IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/orstsc/v6y2021i4p371-384.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hierarchies, Knowledge, and Power Inside Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Dosi

    (Institute of Economics and EMbeDS, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa 56127, Italy)

  • Luigi Marengo

    (Department of Business and Management, LUISS University, Rome 00197, Italy)

  • Maria Enrica Virgillito

    (Institute of Economics and EMbeDS, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa 56127, Italy)

Abstract

This paper contributes to an old and still unresolved question in the theory of organizations, namely, what do bosses do? Whether and to what extent managerial functions are productive or not for the well functioning of an organization has to be understood with respect to the tension between knowledge and power . Here, we start addressing such a tension with reference to the very nature of organizations. Next, we discuss its historical unfolding in two archetypical organizational modes of production, Taylorism and Toyotism. Third, these two archetypical configurations are studied by means of a model of organizations populated by three sets of agents, workers, managers, and the principal, endowed by different attributes and functions. The fitness of alternative organizational setups is studied under diverse degrees of complexity of the landscape.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Dosi & Luigi Marengo & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2021. "Hierarchies, Knowledge, and Power Inside Organizations," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(4), pages 371-384, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orstsc:v:6:y:2021:i:4:p:371-384
    DOI: 10.1287/stsc.2021.0136
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2021.0136
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/stsc.2021.0136?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
    ---><---

    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:orstsc:v:6:y:2021:i:4:p:371-384. 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.