Tinbergen Lectures on Organization Theory

1. Introduction.- 1.1 Organizations Defined.- 1.2 Why Economics of Organization?.- 1.3 Plan of This Book.- 1.4 Organizations and Their Environment.- I. Rank.- 2. Supervision.- 2.1 Content of Supervision.- 2.2 Structure of Supervision.- 2.3 A Directed Graph.- 2.4 Alternative Description.- 2.5 Organization Charts in Practice.- 3. Control.- 3.1 Structure.- 3.2 Control Sets.- 3.3 Partial Order.- 3.4 Further Remarks.- 4. Rank.- 4.1 Motivation.- 4.2 Simple Ordering.- 4.3 Counting Supervisory Relationships.- 4.4 Meaning of Rank.- 4.5 Rank and Precedence.- Problems.- 5. Distance.- 5.1 Organization Charts as Graphs.- 5.2 Communication Networks.- 5.3 Locating the President.- 5.4 Enumeration.- II. Perfect Management.- 6. Numbers of Positions.- 6.1 Span of Control.- 6.2 Quantification of Task.- 6.3 Constant Span of Control.- 6.4 Disaggregation of Task.- 6.5 Full-Time Assignments.- 6.6 Supervisory Load and Effort.- 6.7 Allocation of Managers in the Short Run.- 6.8 Average Span of Control and Output.- 6.9 Spans of Control Decreasing with Rank.- 7. Estimation.- 7.1 From M and Q.- 7.2 From Lists of Positions by Rank.- 7.3 Other Estimates.- 8. Assignment.- 8.1 The Problem of Implementation.- 8.2 Integer Assignments.- 8.3 Minimizing Ranks.- 8.4 Flexible or Rigid Department Lines.- 8.5 Leanness of Organizations.- 8.6 Support Structure.- Problems.- 9. Regular Organization.- 9.1 Construction.- 9.2 Properties.- 9.3 Average Rank.- 9.4 Average Distance.- 10. Costs.- 10.1 Salary Schedules.- 10.2 Average Wage and Unit Labor Cost.- 10.3 Cost Minimizing Organizational Designs.- 10.4 Job Allocation in the Short Run.- 10.5 Minimizing Unit Labor Costs.- 10.6 Cost and Scale for Regular Organizations.- 10.7 Cost and Scale for Nonregular Organizations.- III. Productivity and Structure.- 11. Substitution of Management and Operative Inputs: Welfare Agency.- 11.1 A Queuing Model.- 11.2 Analysis.- 11.3 Discussion.- 11.4 Generalization.- 12. Information Costs: Research Teams.- 12.1 Model.- 12.2 Production Function.- 12.3 Checking.- 13. Loss of Information in Simple Organizations.- 13.1 Setting Targets.- 13.2 Budgeting with Full Information.- 13.3 Incomplete Information.- 14. Loss of Information and Control in Multi-Level Organizations.- 14.1 Loss of Information.- 14.2 Loss of Control.- 15. Uses of Production Functions: Simple Organizations.- 15.1 Attainable Output.- 15.2 Labor Requirements.- 15.3 Supervisory Input.- 15.4 Minimizing the Cost of Given Output.- 15.5 Increasing Returns to Scale.- 16. Uses of Production Functions: Multi-Level Organizations.- 16.1 A Production Function for Management.- 16.2 Allocation of Inputs.- 16.3 Short Run.- 16.4 Medium Run: Optimal Spans of Control.- 16.5 Medium Run: Cost Functions.- 16.6 Long Run: Optimal Number of Ranks.- 16.7 Long Run: Cost Functions.- IV. Advantage and Motivation.- 17. Organizations vs. Individuals.- 17.1 Organization of Individual Effort.- 17.2 Larger Output: Simple Organization.- 17.3 Advantage of Simple Organization.- 17.4 Utilizing Better Qualified Personnel.- 18. Management Motivation: Principal and Agent.- 18.1 Introduction.- 18.2 Managers as Principals.- 18.3 Linear Homogeneous Production Function.- 18.4 Managers as Agents.- 18.5 Increasing Returns to Scale.- 19. The Economics of Hierarchy.- 19.1 Management by Delegation.- 19.2 Optimization.- 19.3 Discussion: Emerging Wage Structure.- 19.4 Loss of Control.- 19.5 Team Work at the Top.- 19.6 Long Run.- 19.7 Organizational Modes of an Industry.- 20. Alternatives to Hierarchy: Partnerships.- 20.1 Partnership Defined.- 20.2 Equal Sharing and Full Time Work.- 20.3 Advantage of Partnership: Fixed Shares.- 20.4 Proportional Rewards.- Conclusion.- Appendix A. Deriving Supervisory Relationships from Control.- Appendix B. Average Span of Control and More Graph Theory.- Appendix C. Proof of Lemma for Section 6.9.- Selected Bibliography.- Name Index.