This paper studies the issue of designing an optimal organizational form: design for sub-units' task allocation, decision-making structure, and incentive schemes for organizational members. Depending on the way tasks are allocated between the sub-units, and whether decision-making is centralized or not, organizations face a trade-off between coordination and information. Task allocation by production processes calls for coordination more strongly than the allocation by final products. Centralized decision-making serves for better coordination, whereas decentralization serves for better information. The coordinational benefit under centralization gets bigger as the organization's common uncertainty increases, and this benefit is magnified when the sub-units are functionally divided by production processes. The informational benefit under decentralization gets bigger as the organization's local uncertainty increases, and this benefit is magnified when the sub-units are designed autonomous. Thus, complementarily designed organizations tend to have centralized decision-making structures and fixed salary scheme, whereas less complementarily designed organizations tend to have decentralized decision-making and 'pay for performance' incentive contract.
Teresa García-Milá, Timothy J. Goodspeed, Therese J. McGuire
As part of a process of democratization, many countries spanning Europe, Latin Amertica, Africa, and Asia are reorganizing their governments bydevolving fiscal responsibility and authority to newly empowered regionaland local governments. Although decentralization in each country proceedsdifferently, a common element tends to be an initially heavy relianceon central government grants to fund regional spending. We develop atheoretical model of regional borrowing decisions in which the incentivesfor regional borrowing depend crucially on how the regions expect thefederal system of finance to evolve. We examine the implications of themodel using data on Spanish regions for the period 1984-1995 and findevidence that regions may be borrowing inefficiently in response toincentives imbedded in the Spanish system of fiscal decentralization.
This article presents the results from an evaluative longitudinal study with before-after design. The main objective was to determine the effects of health care decentralization on changes in health financing. Taking into account feasibility, political and technical criteria, three Latin American countries were selected as study populations: Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. The methodology had two main phases. In the first phase, the study referred to secondary sources of data and documents to obtain information about the following variables: type of decentralization implemented, source of finance, funds of financing, providers, final use of resources and mechanisms for resource allocation. In the second phase, the study referred to primary data collected in a survey of key personnel from the health sectors of each country. Taking into account the changes implemented in the three countries, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of each country in financing and decentralization, a rule for decision-making is proposed that attempts to identify the main financial changes implemented in each country and the basic indicators that can be used in future years to direct the planning, assessment, adjustment and correction of health financing and decentralization.
THE SURFACE TRANSPORTAtion Board (STB) issued its long-awaited rules for railroad mergers and received negative reactions from all sides. The rules were prepared during a 15-month moratorium on rail mergers imposed because earlier mergers had caused severe service disruptions and substantially increased shippers' costs. The STB rules affect mergers and consolidations of class 1 railroads—those with annual revenues over $250 million—and are supposed to require more proof from railroads that a merger will be in the public's best interest. STB seeks more emphasis on enhancing competition while ensuring stable, reliable service for all involved. The railroads think the rules are too tough. The Association of American Railroads, the umbrella trade organization, says the new rules make railroads subject to stricter rules for competition than other industries. Major rail carrier CSX Corp. says in a statement that STB "has raised the bar for rail consolidation," making future transactions, "all the more difficult to achieve." As a major user of railroads, the chemical industry has a big stake in the rules. And it is not pleased. "The STB decision definitely misses the mark," says Frederick L. Webber, president and ...
Over the last decade, many unions affiliated to the Federation des travailleurs du papier et de la foret (FTPF-CSN), which represents about 25% of unionized workers in this industry in Quebec, have become involved in the management of work organization and the modernization of their plants. In 1993, the FTPF put forward an action program that encouraged active union and worker participation in work reorganization so long as the autonomy of union action was guaranteed through the use of formal agreements establishing joint committees to implement organizational change. Work reorganization leads unions to focus their activity on the workplace level, which in turn modifies the relationship between local unions and the federation. This shift in the strategic level of union activity alters the traditional sources of union power by reducing the ability of unions to neutralize wage competition between establishments within the same industrial sector. Several researchers (Betcherman 1991; Heckscher 1988; Katz 1993; Lapointe and Belanger 1996) argue that new forms of work organization that rely on the active involvement of workers in the management of their work, on improved technical skills, and on team work, represent a new source of power for unions, allowing them to participate in the implementation of organizational change in the interests of their members. Lapointe and Belanger (1996) identify two factors that can help strengthen union power through participation in the management of work organization: the democratic character of the union; and the union's ability to define and defend an autonomous and independent point of view.The involvement of local unions in the management of work leads to a demand for new services and a redefinition of the responsibilities of appointed union representatives from the industry federation and of elected local union officers. For the FTPF, the coordination of local collective bargaining is a strategically important activity in terms of setting the overall bargaining objectives and priorities for all of the unions in the paper industry. This coordination also makes it possible to reconcile local demands with common priorities, thereby providing a framework for local negotiations. However, over the last decade, the FTPF's ability to coordinate local negotiations has declined as a result of increasingly decentralized bargaining in response to union participation in work reorganization and job insecurity in a number of establishments.The involvement of local unions in work reorganization has had a significant impact on the nature of the tasks and responsibilities assumed by the FTPF's union representatives, for this involvement has often gone hand in hand with new negotiating practices at the local level, practices that combine integrative and continuous bargaining (Deschenes et al. 1998). Under these new negotiating approaches, elected representatives from the local union play a larger role and federation representatives need to have a wider array of technical skills than in the past. In many ways, the work of a union representative now more closely resembles that of an organizational consultant providing advice to local unions. Local union officials seek the advice of the representative on a range of questions related to the organization of work and the management of the firm.The increased involvement of the FTPF's affiliates in work organization and plant modernization over the last decade has sparked a renewal of union action at the local level. Officials and stewards have had to get involved in new areas linked to the management of organizational change, like process reengineering, the organization of production, quality assurance, and problem-solving techniques. In many of the paper mills organized by the FTPF, bargaining over work reorganization has given birth to partnerships that have substantially changed the approach to negotiating and the conduct of union-management relations. Collective bargaining has become more integrative and continuous so as to allow the gradual implementation of organizational changes. Local unions' internal structures and activities, as well as the role and responsibilities of their leaders, stewards and members have been redefined in order to support union and worker involvement in the organization of work.An analysis of the experience with work reorganization and technological modernization involving two local unions affiliated to the FTPF - in the Clermont and Donnacona mills - highlights the interaction between the economic context and union action. First, it should be emphasized that the two unions involved successfully fought, each in its own way, to have their mill modernized. To support their actions, they turned to the CSN's Research Department for studies of technological and organizational change, and, with the support of the FTPF, they led campaigns to raise public awareness of the need to secure investments in their mills. Each of the two unions has a core of active stewards who meet regularly to discuss problems and decide what action to take. Since 1995, they have held regular discussion meetings with union stewards and other union members with the purpose of assessing the role of the union in the mill and the members' perceptions of local union activities. However, the two unions have adopted different approaches to the issue of the modernization of their mills. Since the early 1980s, the Clermont union has adopted a proactive approach, whereas the involvement of the Donnacona local in the management of the mill is the result of a management plan to reduce production costs, which led to a union-management partnership agreement in 1991 aimed at reviving the mill.A number of scholars (Katz 1993; Voos 1994; Walton, Cutcher-Gershenfeld, McKersie 1994) link the decentralization of bargaining to a decline in union power. Fiorito, Gramm and Hendricks (1991) argue that it can also reflect a union preference for greater internal democracy, or for an “efficiency strategy” based upon the union's contribution to the improvement of organizational performance. The FTPF's experience corroborates these ideas in many respects because, parallel to the decline in the federation's influence over industry-wide coordination of local bargaining, it is possible to observe an intensification of its efforts to help local unions improve the organizational efficiency and competitiveness of their mills. As a result of these efforts, the officials and members of the local unions get more involved in the management of the firm, as demonstrated by the two case studies.The changing relationship between the FTPF and its affiliated unions reflects a shift in power towards the local level rather than an overall weakening of bargaining power of the FTPF. As Fiorito, Gramm and Hendricks (1991) stress, union structures and strategies are dependent on the objectives that unions seek to attain. In this respect, they distinguish between two fundamental objectives. In the workplace, unions have to work to improve working conditions and job security, whereas at the societal level union action focuses on the quality of life of all workers. In periods of economic insecurity and industrial restructuring, these two objectives are difficult to achieve, and it is often through the search for practical solutions to them that other aspects of union action surface, like the democratization of the workplace. For local unions, bolstering the competitiveness of their plant can therefore be seen as a necessary condition to protecting working conditions and jobs, as the two case studies clearly show.
This article studies the effects of political institutions on inflation. In our view, hyperinflation is the manifestation of a tragedy of commons in a divided society with a weak central monetary authority. Economies with fiat money are inherently inflation-prone: the collection of seigniorage through the inflation tax is less conspicuous than other taxes, and the printing of money is essentially costless. In many countries, the control of the money supply is de facto or de jure decentralized. Sets of agents (in various regions or interest groups) can effectively pressure the central government to finance their expenditures. As these interest groups pursue their self-interest, they neglect the welfare effects of the inflation tax on individuals in other groups. These elements combine to imply that countries which rely on the inflation tax to meet the resource demands of competing interest groups will typically experience inefficiently (due to negative spillovers) high inflation.
South Africa is at a crossroads in its decentralization policy. On the one hand, it has declared its intention to strengthen the fiscal powers of local governments. On the other hand, the institutional arrangement necessary to guarantee fiscal decentralization, the power to raise local revenues, has not yet been fully defined. Nor has a target been set for the vertical division of resources between the central and lower levels of government. The revenue dimension of fiscal decentralization in South Africa is the subject of this paper. In this paper, we describe the system of local government and local government finance in South Africa. We turn then to a discussion of the normative criteria for proper revenue assignment in an intergovernmental system, and to an evaluation of each of the major revenue sources. In that context, we consider the potential role of the property tax as a source of financing local government in South Africa.
We model the links between skills and changes in work organization. As the proportion of skilled workers increases, the economy travels through a sequence of organizational equilibria. We show that as the relative supply of skills increases the organization of work becomes more decentralized. Both skilled and unskilled workers become more autonomous and perform a wider range of tasks: decentralization spreads across firms at the expense of the old centralized organization based on a strict division of labor. Moreover, as firms switch to decentralization, their employment structure becomes more homogeneous and wage inequality stops decreasing. These predictions are compared with empirical evidence based on French establishment‐level data and we find support for both of them. This suggests that the long‐term increase in the skill level of the workforce may have been one important factor driving the recent introduction of new work practices by a large number of firms.
K. E. Waldrip, J. Han, J. J. Figiel, H. Zhou · 6 authors
In situ stress monitoring has been employed during metalorganic chemical vapor deposition of AlGaN/GaN distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). It was found that the insertion of multiple AlN interlayers is effective in converting the tensile growth stress typically observed in this system into compression, thus alleviating the problem of crack generation. Crack-free growth of a 60 pair Al0.20Ga0.80N/GaN quarter-wavelength DBR was obtained over the entire 2 in. wafer; an accompanying reflectivity of at least 99% was observed near the peak wavelength around 380 nm.