Issues of Organizational Design: A Mathematical Programming View of Organizations

In this book Obel has sought to bring together the practical problem of organisational design and the conceptual. framework and associated methodology of mathematical programming. Whilst the relationship between decentralised organisations and mathematical programming has been acknowledged since the 1960s, the work of Dantzig and Wolfe on decomposition methods providing the initial impetus to the discussion, the last few years have seen a productive change of direction in the way in which the relationship is perceived. The switch, from an emphasis on using the structure of an organisation to aid the solution of large mathematical programmes of that organisation to a concern with using the mathematical programming approach to address questions of how that organisation may be structured, has given rise to a new set of issues. These issues are concerned with bringing manager ial and behavioural factors into the mathematical model.