IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20020048.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Complexity, Robustness, and Performance

Author

Listed:
  • B. Visser

    (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

This paper analyses the relationship between organizational complexity ( the degree of detail of information necessary to correctly assign agents to positions), robustness (the relative loss of performance due to mis-allocated agents), and performance. More complex structures are not necessarily more profitable, but are less robust. One of the least complex structures always performs worst. Superior organizational performance may vanish completely due to mis-allocated agents. Organizational performance can be enhanced through training agents; re-assigning them when adequate knowledge about their characteristics is obtained through monitoring; simplifying the organizational structure; and influencing the environment. The trade-offs involved are analysed.

Suggested Citation

  • B. Visser, 2002. "Complexity, Robustness, and Performance," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 02-048/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20020048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/02048.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sah, Raaj Kumar & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1986. "The Architecture of Economic Systems: Hierarchies and Polyarchies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 716-727, September.
    2. Ioannides, Yannis M., 1987. "On the architecture of complex organizations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 201-206.
    3. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Shmuel Nitzan, 2001. "The robustness of optimal organizational architectures: A note on hierarchies and polyarchies," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(1), pages 155-163.
    4. Visser, Bauke, 2000. "Organizational communication structure and performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 231-252, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Auke Hoekstra & Maarten Steinbuch & Geert Verbong, 2017. "Creating Agent-Based Energy Transition Management Models That Can Uncover Profitable Pathways to Climate Change Mitigation," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-23, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ioannides, Yannis M., 2012. "Complexity and organizational architecture," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 193-202.
    2. Michael Christensen & Thorbjørn Knudsen, 2010. "Design of Decision-Making Organizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 71-89, January.
    3. Àlex Arenas & Antonio Cabrales & Leon Danon & Albert Díaz-Guilera & Roger Guimerà & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2010. "Optimal information transmission in organizations: search and congestion," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 14(1), pages 75-93, March.
    4. BEN-YASHAR, Ruth & KRAUSZ, Miriam & NITZAN, Shmuel, 2017. "The Effect of Democratic Decision Making on Investment in Reputation," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-59, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    5. , & , M. & ,, 2013. "Hierarchical cheap talk," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(1), January.
    6. Ruth Ben‐Yashar & Miriam Krausz & Shmuel Nitzan, 2018. "Government loan guarantees and the credit decision‐making structure," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(2), pages 607-625, May.
    7. Min Zhu & Chang Liu & You-Gan Wang, 2017. "A comment on Koh’s “The optimal design of fallible organizations: invariance of optimal decision threshold and uniqueness of hierarchy and polyarchy structures”," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(2), pages 385-392, February.
    8. Ben-Yashar, Ruth & Danziger, Leif, 2016. "The unanimity rule and extremely asymmetric committees," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 107-112.
    9. Swank, Otto & Visser, Bauke, 2008. "The consequences of endogenizing information for the performance of a sequential decision procedure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 65(3-4), pages 667-681, March.
    10. Visser, Bauke, 2000. "Organizational communication structure and performance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 231-252, June.
    11. Ruth Ben-Yashar & Miriam Krausz & Shmuel Nitzan, 2018. "The effect of democratic decision-making on investment in reputation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 155-164, October.
    12. Stefano Ficco & Vladimir Karamychev, 2005. "Evaluation Problem versus Selection Problem in Organizational Structures," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-058/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Mateos-Garcia, Juan, 2017. "To Err is Algorithm: Algorithmic fallibility and economic organisation," SocArXiv xuvf9, Center for Open Science.
    14. Stefano Ficco & Vladimir A. Karamychev, 2004. "Information Overload in Multi-Stage Selection Procedures," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-077/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    15. Peter-J. Jost & Frauke Lammers, 2010. "Organization of Project Evaluation and Implementation under Moral Hazard," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 166(2), pages 212-238, June.
    16. Marschak, Thomas, 2006. "Organization Structure," MPRA Paper 81518, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Persson, Petra, 2018. "Attention manipulation and information overload," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 78-106, May.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2007. "Technology, Information, and the Decentralization of the Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1759-1799.
    19. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    20. Davide Consoli & Pier Paolo Patrucco, 2011. "Complexity and the Coordination of Technological Knowledge: The Case of Innovation Platforms," Chapters, in: Handbook on the Economic Complexity of Technological Change, chapter 8 Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tin:wpaper:20020048. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.