Redesigning the Commercial Organization of CSX: An Organizational Portfolio Analysis

In 2001, CSX Corporation (CSX) reorganized the structure of its merchandise commercial group from separate groups managing each commodity-based line of business to a more functionally structured organization. The move was intended to provide greater controls and expertise required to compete successfully in a new, post-merger environment. This paper details the former and redesigned organizational structure of CSX’s railroad business. It also describes the study and analytic techniques used to support the change. Organizational Portfolio Analysis is used to examine the interconnections among the external markets and the performance fluctuations of each line of business, in order to better comprehend management's challenges, as well as to examine the internal interconnections among the lines of businesses to distinguish between areas of autonomy and synergy

The theory of the firm and its critics: a stocktaking and assessment

Includes bibliographical references."Prepared for Jean-Michel Glachant and Eric Brousseau, eds. New Institutional Economics: A Textbook, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.""This version: August 22, 2005."Since its emergence in the 1970s the modern economic or Coasian theory of the firm has been discussed and challenged by sociologists, heterodox economists, management scholars, and other critics. This chapter reviews and assesses these critiques, focusing on behavioral issues (bounded rationality and motivation), process (including path dependence and the selection argument), entrepreneurship, and the challenge from knowledge-based theories of the firm

Prognostic model to predict postoperative acute kidney injury in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery based on a national prospective observational cohort study.

Background: Acute illness, existing co-morbidities and surgical stress response can all contribute to postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI) in patients undergoing major gastrointestinal surgery. The aim of this study was prospectively to develop a pragmatic prognostic model to stratify patients according to risk of developing AKI after major gastrointestinal surgery. Methods: This prospective multicentre cohort study included consecutive adults undergoing elective or emergency gastrointestinal resection, liver resection or stoma reversal in 2-week blocks over a continuous 3-month period. The primary outcome was the rate of AKI within 7 days of surgery. Bootstrap stability was used to select clinically plausible risk factors into the model. Internal model validation was carried out by bootstrap validation. Results: A total of 4544 patients were included across 173 centres in the UK and Ireland. The overall rate of AKI was 14·2 per cent (646 of 4544) and the 30-day mortality rate was 1·8 per cent (84 of 4544). Stage 1 AKI was significantly associated with 30-day mortality (unadjusted odds ratio 7·61, 95 per cent c.i. 4·49 to 12·90; P < 0·001), with increasing odds of death with each AKI stage. Six variables were selected for inclusion in the prognostic model: age, sex, ASA grade, preoperative estimated glomerular filtration rate, planned open surgery and preoperative use of either an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or an angiotensin receptor blocker. Internal validation demonstrated good model discrimination (c-statistic 0·65). Discussion: Following major gastrointestinal surgery, AKI occurred in one in seven patients. This preoperative prognostic model identified patients at high risk of postoperative AKI. Validation in an independent data set is required to ensure generalizability

Fit - The Key to Organizational Design

The design of an organization needs to fit its situation. Designs that fit produce higher organizational performance than designs that do not.  This article uses the concept of fit to show how to align organizational designs to three important situational factors: competitive strategy, organization size, and task uncertainty

An Organizational Portfolio Theory of Board Composition

On the basis of the general non-linear theory of a hyperelastic material with initial stress, initially without consideration of the origin of the initial stress, we determine explicit expressions for the stress-dependent tensor of incremental elastic moduli. In considering three special cases of initial stress within the general framework, namely hydrostatic stress, uniaxial stress and planar shear stress, we then elucidate in general form the dependence of various elastic moduli on the initial stress. In each case, the effect of initial stress on the wave speed of homogeneous plane waves is studied and it is shown how various special theories from the earlier literature fit within the general framework. We then consider the situation in which the initial stress is a pre-stress associated with a finite deformation and, in particular, we discuss the specialization to the second-order theory of elasticity and highlight connections between several classical approaches to the topic, again with special reference to the influence of higher-order terms on the speed of homogeneous plane waves. Some discrepancies arising in the earlier literature are noted

Redesigning the Commercial Organization of CSX: An Organizational Portfolio Analysis

In 2001, CSX Corporation (CSX) reorganized the structure of its merchandise commercial group from separate groups managing each commodity-based line of business to a more functionally structured organization. The move was intended to provide greater controls and expertise required to compete successfully in a new, post-merger environment. This paper details the former and redesigned organizational structure of CSX’s railroad business. It also describes the study and analytic techniques used to support the change. Organizational Portfolio Analysis is used to examine the interconnections among the external markets and the performance fluctuations of each line of business, in order to better comprehend management's challenges, as well as to examine the internal interconnections among the lines of businesses to distinguish between areas of autonomy and synergy

Redesigning the Commercial Organization of CSX: An Organizational Portfolio Analysis

In 2001, CSX Corporation (CSX) reorganized the structure of its merchandise commercial group from separate groups managing each commodity-based line of business to a more functionally structured organization. The move was intended to provide greater controls and expertise required to compete successfully in a new, post-merger environment. This paper details the former and redesigned organizational structure of CSX’s railroad business. It also describes the study and analytic techniques used to support the change. Organizational Portfolio Analysis is used to examine the interconnections among the external markets and the performance fluctuations of each line of business, in order to better comprehend management's challenges, as well as to examine the internal interconnections among the lines of businesses to distinguish between areas of autonomy and synergy