IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v36y1988i3p421-436.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modeling the Performance of Organizational Structures

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas W. Malone

    (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts)

  • Stephen A. Smith

    (University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California)

Abstract

We develop models for comparing the performance of coordination structures that appear in a wide variety of systems, including human organizations and computer systems. First, we define four generic structures: product hierarchies, functional hierarchies, centralized markets, and decentralized markets. Then, drawing primarily on queueing models, we rank these structures in terms of three performance measures: production costs, coordination costs, and vulnerability costs. The models show how changes in the values of these performance measures affect the desirabilities of the different structures. Then, we show how these simple relationships between performance measures and the desirabilities of structures are consistent with a surprising range of phenomena, including; (1) major historical shifts in the dominant organizational forms used by American businesses, and (2) the evolution of computing system architectures. Finally, we use the models to suggest the possible future evolution of both human and computer systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas W. Malone & Stephen A. Smith, 1988. "Modeling the Performance of Organizational Structures," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 421-436, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:36:y:1988:i:3:p:421-436
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.36.3.421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.36.3.421
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.36.3.421?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Albino, Vito & Pontrandolfo, Pierpaolo & Scozzi, Barbara, 2002. "Analysis of information flows to enhance the coordination of production processes," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1-2), pages 7-19, January.
    2. Marshall Van Alstyne & Erik Brynjolfsson, 2005. "Global Village or Cyber-Balkans? Modeling and Measuring the Integration of Electronic Communities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(6), pages 851-868, June.
    3. Rudolph, Jenny & Hatakenaka, Sachi & Carroll, John S., 2002. "Organizational Learning from Experience in High-Hazard Industries: Problem Investigation as Off-Line Reflective Practice," Working papers 4359-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    4. Marschak, Thomas, 2006. "Organization Structure," MPRA Paper 81518, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Tad Hogg, 1994. "Communities of Practice: Performance and Evolution," Working Papers _004, Xerox Research Park.
    6. Kazunari Ishida & Toshizumi Ohta, 2001. "On a Mathematical Comparison between Hierarchy and Network with a Classification of Coordination Structures," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 311-330, December.
    7. Biswas, S. & Narahari, Y., 2004. "Object oriented modeling and decision support for supply chains," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(3), pages 704-726, March.
    8. Malone, Thomas W. & Crowston, Kevin., 1993. "The interdisciplinary study of coordination," Working papers 3630-93. CCSTR ; #157., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    9. Kun Shin Im & Varun Grover & James T. C. Teng, 2013. "Research Note---Do Large Firms Become Smaller by Using Information Technology?," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 470-491, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:36:y:1988:i:3:p:421-436. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.