The Performance of Different Organisations under Different Marked Conditions An Empirical Analysis of the Organisational Structure and Performance of 1900 Danish Firms [Revised Feb. 12th. 1999]

Among some scholars of management, organisation and also economists as well as policy makers it is argued that certain new forms of firm organisation such as flexible and learning organisations increasingly are becoming “best practice”, in an increasingly learning and global economy. On a policy level, in eg. Denmark and OECD, questions are already asked as to how policies should be set up to stimulate such organisational forms. A crucial aspect that is recognised by some scholars, is that it is in certain competitive structures where flexible and learning organisations are well suited, though tends to be overlooked within the debate. The analysis in this paper applies performance data from Statistics Denmark merged with survey data of organisational forms, management, work practices and employee skills collected through a questionnaire in 1900 Danish firms in manufacturing as well as services. Applying regression analyses we show that the flexible or learning organisational forms in some parts of the economy, characterised by innovation turbulence and cumulativeness, are best performers though not in general. We argue that a quantitative analysis as ours is vital to both avoid idiosyncratic generalisations among scholars as well as policy makers, and to give rigid and more detailed implications for policy regarding firm organisation, both at present and in a dynamic setting.