The Distinct Effects of Information Technology and Communication Technology on Firm Organization

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bloom, Nicholas; Garicano, Luis; Sadun, Raffaella; Van Reenen, John
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Stanford University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2014.2013
• 发表日期: 2014
• 关键词: organization; DELEGATION; information technology; communication technology; the theory of the firm

摘要

Guided by theories of management by exception, we study the impact of information and communication technology on worker and plant manager autonomy and span of control. The theory suggests that information technology is a decentralizing force, whereas communication technology is a centralizing force. Using a new data set of American and European manufacturing firms, we find indeed that better information technologies (enterprise resource planning (ERP) for plant managers and computer-assisted design/computer-assisted manufacturing for production workers) are associated with more autonomy and a wider span of control, whereas technologies that improve communication (like data intranets) decrease autonomy for workers and plant managers. Using instrumental variables (distance from ERP's place of origin and heterogeneous telecommunication costs arising from regulation) strengthens our results. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2013.