Complexity in organizations: Consequences for climate policy analysis

DeCanio, Stephen J.; Watkins, William; Mitchell, Glenn; Amir-Atefi, Keyvan; Dibble, Catherine

doi:10.1016/s1569-3740(01)03019-x

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…To complete the model it is necessary to specify explicitly the fitness function f and the process by which the firm adopts the innovation. In earlier work Watkins 1998, DeCanio et al 2000) the diffusion of an innovation through an organization took place by means of a stochastic process. In this paper we have cast the model in nonstochastic form, while retaining the essential trade-off between cost and connectedness.…”

Section: Model and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 Extensions have been worked out by Van Zandt and Radner (1996), Van Zandt (1996a, b, 1997, and Meagher and Van Zandt (1997). Other economic tasks have been modeled by Page (1996), Miller (1996), Watkins (1998), andDeCanio et al (2000). Issues of optimal organizational design (in models in which the optima can be determined analytically) have been examined by Grandori (1991), Kennedy (1994), Marschak and Reichelstein (1998), and Gersbach and Wehrspohn (1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Importance of Organizational Structure for the Adoption of Innovations

2000

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Organizational structure affects both the overall behavior of firms and the situations of individuals and subunits within firms. The effect of exogenous changes in the environment (market prices, costs, or regulations) on organizations can be partitioned into the immediate direct effect of the change and the full effect after organizational structure has had time to adjust. This paper develops a computational model of the diffusion of a profitable innovation through a firm, and uses numerical simulations to calculate the relative importance of the direct and structural adjustment components of changes in profitability. One finding is that a failure to recognize the importance of organizational structure on the performance of firms will lead to serious bias in estimation of the costs or benefits of a change in external circumstances. The type of network model developed also has implications for the individuals and divisions that make up the firm. We examine some of the structural characteristics of well-adapted organizations, and show that asymmetries and economic inequalities emerge even when the individual agents' personal characteristics are identical.organizational theory, innovation, inequality, structural change, algorithmic computation

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Section: Model and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Organizational Structure for the Adoption of Innovations

2000

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“…The myriad of potential organizational forms precludes direct calculation of the optimal one, and evolutionary processes or plausible search heuristics that produce improvements in performance are unlikely to find anything other than local maxima (DeCanio et al, , 2000c.…”

Section: Bounded Rationality In Individuals and Organizations: Is Thementioning

confidence: 99%