The authors find that a significant relationship exists between vertical integration and expenditures for basic and applied research for the US petroleum industry, 1954-1975. They advance several hypotheses consistent with this finding, and conclude that organizational structure influences expenditures on research in the modern business enterprise.

The productivity slowdown and the competitive difficulties experienced by many American firms in domestic and international markets have triggered considerable research into the reasons for the observed changes. Although rarely featured in systematic analysis of productivity trends, various writers have suggested that management miseducation may be part of the problem. In an award-winning article, Robert Hayes and William Abernathy assert