Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business : Local Contexts in Global Business |
| Editors | Klaus Meyer, Tunga Kiyak |
| Place of Publication | East Lansing, MI |
| Publisher | Academy of International Business |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Pages | 13 |
| Publication status | Published - 2014 |
| Event | AIB 2014 Annual Meeting : Local Context in Global Business - Westin Bayshore, Vancouver, Canada Duration: 23 Jun 2014 → 26 Jun 2014 Conference number: 56 http://aib.msu.edu/events/2014/ |
Conference
| Conference | AIB 2014 Annual Meeting |
|---|---|
| Number | 56 |
| Location | Westin Bayshore |
| Country | Canada |
| City | Vancouver |
| Period | 23/06/2014 → 26/06/2014 |
| Internet address |
| Series | Academy of International Business. Annual Meeting. Proceedings |
|---|---|
| Volume | 56 |
| ISSN | 2078-4430 |
Cite this
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How Firms Make Boundary Decisions : The Role of Hierarchy Span and Expertise Span. / Dobrajska, Magdalena; Billinger, Stephan; Becker, Markus.
Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business: Local Contexts in Global Business. ed. / Klaus Meyer; Tunga Kiyak. East Lansing, MI : Academy of International Business, 2014. p. 13 (Academy of International Business. Annual Meeting. Proceedings, Vol. 56).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference abstract in proceedings › Research › peer-review
TY - ABST
T1 - How Firms Make Boundary Decisions
T2 - The Role of Hierarchy Span and Expertise Span
AU - Dobrajska, Magdalena
AU - Billinger, Stephan
AU - Becker, Markus
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - We report findings from an analysis of 234 firm boundary decisions that a manufacturing firm has made during a 10 year period. Extensive interviews with all major decision makers located both at the headquarters and subsidiaries allow us to examine (a) who was involved in each boundary decision, and (b) how the firm arrived at a particular transactional choice in each decision. We find that decision makers extensively adapt decision structures in order to effectively make governance mode choices. They adapt hierarchy span, i.e. the number of hierarchical levels involved, and expertise span, i.e. the number of same-level decision makers with dissimilar knowledge basis. We observe that decision makers heavily rely on varying hierarchy and expertise span in order to improve the quality of the decision outcome. Central to the adaption of decision structures is that decision makers, over time and as novelty decreases, substitute hierarchy span with expertise span. We conclude that this substitution mechanism is core for our understanding of how decision structures are used when firms attempt to achieve transactional alignment.
AB - We report findings from an analysis of 234 firm boundary decisions that a manufacturing firm has made during a 10 year period. Extensive interviews with all major decision makers located both at the headquarters and subsidiaries allow us to examine (a) who was involved in each boundary decision, and (b) how the firm arrived at a particular transactional choice in each decision. We find that decision makers extensively adapt decision structures in order to effectively make governance mode choices. They adapt hierarchy span, i.e. the number of hierarchical levels involved, and expertise span, i.e. the number of same-level decision makers with dissimilar knowledge basis. We observe that decision makers heavily rely on varying hierarchy and expertise span in order to improve the quality of the decision outcome. Central to the adaption of decision structures is that decision makers, over time and as novelty decreases, substitute hierarchy span with expertise span. We conclude that this substitution mechanism is core for our understanding of how decision structures are used when firms attempt to achieve transactional alignment.
M3 - Conference abstract in proceedings
SP - 13
BT - Proceedings of the 56th Annual Meeting of the Academy of International Business
A2 - Meyer, Klaus
A2 - Kiyak, Tunga
PB - Academy of International Business
CY - East Lansing, MI
ER -