Empirical studies on information communication technologies (ICT) typically aggregate the 'information' and 'communication' components together. We show theoretically and empirically that this is problematic. Information and communication technologies have very di¤erent e¤ects on the decisions taken at each level of an organization. Better information access pushes decisions down, as it allows for superior decentralized decision making without an undue cognitive burden on those lower in the hierarchy. Better communication pushes decisions up, as it allows employees to rely on those above them in the hierarchy to make decisions. Using an original dataset of …rms from the US and seven European countries we study the impact of ICT on worker autonomy, plant manager autonomy and span of control. Consistently with the theory we …nd that better information technologies (Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP , for plant managers and CAD=CAM for production workers) are associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control. By contrast, communication technologies (like data networks) decrease autonomy for both workers and plant managers. Treating technology as endogenous using instrumental variables (distance from the birthplace of ERP and heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from di¤erent regulatory regimes) strengthen our results. JEL No. O31, O32, O33, F23This is an extensively revised version of Bloom et al (2009). We thank participants in seminars in the AEA, Chicago, Harvard/MIT, LSE, Microsoft and NBER for helpful comments.We would like to thank the ESRC for help with …nancing this research through the Centre for Economic Performance. on communication costs: trading-o¤ knowing versus asking for directions.The level at which decisions are taken thus responds to the cost of acquiring and communicating information. Reductions in the cost of communication allows for a reduction in knowledge acquisition costs through the increasing use of 'management by exception', e.g. local managers rely more on corporate managers for decision making. Reductions in the cost of information access, on the other hand, reduce the cognitive burden imposed by decentralized decision making and makes more decentralization e¢ cient. Consequently, information and communication technologies a¤ect di¤erently the hierarchical level at which di¤erent decisions are taken. Improvements in information technology should push decisions 'down' leading to decentralization while improvements in communication technology should push decisions 'up' leading to centralization.In this paper, we study this cognitive view of hierarchy by testing for the di¤erential impact on the organization of …rms of these two types of technologies (information vs. communication).To do this, we extend Garicano (2000) to consider two types of decisions and discuss in each case technologies that make it easier for agents to acquire the information necessary to make them and their technologies that improve communication. This extension is methodologically important as the d...
Журнал зарегистрирован Федеральной службой по надзору в сфере связи и массовых коммуникаций 16 января 2009 г. Свидетельство о регистрации средств массовой информации ПИ № ФС77-34982 Журнал издается с 2003 г., выходи т 4 раза в год. Подписной индекс 81958 Журнал включен в перечень ВАК Министерства образования и науки РФ ведущих научных журналов и изданий, в которых должны быть опубликованы основные научные результаты диссертаций на соискание ученой степени доктора экономических наук До 2009 г.-Экономический вестник Ростовского государственного университета Адрес учредителя:
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