The size, structure and performance of corporate headquarters

All Things Great and Small: Organizational Size, Boundaries of the Firm, and a Changing Environment

“…In firms competing in different industries and located in seven countries, Collis, Young, and Goold (2007) found the expansion of headquarters' staff to be primarily driven by the number of employees in the organization. Bureaucratization occurs presumably to help firms deal with growth by standardizing and formalizing processes (Haveman, 1993a); in turn though, firms characterized by significant bureaucratization frequently are slow to change.…”

Constrained Delegation

“…In comparison, multi-industry firms account for 60 percent of the output in the U.S. and are observed to have similar prominence in Europe and in developing countries (cf. Collis, Young, and Goold, 2007). Hence, like most economies, the French economy has been largely dominated by multi-industry firms.…”

Headquarters involvement and efficiency of innovation development and transfer in multinationals: A matter of sheer ignorance?

“…Further, the innovative process is seen as path dependent and involving the putting into practice of product designs and manufacturing processes that are new to the firm (Nelson, 1993). With respect to the second, headquarters, we follow Collis, Young, and Goold (2007), and define it as including the staff functions and executive management with responsibility for, or providing service to, the whole of (or most of) the company, excluding staff employed in divisional headquarters. 6 4 We limit our study to the efficiency aspect of the innovation process, ignoring other typical dimension of performance, i.e., effectiveness.…”