Organizational restructuring in response to changes in information-processing technology

This paper examines the effects of changes in information-processing technology on the efficient organizational forms of data-processing in decision-making systems. Data-processing is modelled in the framework of the dynamic parallel processing model of associative computation with an endogenous set-up costs of the processors. In such a model, the conditions for efficient organization of information-processing are defined and the architecture of the efficient structures is considered. It is shown that decreasing returns to scale of the function describing data- processing technology and the information overload of the system are necessary and sufficient conditions for the hierarchical information- processing, respectively. Moreover, the size of the efficient structures is determined exclusively by their information workload and the current state of information-processing technology. Received: 5 June 1996 / Accepted: 17 June 1999     

Performance measurement integrated information framework in e-Manufacturing

The implementation of Internet technologies has led to e-Manufacturing technologies becoming more widely used and to the development of tools for compiling, transforming and synchronising manufacturing data through the Web. In this context, a potential area for development is the extension of virtual manufacturing to performance measurement (PM) processes, a critical area for decision making and implementing improvement actions in manufacturing. This paper proposes a PM information framework to integrate decision support systems in e-Manufacturing. Specifically, the proposed framework offers a homogeneous PM information exchange model that can be applied through decision support in e-Manufacturing environment. Its application improves the necessary interoperability in decision-making data processing tasks. It comprises three sub-systems: a data model, a PM information platform and PM-Web services architecture. A practical example of data exchange for measurement processes in the area of equipment maintenance is shown to demonstrate the utility of the model.     

An Exploration of Two Competing Perspectives on Informational Contexts in Top Management Strategic Issue Interpretation

Two disparate theoretical views of how informational contexts affect managerial sensemaking and decision making appear in organizational research. An organizational information processing perspective posits that increasing the flow of information within and between organizations will enhance environmental awareness. In contrast, behavioural decision making and social cognition research suggest that information may increase the occurrence or magnitude of overconfidence and illusions of control. These competing predictions were examined by means of an investigation of the relationship between informational contexts and top managers' strategic issue interpretation. Findings indicate that managers whose organizations have environmental information readily available to them perceive higher control over issues than managers in organizations with lower informational availability. Moreover, managers in top management teams with higher information processing capacity seem to perceive higher degrees of control and manageability, and search for less data in issue interpretation, than managers in teams with lower information processing capacity. These results offer some support for the behavioural decision making and social cognition perspective, and question the organizational information processing prediction that organizations engaging in active information processing are more aware of the environment and more likely to assess environmental developments, trends or events in a more vigilant manner.     

Hierarchies and information-processing organizations

This paper analyzes organizational structures that minimize information processing costs for a specific organizational task. Organizations consist of agents of limited ability connected in a network. These agents collect and process information, and make decisions. Organizations implement strategies – mappings from environmental circumstances to decisions. The strategies are exogenously given from a class of “pie” problems to be defined in this paper. The notion of efficiency is lexicographic: the primary criterion is minimizing the number of agents, and the secondary criterion is minimizing the number of connections between the agents. In this modeling framework, efficient organizations are not hierarchical for a large number of problems. Hierarchies often fail to exploit fully the information processing capabilities of the agents because in a hierarchy, subordinates have a single superior. Received: 1 December 1995 / Accepted: 11 October 1998     

The scheduling and organization of periodic associative computation: Efficient networks

This paper characterizes the efficient decentralized networks for calculating the associative aggregate of cohorts of data of a fixed size that arrive periodically. Radner (1993) proposed this problem of periodic parallel associative computation as a model of the ongoing information processing and communication by the administrative staff of a large organization. For a simpler model in which the organization processes a single cohort of data – which is equivalent to the periodic model when the agents are paid only when busy – he found that the efficient networks are hierarchical but quite irregular, even though the computation problem and technology are each symmetric. In the periodic model in which managers are paid even when idle, it becomes important to minimize idle time when scheduling managers to processing tasks. Such scheduling appears more difficult when each problem is processed by an irregular hierarchy, which suggest that hierarchies might be more regular in the periodic model. However, we show that in a class of efficient networks for periodic computation that spans the efficiency frontier, the processing of each cohort is similar to the efficient processing of a single cohort, and the overall organizational structure is not even hierarchical. Received: 15 October 1994 / Accepted: 6 March 1997     

Organizations undertaking complex projects in uncertain environments

Recent evidence suggests that firms’ environments are becoming more complex and uncertain. This paper investigates the relationship between the complexity of a firm’s activities, environmental uncertainty and organizational structure. We assume agents are arranged hierarchically, but decisions can be made at different levels. We model a firm’s activity set as a modified NK landscape. Via simulations, we find that centralized decision making generates a higher payoff in more complex and uncertain environments, and that a flatter structure is better for the organization with centralized decision making, provided the cost of information processing is low enough. Financial Support from Zengin Foundation for Studies on Economics and Finance is gratefully acknowledged.     

Why Do Strategic Alliances Persist? A Behavioral Decision Model

Strategic alliances are considered a flexible form of organizing, yet they are often long‐lived. Even when systematic benefit–cost analysis suggests that their organizational form should be changed or terminated, some alliances still persist. Drawing on behavioral decision theory, we propose a theoretical model that explains this phenomenon. Decision makers are subject to a variety of biases that can lead to the overvaluation of the net benefits of an alliance and, hence, inhibit the change or discontinuation of underperforming alliances. Our model illustrates how decision‐making biases at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, and interorganizational levels are moderated by the design of an alliance and the tools employed in the decision‐making process. This behavioral decision perspective advances our theoretical understanding of the longevity of strategic alliances and their embeddedness in complex decision‐making contexts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

STRATEGIC DECISIONS IN ORGANIZATIONS: RATIONAL AND BEHAVIOURAL VIEWS

Various models or lenses have been used to predict and understand strategic decisions in organizations. This article examines four classes: (1) the unitary rational; (2) the organizational; (3) the political; and (4) the contextual. They are conceptualized as stemming from different assumptions about goal congruency and co-ordinative efficiency. the contextual view is especially highlighted, as it is a relatively new perspective, both organizationally and cognitively. A brief discussion is offered of disciplines and findings that either support or refute some of these models. Possible syntheses and reconciliations of the four views are explored, focusing on: (1) assumptional fit; (2) level of analysis; (3) cost of fashioning collective rationality; (4) information processing limits in organizational design; and (5) the role of adaptation lags and disequilibrium. the article concludes with a call for a meta-theory that places the various perspectives in a larger framework.     

一种高效的DSP与FPGA的数据交换结构设计

常规DSP与FPGA构架系统中,在进行数据交换时,由于DSP资源过多的被占用来进行数据处理和准备,增加软件执行时间,从而导致系统整体的执行效率下降。为了提高DSP结合FPGA构架系统的执行效率,本文设计了一种高效的DSP与FPGA数据交换结构,该结构结合FPGA并行处理的特点,FPGA内部完成对外部数据进行分类、解码、转换处理,从而提高了DSP的执行效率。     

Transactive memory systems as a collective filter for mitigating information overload in digitally enabled organizational groups

With the increasing processing power and plummeting costs of information and communication technologies, the ability of employees to ubiquitously access and disseminate information grows. However, emerging research shows that individuals are struggling to process information as fast as it arrives. The problem of information overload is a significant one for contemporary knowledge-intensive organizations because it can adversely affect productivity, decision making, and employee morale. To combat this problem, organizations often invest in technical solutions such as business intelligence software or semantic technologies. While such technical approaches can certainly aid in reducing information overload, less attention has been directed at understanding how collective behavior, and in particular transactive memory systems, might enhance the ability of organizations to cope with information overload. In this study, we ask whether (and, if so, how do) transactive memory systems act as a collective filter to enable organizational groups to mitigate the potential for information overload. We used social network analysis and interview evidence from the R&D departments of two high-technology firms in the life science industry and found that individuals spontaneously organized without any centralized control to create a collective filter. For example, we found that one set of individuals specialized in filtering external information into the group while another set specialized in filtering that information for internal use. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

低碳生态控制性详细规划的成本效益分析

公共政策手段必然有其成本,低碳生态城市规划政策也不例外。政策手段带来的成本与效益需要有科学性及客观的分析,才会帮助政府在制定政策及建设项目时提高社会整体经济效率,达到优化经济资源之目的。本文提出需要对低碳城市规划和建设手段进行成本效益分析的必要性,要从科学客观角度建立低碳城市成本效益理论和方法,应用评估低碳城市规划建设政策和投资决定。并针对我国城乡规划体制内具有法定效力的控制性详细规划管理手段,提出在实施低碳生态城市控制指标时要考虑产生的经济成本与效益,以近期完成的石家庄正定新区低碳生态控制性详细规划方案解释。     

A framework for strategic decision making and performance among Chinese managers

This study develops an integrative model that explains the relationship between Chinese culture, managers' strategic decision making (SDM) processes, and organizational performance. For the study 1200 participants were randomly selected from a business club's company register, resulting in 204 valid respondents. The results highlighted two significant SDM paths used by managers: (1) the cognitive-speed path, which suggested that Overseas Chinese managers (the Chinese who live outside of Mainland China) focus on the big picture, draw analogies from past experiences, and use extensive networks to reduce the duration of the decision process; and (2) the social-political path which shows that Overseas Chinese managers focus on collective interests, strive to maintain harmony, and to save face while using a collaborative style to handle conflict; this approach reduces dysfunctional political behavior, while reinforcing the decision team's focus on common goals. From these results we concluded that a speedier decision making process (based on intuition, experience, and networks) accompanied by the appropriate use of political behavior (that created harmony, through a hierarchical structure, during conflict management) in the Overseas Chinese managers' strategic decision making process could positively influence organizational performance.     

Separating contract from governance

This paper contends that there is an important distinction between governance structure and contractual form, and that organizational boundaries, defined by governance structures, need not explain contractual form. The basic idea is that governance refers to the general environments and instruments that structure and ‘govern’ specific terms of trade negotiated in ‘contracts’. Problems of verifiability and observability of contractual performance are hypothesized to drive the differential effects on governance structure and contractual form. Specifically, transaction cost factors known to result in employment as a general governance structure do not automatically result in contracts characterized by the payment of fixed‐wages. Instead, incentive pay and the delegation of decision‐making authority to workers may be preferred by firm owners. The paper proposes that the relationship between a firm and a worker involves a two part decision‐making framework in which one choice is the type of governance that structures the second choice regarding the specific characteristics of the contract linking the worker to the firm. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multi-company working as one

The consolidation of HR information processing in multi-union environments can result in significant cost savings; efficiencies in decision making; and flexibility to make changes.     

A note on the impact of the internal organization on the accuracy of the information transmitted within the firm

We investigate the incentives of sales managers to transmit information on demand conditions to headquarters under different organizational structures and its subsequent impact on firm performance. When headquarters determine quantities of production, sales managers' interests are aligned with that of the firm, and reliable information is transmitted. On the other hand, when the authority of decision making on quantities of production is delegated to sales managers, they prefer not to transmit reliable information; consequently, headquarters set transfer prices given poor information about demand. Due to such difference in the quality of the information available to headquarters, a centralized organizational structure frequently leads to the best performance.     

Sequential Decision-making in Interdependent Sectors with Multiobjective Inoperability Decision Trees: Application to Biofuel Subsidy Analysis

Decision-making involving large-scale systems often involves considerations for temporal changes, interdependencies in organizational structures, multiple competing objectives, and risk and uncertainty, among others. In this paper we develop a risk-based methodology, the Multiobjective Inoperability Decision Tree (MOIDT). It integrates several dimensions of decision-making processes associated with interconnected systems in terms of: (i) evaluation of sequential policies; (ii) analysis of interdependencies; (iii) treatment of multiple objectives and their tradeoffs; and (iv) characterization of uncertainties. To demonstrate the integration of these four components, we present a case study to analyze the impact of government policies towards mass-scale biofuel production. Using a multi-period decision framework, the analysis utilizes economic input–output data to model the probabilistic demand adjustments for sectors that will likely be affected by biofuel policies.     

Adding ethical consideration to the decision‐making process: A leadership challenge

Stakeholder analysis offers a well‐established framework for understanding organizational context and environment. Stakeholder analysis also offers a lens through which ethical considerations can be consciously evaluated and included in organizational decision making. In this article, the author offers a brief overview of the ethics literature and then examines the decision‐making process to identify how and when opportunities arise to include ethical considerations into the decision‐making process. He concludes by offering suggestions on how leaders might improve their ethical decision‐making by using a more macro and strategic stakeholder lens.     

Horizontal alliances and the merger paradox

Mergers and alliances are two organizational forms which allow firms to combine complementary capabilities to realize strategic goals; they are, in many cases, strategic substitutes. Managerial decision‐makers, therefore, require a framework for choosing between the two strategies. This paper contributes to this decision‐making process by highlighting one advantage of alliances over mergers. Specifically, while the profitability of a cost‐reducing horizontal merger is diminished by the resulting expansion of non‐merging competitor(s), an alliance, where partners collaborate to reduce costs but sell their product independently, enables its partners to realize the benefits of merging but avoid the problem of strengthening competitors. A model is developed which demonstrates the profitability of establishing such an alliance compared to a merger. The implications of this strategy for antitrust review are briefly discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.