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...

This article provides a cognitive foundation of the parameters that regulate a model of the learning curve. Organizational learning and its actual occurrence are linked to the number of available categories and to the amount of information to be processed.

This work is focused on identifying a circular pull production control system (PPCS) and make emphasis on the presence of a stability attribute. It is an introductory paper to an extended study of macroeconomic financial stability in a physically open but systemic closed system. Previous work...

About inventory models, a concern is 'often made [that] any resemblances between the models constructed and reality are purely coincidental.' One set of factors not usually considered in textbook models of inventory decisions is suggested by well-documented evidence in macroeconomics, that the...

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 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...

External agents are frequently characterized as necessary for efficiency in team production settings. At the same time, these agents must be constrained from opportunistically exercising their enforcement capabilities. I argue that collective action costs and formal institutions (e.g., golden...

Collusion and soft budget constraint are two conspicuous phenomena in transition economies¡¯ banking system. Literature has separately investigated those two phenomena from theoretical point of views. However, the cross-point of both phenomena has been neglected in the research of banking...