IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v10y1964i3p397-408.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Control in Large Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth J. Arrow

    (Stanford University and Churchill College, Cambridge, England)

Abstract

The problem of control is defined as that of choosing operating rules for members of an organization and enforcement rules for the operating rules so to maximize the organization's objective function. The control problem is sketched for three characteristic types of large organizations: large corporations, governments in their budgetary aspects, and economic systems as a whole. The essential roles of uncertainty and of differential amounts of information in different parts of an organization in the problem of control are brought out. The merits and drawbacks of the price system as a control mechanism are discussed in light of the preceding discussion, with especial reference to the effects of uncertainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth J. Arrow, 1964. "Control in Large Organizations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 397-408, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:10:y:1964:i:3:p:397-408
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.10.3.397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.10.3.397
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.10.3.397?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sturgeon, Timothy J., 1997. "Turnkey Production Networks: A New American Model of Industrial Organization?," UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, Working Paper Series qt2095c9d0, UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, UC Berkeley.
    2. Theodore Groves, 1975. "Incentive Compatible Control of Decentralized Organizations," Discussion Papers 166, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    3. Ionel Bostan & Aliona Bîrcă & Viorel Țurcanu & Christiana Brigitte Sandu, 2018. "Systemic Approach to Management Control through Determining Factors," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-20, October.
    4. Benito Arruñada, 2020. "The Organization of Public Registries: A Comparative Analysis," Working Papers 1154, Barcelona School of Economics.
    5. Staffan Canback, 2004. "Diseconomies of scale in large corporations: Theory and empirical analysis," Industrial Organization 0402001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Menard, Claude, 1995. "Markets as institutions versus organizations as markets? Disentangling some fundamental concepts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 161-182, October.
    7. Sturgeon, Timothy J., 1997. "Does Manufacturing Still Matter? The Organizational Delinking of Production from Innovation," UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, Working Paper Series qt2g22d9d2, UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, UC Berkeley.
    8. Magda Fontana, 2010. "The Santa Fe Perspective on economics: emerging patterns in the science of complexity," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 18(2), pages 167-196.
    9. Anne Coughlan & S. Choi & Wujin Chu & Charles Ingene & Sridhar Moorthy & V. Padmanabhan & Jagmohan Raju & David Soberman & Richard Staelin & Z. Zhang, 2010. "Marketing modeling reality and the realities of marketing modeling," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 317-333, September.
    10. Arruñada, Benito & Hansen, Stephen, 2015. "Organizing public good provision: Lessons from Managerial Accounting," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 185-191.
    11. Anderson, Jock R. & Hardaker, J. Brian, 1972. "An Appreciation of Decision Analysis in Management," Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 40(04), pages 1-15, December.
    12. John L Dillon, 1972. "Toma de Decisiones en Predios Agrícolas de Gran Tamaño," Latin American Journal of Economics-formerly Cuadernos de Economía, Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 9(27), pages 20-57.
    13. Staffan Canback, 1998. "Managerial diseconomies of scale: Literature survey and hypotheses anchored in transaction cost economics," Industrial Organization 9810001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Oct 2002.
    14. Benito Arruñada, 2000. "Gestión de la competencia en el sector público," Economics Working Papers 490, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    15. Ilona Bažantová, 2015. "The Emergence And Development Of Corporate Governance As An Economic And Institutional Phenomenon," Economy & Business Journal, International Scientific Publications, Bulgaria, vol. 9(1), pages 167-178.
    16. Jeremy Hutchison-Krupat, 2018. "Communication, Incentives, and the Execution of a Strategic Initiative," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3380-3399, July.
    17. Schmidt, Torsten, 2001. "Finanzreformen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Analyse der Veränderungen der Finanzverfassung von 1949 bis 1989," RWI Schriften, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, volume 67, number 67.
    18. Fabienne Alvarez, 2002. "Une analyse de la notion d'informel en gestion : des contrats aux réseaux sociaux dans les organisations," Post-Print hal-02545366, HAL.

    More about this item

    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:inm:ormnsc:v:10:y:1964:i:3:p:397-408. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.