This paper presents a model that distinguishes between decentralized information processing and decentralized decision making in organizations; it shows that decentralized decision making can be advantageous due to computational delay, even in the absence of communication costs. The key feature...

We use a model of real-time decentralized information processing to understand how constraints on human information processing affect the returns to scale of organizations. We identify three informational (dis)economies of scale: diversification of heterogeneous risks (positive), sharing of...

It is not possible for a formal employment contract to detail everything an employee should do and when. Informal relationships, in particular trust, allow managers to arrange a business in a more productive way; high-trust firms are both more profitable and faster growing. For example, if they...