ON THE DYNAMICS OF ORGANIZATIONAL RIGIDITY
Participer
Economics and Decision Sciences
Intevenant: Luis Vasconcelos
De : University of Technology Sydney
Visioconférence
Abstract :
We present a novel explanation of why organizations tend to lose their agility over time despite their efforts to foster worker initiative in adapting to local information. Worker initiative ensures efficiency but requires strong incentives. When incentives are relational and the firm faces shocks that erode its credibility, the firm may adopt standardized work process or rules that ignore local information but yield satisfactory (though sub-optimal) performance. Such rules help the relationship survive the current shocks but inflict inefficiencies in the future. While the relationship may recover, its ability to weather future shocks deteriorates, and, over time, it becomes more reliant on rules.