IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-05l00004.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The hierarchical structure of a firm: a geometric approach

Author

Listed:
  • Kam Ki Tang

    (School of Economics, University of Queensland)

  • Rodney Beard

    (ngevie@yahoo.com)

  • Evelyn Ng

    (School of Economics, University of Queensland)

  • Leopoldo Yanes

    (School of Economics, University of Queensland)

Abstract

This paper develops a novel, geometric approach to modelling a firm's hierarchical structure. We model the firm''s hierarchy as the sector of a circle, in which the radius represents the height of the hierarchy and the angle of the sector represents the width of the hierarchy. The firm then chooses the height and angle in order to maximise profit. We analyse the impacts of changes in economies of scale, input substitutability and labour productivity on the firm''s hierarchical structure. We find that the firm will unambiguously become more hierarchical as specialisation of its workers increases or as its output price increases. The effect of changes in scale economies is contingent on the level of task specialisation and output price.

Suggested Citation

  • Kam Ki Tang & Rodney Beard & Evelyn Ng & Leopoldo Yanes, 2005. "The hierarchical structure of a firm: a geometric approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 12(13), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-05l00004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/EB/2005/Volume12/EB-05L00004A.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yingyi Qian, 1994. "Incentives and Loss of Control in an Optimal Hierarchy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(3), pages 527-544.
    2. Dubey, Pradeep & Haimanko, Ori, 2003. "Optimal scrutiny in multi-period promotion tournaments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-24, January.
    3. Mark Casson (ed.), 1996. "The Theory Of The Firm," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 536.
    4. Hu, Xingwei & Shapley, Lloyd S., 2003. "On authority distributions in organizations: equilibrium," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 132-152, October.
    5. Mookherjee Dilip & Reichelstein Stefan, 2001. "Incentives and Coordination in Hierarchies," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-38, April.
    6. Hu, Xingwei & Shapley, Lloyd S., 2003. "On authority distributions in organizations: controls," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 153-170, October.
    7. Luis Garicano, 2000. "Hierarchies and the Organization of Knowledge in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 874-904, October.
    8. Nathalie Greenan, 2003. "Organisational change, technology, employment and skills: an empirical study of French manufacturing," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 287-316, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luis Otávio Façanha & Marcelo Resende, 2006. "Hierarchical Structure in Brazilian Industrial Firms: an Econometric Study," Economics Working Papers ECO2006/1, European University Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:12:y:2005:i:13:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kam Ki Tang & Leopoldo Yanes, 2009. "The hierarchical structure of the firm: a geometric perspective," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2009(2), pages 156-175.
    3. Richard Fu & Ajay Subramanian & Anand Venkateswaran, 2016. "Project Characteristics, Incentives, and Team Production," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(3), pages 785-801, March.
    4. Garicano, Luis & Hubbard, Thomas N, 2007. "Managerial Leverage Is Limited by the Extent of the Market: Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Lawyers' Human Capital," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-43, February.
    5. Grabisch, Michel & Rusinowska, Agnieszka, 2011. "Influence functions, followers and command games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 123-138, May.
    6. Lorenzo Caliendo & Ferdinando Monte & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "The Anatomy of French Production Hierarchies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(4), pages 809-852.
    7. Valerie Smeets & Michael Waldman & Frederic Warzynski, 2019. "Performance, Career Dynamics, and Span of Control," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(4), pages 1183-1213.
    8. Grabisch, Michel & Rusinowska, Agnieszka, 2013. "A model of influence based on aggregation functions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 316-330.
    9. René Brink & Pieter Ruys, 2008. "Technology driven organizational structure of the firm," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 481-503, October.
    10. Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2009. "A model of influence with a continuum of actions," Post-Print halshs-00464460, HAL.
    11. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2015. "Knowledge-Based Hierarchies: Using Organizations to Understand the Economy," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, August.
    12. Jin, Xin, 2014. "Flattening Firms and Wage Distribution," MPRA Paper 58485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Anna Gumpert, 2018. "The Organization of Knowledge in Multinational Firms," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(6), pages 1929-1976.
    14. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
    15. Jia, Junxue & Liang, Xuan & Ma, Guangrong, 2021. "Political hierarchy and regional economic development: Evidence from a spatial discontinuity in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    16. Agnieszka Rusinowska & Rudolf Berghammer & Harrie de Swart & Michel Grabisch, 2011. "Social networks: Prestige, centrality, and influence (Invited paper)," Post-Print hal-00633859, HAL.
    17. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & Marie-Laure Breuillé, 2023. "Citizen preferences and the architecture of government," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(3), pages 537-585, October.
    18. Grimpe, Christoph & Murmann, Martin & Sofka, Wolfgang, 2017. "The organizational design of high-tech startups and product innovation," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-074, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Daron Acemoglu & Pol Antràs & Elhanan Helpman, 2005. "Contracts and the Division of Labor," NBER Working Papers 11356, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Cheng Chen, 2015. "Management Quality, Firm Organization and International Trade," 2015 Meeting Papers 53, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    21. Michel Grabisch & Agnieszka Rusinowska, 2009. "Measuring influence in command games," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(2), pages 177-209, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L0 - Industrial Organization - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-05l00004. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.