Introduction: Organizational Variety and Economic Performance

Abstract

Introduction: Organizational variety and economic performance created by business organizations themselves as a result of external constraints and opportunities. Basic conditions are mainly composed of the following interrelated features: (i) attributes of information, knowledge and available techniques and equipment, (ii) individual abilities, motivations and aims, (iii) degree of uncertainty, (iv) structural change and (v) institutional and market conditions. Among important components that influence decision-making processes within the firm, property structures, control rights, aims of the firm, corporate culture, internal communication systems, incentive design, human resources practices and the kind of rationality (with reference to the level of uncertainty) occupy a salient position. In industrialized countries a rich tapestry of ownership and governance structures can be observed. Mirella Damiani (Chapter 2 in this book) underlines that different property structures shape a variety of control devices and incentive arrangements across countries. Jackie Krafft and Jaques-Laurent Ravix (Chapter 3) convincingly argue that the adoption of an approach based on a unique and universal set of rules and arrangements neglects the heterogeneity of firms, the diversity of industries and the different stages of their life cycle, as well as the variety of institutional contexts. Decision-making mechanisms are linked to a multiplicity of organizational practices aiming to pursue efficiency and effectiveness according to the multiplicity of basic conditions. As maintained by Anna Grandori and Santi Furnari (Chapter 4), the heterogeneity of organizational practices arises from the fact that they are the result of specific 'compositions' of different doses of elementary 'organizational elements'-just as different materials are the result of the combination of different qualities and doses of chemical elements. Decision-making mechanisms and organizational practices affect the organizational coordination between (a) the development of capabilities, (b) the arrangement of transactions and (c) the design of the scale of different processes. Developing capabilities means finding, interpreting and using knowledge on how to plan, organize and perform production processes. Dynamic capabilities consist of the firm's ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external knowledge in order to address rapidly changing environments. 5 The arrangement of transactions concerns decisions regarding the relationships with suppliers and customers. Firms that operate in the same sector of activity are often characterized by various levels of vertical integration and different outsourcing relations. This implies the existence of a large variety of hybrid arrangements that shape diverse forms of collaboration among firms. According to the definition provided by Claude

Is the Pro-Network Bias Justified?

“…In spite of the possible advantages of outsourcers, the generalized shift toward new forms of production organization predicted by some authors (Acemoglu et al, 2007; Lamoreaux, Raff, & Temin, 2003; Sturgeon, 2002) has not occurred in Spain’s manufacturing industry at the beginning of the 21st century, although the networked firm certainly seems to be an emerging governance formula there, especially in R&D-intensive industries. Our data support the thesis (Gilley & Rasheed, 2000; Morroni, 2009) that organizational forms may be heterogeneous within national industries. The persistence of “old” forms of governance suggests that other aspects than those studied here also need to be compared.…”