied were identified from among the factors considered in contingency theory and by incorporating elements of the strategic choice approach. After grouping the variables into two factors (related to internationalisation and customer-oriented aspects, respectively) the results revealed three groups of companies according to how they regarded the impact of these factors on organisational structures. In those groups that consider the variables of internationalisation to be modifiers of structure the organisational structures are of the ‘complex classical’ type, whereas simple forms predominate in the group that believes these variables do not modify their structure.organisational design; contingency; strategic choice.

A Dynamic Programming Model for Organisational Designing

Organisational design problems have been formulated as that of minimising personnel related costs subject to some constraints with a heuristics as solution procedures. The difficulty of verifying the effectiveness of such heuristics in producing optimal organisation structures has created model acceptability problems. The objective of this study is to develop an organisational design algorithm that guarantee optimal organisational structure with minimum personnel related costs. The model was applied to an organisations design problem of an existing firm. The study provides a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of the existing heuristics. Keywords: Organisational design, Organisational structure, Optimal organisation, Personnel cost Dynamic programming

On the optimality of the full cost pricing

This article is aimed at defining the full-cost pricing as a leader-follower game in two-tier organizations: (i) the upstream unit fixes the production capacity and uses it as a cost driver to compute the average cost; (ii) the downstream unit operates on the market and chooses the output level on the basis of the average cost. In the Cournot oligopoly case, the full-cost pricing is compared with other pricing rules. There exists a wide range of values of the fixed cost, for which the full-cost pricing dominates any other pricing rules, in terms of gross profit

How Do Strategic Factor Markets Respond to Rivalry in the Product Market?

This paper explores the interplay between product market, strategic factor market, and resource development. More competition in the product market makes resource buyers bid higher for resources, as the value of trying to preempt the resources is higher. Holding other initial conditions constant, resources are developed more in industries with factor markets than in industries without. When buyers of resources cannot integrate more than one resource, developers choose to develop either at a low or high level, generating a type of heterogeneity that would not arise otherwise. Changes in the intensity of competition in the product market can have the opposite effect on resource development efforts depending on the presence or absence of factor markets

PODER INFORMAL EM UMA INSTITUIÇÃO DE ENSINO SUPERIOR DE BOA VISTA - RORAIMA

O poder informal procede da estrutura informal da organização, tende a surgir de maneira natural, não possui um papel formal de liderança e hierarquia, mas é reconhecido pelo grupo. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar o poder informal de atores organizacionais desprovidos de cargos de chefia em situações do cotidiano de trabalho. Para analisar o exercício de poder informal foi escolhida uma Instituição de Ensino Superior (IES) privada da cidade de Boa Vista-RR. Com delineamento de levantamento de dados, a investigação ancorou-se na abordagem qualitativa para investigar um estudo de caso, que envolveu doze funcionárias da área de serviços gerais. A coleta de dados utilizou como recursos a observação no local de trabalho e a realização de entrevista. Foram construídas cinco proposições sobre as relações de poder. Dessas proposições, quatro (P1, P2, P3 e P5) foram comprovadas e uma parcialmente comprovada (P4). Os resultados revelaram que o poder é inerente ao ser humano e que é manifestado de diferentes formas: imposições, manipulações de situações diversas, trocas, barganhas, coerção, informação, recompensa, medo, horários, fardamento, entre outras

The internal allocation of rights within the firm and the creation of competitive advantages

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Gamifying situated learning in organisations

Gamification is an emerging area in research and practice that has sparked considerable interest in management studies. The attention to gamification is amplified by the ubiquitous nature of digital technologies and augmented reality which touches on how people work and learn socially. Consequently, gamified tools’ affordances affect situated learning in working environments through their implications on human relations in practice. However, the dynamics between gamification and situated learning have not been considered in the literature. Thus, drawing on the synthesis of gamification and situated learning literatures, we offer a model of gamifying situated learning in organisations. Thereby, our discussion explains the role of gamified affordances and their socio-material characteristics, which blend with situated learning as people indwell on such tools in their work. Moreover, gamified tools can afford the technological support of community-building and networking in organisations. Such gamified communities and networks, in turn, can be seen to existing within a gamified altered reality as part of which the physical distance and proximity of situated learning activities become inevitably bridged and joined together

Digging deep to compete: vertical integration, product market competition and prices

This article establishes a causal effect of product market competition on vertical integration. I exploit a hitherto unexplored natural experiment in the US coal mining industry and a unique mine-level organizational data set. Following an exogenous increase in product market competition the incidence of vertical integration fell by 33% within the treatment group relative to the counterfactual. I find novel evidence that transition to the lower degree of vertical integration is driven by competition reducing market prices by 32% which decreased the incentive to conduct vertical mergers. I discuss several possible interpretations of these changes

Experiments on the hold-up problem and delegation

The four essays collected in this PhD thesis explore the hold-up problem and delegation using the experimental method. The first essay provides a summary of the experimental literature examining the hold-up problem. The second essay investigates the relationship between strategic delegation and the nature of the strategic interaction through a laboratory experiment. The third essay demonstrates strategic delegation can help mitigates the hold-up problem by setting the appropriate incentive schemes in a laboratory experiment. The fourth essay studies the credit shifting effect of delegation with rewards in an online experiment

AN EXAMINATION OFTHE DRIVERS OF EXPLORATORY AND EXPLOITATIVE SEARCH

Engaging in search behaviors is a critical activity of firms. Traditionally, the extent to which firms engage in search has been modeled as the level of R&D in which firms engage, or their patenting propensity. However, all R&D efforts and patents are not uniform in the type of search in which they are focused. Search efforts can either be directed towards gathering new knowledge and technologies (exploratory search) or better understanding the knowledge and technologies they currently possess (exploitative search). The type of search in which firms engage is related to outcomes such as technology discovery, new product launches and financial performance. Thus, the distinction between the types of search in which firms engage is an important one. However, it has largely been overlooked in studies using R&D expenses or patenting propensity as measures of search efforts.Because of the importance of understanding the types of search in which firms engage, I sought to understand what drives each type of search. Drawing upon the Behavioral Theory of the Firm and Upper Echelons Perspective, I examined how problems firms face, slack resources, executive demographics and executive compensation drive exploratory and exploitative search. Support for my original hypotheses was poor, with only CEO age and equity ownership being statistically significant. However, post-hoc analysis revealed there are substantial differences between large and small firms in the pharmaceutical industry in what drives search, suggesting promising avenues for future research