The paper analyzes voluntary Free Software/Open Source Software (FS/OSS) organization of work. The empirical setting considered is the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. The paper finds that the production process is hierarchical notwithstanding the modular (nearly decomposable) architecture of...

The rise of the modular production in assembly industries is initially located in its capacity to manage the increasing complexity of the products. However these implications exceed this technological dimension. Many works advance that the modular production implies a reorganization of the firms...

Many European countries have faced the erosion of the competitive advantage in the international market with a mixed strategy of productivity increase at home and labour cost reduction abroad, through the international fragmentation of production and subcontracting in low wage countries. Italy...

This paper empirically examines how changes in the hierarchical structure of a large organization can affect incentives. The empirical analysis exploits a change in the hierarchical structure of the Corporate Division of a private foreign commercial bank in Argentina between 1999 and 2001. Using...

In this paper we study the mechanics of ``leading by example'' in teams. Leadership is beneficial for the entire team when agents are conformists, i.e., dislike effort differentials. We also show how leadership can arise endogenously and discuss what type of leader benefits a team most.

In this paper we address the question of collusion in mechanisms under asymmetric information. We develop a methodology to analyze collusion as an informed principal problem. First, if collusion occurs after the agents accept or reject the principal's offer; the dominant-strategy implementation...

What are the prospects of B2B electronic commerce when production is carried out by a number of small firms specialized in single production phases? Prato, Italy, is home to thousands of textile firms as well as the locus of an early and innovative experience of a local Internet in the...

This article presents a model of the structure of the information flows that underlie the creation of production chains between thousands of small textile firms located in Prato, central Italy. Contrary to most textile industry of western Europe and north America, Prato did not die out once...

When, in a supply chain, a supplier and a buyer have the choice of transaction form to do business, the equilibrium transaction form which emerges is much more constrained than previously envisaged in literature. In this paper, two forms of long-term supply contracts and procurement in the spot...

Using a balanced panel of firm-level data on the manufacturing industry in France, Italy and Spain over the 1993-1997 period, this paper examines the impact of foreign presence on the productivity of domestic enterprises. We innovate on existing literature by using firm-level data comparable...