Knowledge that Transforms

This study's argument is that adoption of a multidivisional, or M-form, organizational structure is linked to increases in a firm's levels of discretionary cash. I developed this proposition by ass...

The wage premiums associated with jobs in a large organization were identified through comparing their pay to the prevailing wages in the relevant outside labor markets. We then examined the characteristics of those jobs to investigate why some commanded larger premiums than others. Jobs at the tops of promotion ladders, jobs requiring many organization-specific skills, and to a lesser extent, jobs with access to influence commanded greater wage premiums. Wages above market rates appear important in supporting the internal labor market mechanisms associated with these jobs. Findings may clarify the factors compensation managers should consider when positioning wage rates. Examination of these issues is a potentially important bridge between the study of internal labor markets in organizational research and the study of wages in economics.

Multidivisional organizations are not concerned with what structure to adopt but with how they should exercise control within the divisional form to achieve economic efficiencies. Using an information-processing framework, I examined control arrangements between the headquarters and operating divisions of such organizations and how managers adapted control practices to accommodate increasing environmental uncertainty. Also considered were the moderating effects of contextual attributes on such adaptive behavior. Analyses of panel data from 97 multihospital systems suggested that organizations generally practice selective decentralization under conditions of increasing uncertainty but that organizational age, dispersion, and initial control arrangements significantly moderate the direction and magnitude of such changes.

This study demonstrates the application of theories and models from organizational ecology to the study of organizational strategy. Competition between strategic groups and the effects of environme...

Theoretical models concerning technology-structure relationships typically are limited to one technology variable, one structure variable, and one contingency variable. This study draws on three de...

In this study of California wineries observed between 1940 and 1984, we showed that organizations within a population may escape competitive pressures through differentiation. Both wineries founded...

This study investigated the factors that can explain the gains resulting from vertical mergers. The findings suggest that acquiring firms gain the most when they come from concentrated markets and ...

The impact of increasing unemployment rates and decreasing organizational size on absenteeism was assessed for pooled monthly data from 17 plants over a five-year period. As the organizations becam...