specialization, implicit coordination and organizational performance trading off common and idiosyncratic knowledge文档.pdf

Rev Manag Sci (2011) 5:19–47 DOI 10.1007/s11846-010-0043-4 ORI GIN AL PA PER Specialization, implicit coordination and organizational performance: trading off common and idiosyncratic knowledge Achim Hecker Received: 7 July 2009 / Accepted: 15 April 2010 / Published online: 5 May 2010 Springer-Verlag 2010 Abstract This paper reconsiders the trade-off between specialization and coor- dination by focusing on as yet neglected forms of implicit coordination. While specialization draws on idiosyncratic knowledge pertaining to the worker’s specific tasks and environment, implicit coordination is based on knowledge common to all workers. Accordingly, the trade-off between specialization and coordination translates into one between idiosyncratic and common knowledge. Investigating this trade-off I determine the organization’s optimal knowledge structure depending on a number of organizational and environmental parameters. Further extensions of the model allow for explicit coordination through communication, differentiate between common knowledge at the corporate level and departmental level, and apply important results to the issue of corporate culture, interpreted as a specific form of common knowledge that likewise facilitates implicit coordination. Keywords Common knowledge Coordination Corporate culture Specialization JEL Classification D20 D80 M14 1 Introduction Much older than Adam Smith’s seminal study An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and reaching back at least to Plato’s The Republic, is the basic notion that progress and the wealth of mankind derive from specialization and the division of labor. Still, Smith was the first to systematically inquire into the limits of these sources of wealth, considering them to be restricted A. Hecker () University of Freiburg, Platz der Alten Synagog