Elements Of Organizational Structure Research Articles

Not just hot air: normative codes of conduct induce cooperative behavior

The shirking incentives arising within team production are in general counteracted by monitoring and sanctioning. However, these mechanisms are usually associated with high monitoring costs and cannot be applied to all parts of the production process. In a laboratory experiment we analyze the impact of less costly elements of organizational structure, such as normative codes of conduct and screening tests, on team production efficiency. We find that more allusions to a firm context lead to higher contributions. In particular, codes of conduct significantly increase cooperation and at the same time reduce free-riding behavior. Our study provides empirical evidence that normative codes of conduct are an effective means of increasing team production efficiency.

Leading a Rural Clinic Toward Financial Stability

The article identifies key features of a business plan for rural health clinics managed by nurse practitioners. Important elements of organizational structure, fee scales, coding, marketing, and fund raising are addressed. The author illustrates aspects of a business plan with an organizational case study.

Improving organizational performance through the use of effective elements of organizational structure

This paper looks at organizations at work to determine various effects on productivity. Six research‐based organizations were studied against a backdrop of dynamic impacts. After the application of several tests, the conclusion indicates that the optimal approach uses a variety of structures and elements to ensure a fluid and flexible organization able to deal with shifts in direction or impacts.

Performance implications of congruence between product-market strategy and marketing structure: an exploratory investigation

This study examines the performance implications of fit between the product-market strategy of a firm and its structure. The theoretical fit relationships between strategy and structure are developed on the basis of the Miles and Snow strategy framework (Organizational Strategy, Structure and Process. New York: McGraw Hill, Inc.) The study utilizes a novel measurement procedure that not only evaluates the match of several organizational structure elements for a given strategy, but also allows for aggregation of these matches. The procedure involves development of measurement scales that help identify the strategic orientation of a firm on each of its structural elements. Using a sample of 148 firms from the banking industry, the study provides evidence for the impact of strategy-structure fit on firm performance.

Games in Organizations

This article discusses the difference between the individual and social dynamics of games as enunciated by Berne. It presents a format for integrating intrapsychic, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup analysis within organizations and offers several case studies. The characteristics of organizational games are highlighted by contrasting them with individual games and relating them to Berne's elements of organizational structure and dynamics.

An institutional theory perspective on the DRG framework, case-mix accounting systems and health-care organizations

Case-mix accounting systems have been advanced as both reflecting the economic reality that underlies a hospital's various “product lines”, as defined by DRG prospective payment categories, and facilitating rational decision making regarding resource acquisition, deployment and use. This article uses the institutional perspective to extend this conceptualization of case-mix accounting systems. The institutional perspective proposes that many elements of organizational structure, like case-mix accounting systems, reflect as much a need to conform to societal expectations of acceptable practice as the technical imperative of fostering rationality. This article also extends institutional theory regarding the issues of power and decoupling by considering institutionalization to be an unfinished process in the health-care context, wherein the active agency of individuals and organizations is subjected to systematic examination. In this specific context, case-mix accounting may play a significant role in establishing and perpetuating — not merely supporting — the very social structure of legitimacy, and may consequently be considered an interest-oriented activity having the potential to penetrate and alter the internal operating processes of financially strained hospitals.

Organizing to Increase Innovation in Construction Firms

Driving forces in the construction industry indicate that the ability to innovate is quickly becoming a competitive necessity. Changes in owners' demands and more complex facilities require new approaches in both design and construction. Investigations of other industries reveal organizational characteristics of innovative firms, but construction's institutional framework, products, and technology differ significantly from manufacturing. Based on investigations of successful examples, this paper describes elements of organizational structure and culture that appear to foster construction innovation. These common elements include supportive policies and priorities, flexibility in unit size and grouping, intra‐ and interorganizational coordination, and staffing to satisfy specific requirements for key positions. This paper describes each of these elements and gives examples from a study of innovations. The descriptions of these elements include recommendations for managers seeking to organize for increased innovation, and the conclusions include research insights and needs.

A venture capital model of the development process for new ventures

For years, researchers have hypothesized that new ventures develop in a fairly predictable chronological process by evolving through various functional and strategic developmental stages. However, cross-comparable longitudinal data from large numbers of ventures are still not available to validate these “stages of development” hypotheses. The study sought to determine whether venture capital firms, which have extensive experience with the longitudinal development of new ventures, operate in accord with a common theory about how this process operates. These findings also represent a first step toward empirically validating various elements of “stages of development” theories. The study analyzed the perceptions of the CEO or managing partner of 73 U.S. venture capital firms about key features of the development process for new businesses. Venture capital firms were asked whether they differentiated stages in the development process. For each such stage information was elicited on what the stage was called, distinguishing characteristics of ventures in that stage, key developmental goals or benchmarks typically accomplished in that stage, and the major risks involved. Sufficient consensus was found on these aspects of the development process for a “venture capital model” of this process to be constructed. The model consists of five sequential stages: 1) “seed” ; 2) “start-up” ; 3) “second stage” ; 4) “third stage” ; and 5) “exit stage.” Strong consensus was found on distinguishing characteristics of ventures in early stages of development, key developmental goals or benchmarks in various stages, and major developmental risks associated with each stage. Consensus on developmental characteristics diminished somewhat in later stages, presumably because of differential rates of development among investees, as well as differing degrees of success in accomplishing earlier objectives. Nevertheless, sufficient differences in functional characteristics remained to clearly distinguish later stage investees from early stage investees, and to enable differentiations in maturity between “third stage” and “exit stage” investees. The venture capital developmental model exhibits both similarities and differences from “stages of development” paradigms. First, the venture capital model is primarily strategic and market-oriented in focus. It gives lesser emphasis to the elements of organizational structure, management style, and management specialization than some “stages of development” theories, although these elements are identified by venture capitalists as potential areas of risk should problems arise. Second, like “stages of development” paradigms, the venture capital model is universal and not venture specific. Venture capital firms appear to view all potentially feasible business concepts, despite differences in product, organizational complexity, rate of development, or ultimate size, as passing through the same process sequence, albeit at different speeds and with varying degrees of success. Third, the model, while reflecting the financial objectives of venture capital investors, is primarily shaped by the naturally occurring functional development of investees. It does not represent arbitrary requirements imposed on investees to segment the developmental process into steps that would not otherwise occur. The development of venture capital investees is influenced by the strategic and financial objectives of venture capital firms. Thus the model does not necessarily mirror the strategic and dynamic elements of the development process for firms that are not intended by their founders to grow rapidly and then go public or be acquired by a larger corporation, or for ventures that must depend upon internally generated funds or bank loans to finance development. The venture capital model, representing perceptions of 73 venture capital firms derived from longitudinal data for many hundreds of new ventures, appears to empirically confirm the concept of an evolutionary progression through key functional and strategic steps, which is a central element of most “stages-of-development” hypotheses. The study did not go into sufficient depth, however, to provide detail on the influence of factors such as organizational structure and management styles and control systems on development. These factors are central elements in several “stages of development” theories, and are arguably of critical importance in the growth, survival, and financial success of new ventures.

A model of classical organizational structure: A look at administrative intensity*

Classic management propositions are formalized in a model giving a mathematical expression for the interrelationships of the basic elements of organizational structure: size, hierarchical levels, and horizontal divisions. One proposition derived from this model is that as the size of an organization increases, the administrative ratio increases. This is in direct contrast to a proposition from Blau's organizational theory. In the model administrative intensity decreases with organizational growth only during temporary stages of growth.

PARTICIPATIVE MULTIVARIATE DIFFERENTIATION TOWARD PURPOSEFULNESS.

The article reports on elements of organizational structure that can be altered to control costs. The authors focus on differentiation and integration within industrial organizations. It is suggested that organizations develop subsystems in an attempt to minimize costs and deal with issues of reciprocal interdependence. Studies dealing with the independent behaviors of individual subsystems within organizations are examined. The authors allege that select subsystems are even able to manage themselves and alter their individual structures in order to facilitate the decision making process. They argue in favor of purposefulness in subsystems. Organically formed subsystems are also discussed.

Social Relations in Organizations: Further Evidence For the Weberian Model

An earlier case study confirmed some elements of a social-psychological formulation of Weber's organizational model and disconfirmed others. Close relationships among authority, control, formal training, and legitimacy were found, but impersonality was not characteristic of the organization, and no evidence was found to link organizational knowledge derived from experience to the distribution of formal training or to the distribuition of unofficial control. The present research replicates this study in four additional organizations. Again the relationships among authority, control, training, and legitimacy are close, and strong evidence against impersonality is found. Finally, an unusual amount of the unofficial control is exercised in all the organizations, but no evidence indicates that this challenges the official structure of authority in any of the organizations. SOCIAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES IN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS In the field of organizational analysis a pressing task is to develop a social-psychological model for interpreting the actions of individuals and the ways in which they relate, individually and collectively, to the organizational environment. Theoretical approaches which focus on patterns of social exchange among individuals are useful for some areas of organizational analysis, but insightful as they have been, none of them is sufficient to account for more than a limited range of the activity which takes place in organizations. Homans (1961:2-7, 186-187) indirectly acknowledges this when he states that his model of exchange is limited to direct, faceto-face transactions, and that its applicability is uLnclear when the freedom of the participants is restricted. In fact, exchange theory (including, in addition to Homans, the approaches of Blau [1964] and Thibaut and Kelley [1959]) is generally unable to come to terms convincingly with relationships which are structured by circumstances beyond the control of the individuals involved; this applies especially to those situations where inflexible and/or pronounced differences in organizational power exist among the members. Perhaps a more promising social-psychological approach for organizational analysis is one which builds upon statements about the bases of power and influence in interpersonal relations, especially the theoretical statements of French and Raven ( 1959) and Hopkins (1964). Two good examples of this approach in the organizational literature are the studies reported by Warren (1968) and by Peabody (1962), each of which contributes in an important way to our understanding of the relations among individuals in organizations. Propositions about the behavior of individuals in organizations can also be derived from the classical organization theory of Max Weber (1947). It is the implications of this approach which will be explored here, for it is our conviction that the ideal-typical model of bureaucracy is at least as useful for anticipating the relations among individuals in organizations as it has been for specifying the relationships among different elements of organizational structure. This conviction stems from an earlier study (Miller, 1970) in which several generally overlooked social-psychological hypotheses about the interrelationships among expertise, authority, control, and legitimacy were deduLced from the ideal type and basically confirmed among the members of a small school system. The objective now is to apply the same interpretation of Weber's theoretical system to four additional organizations in order to check