A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONTEXT AND STRUCTURE OF A LARGE BRITISH FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

This study represents an analysis of the changes in the environment, context and structure of an organization, using the full Aston Interview Schedule.² The limitations of generalizing from a single case are acknowledged, but the longitudinal analysis provides support for the notion that organizations can and do develop self-evaluative capacities when threatened by external change. The results of the process of self-evaluation on the part of the organization are shown as changes in the organization's scores on the various scales of organizational context and structure developed by the Aston school, at two points in time. These changes provide support for a number of conjectures arising from previous analyses of the relationships among the structural dimensions of organizational form displayed by the Aston methodology; notably the relationship between size/standardization and centralization/standardization. The analysis also suggests that the centralization scale can be viewed as having two components – one related to policy decisions, the other to operational decisions.     

Explaining the Relative Decline of Agriculture: A Supply-Side Analysis for Indonesia

The relative decline of agriculture in growing economies isa central feature of economic development and a major influenceon agricultural policies. The literature on the causes of thisdecline has focused on the relative price effects arising fromdemand factors, especially Engel's law, rather than on supply-sideinfluences, such as changes in relative factor endowments anddifferential rates of technical change. This article developsa simple structural model of the transformation of the Indonesianeconomy, applying an error correction mechanism to capture thedynamics resulting from disequilibria and the costs of adjustment.The decline in agriculture's share of gross domestic productis found to be caused much less by the relative price effectstypically emphasized in the literature than by capital accumulationand rapid technical change in agriculture.