Research Overview

Research keywords: Strategy, Physical Organization, Information Technology, Design/behavior, Operations/Strategic Implementation, Globalization and Geography

I explore the relationship between physical organization¹ and economic performance from a firm-centric, strategic perspective, focusing on outcomes that affect value creation and competitive advantage. Broadly, my research asks how the physical organization of firms and firm activities can affect organizational processes and firms’ strategic advantage.

Exploring this connection between physical organization and firm outcomes is not new in management inquiry - in fact, a number of key foundational management texts considered the organizational and strategic relevance of firms’ physical organization. For example:

Simon (1945): wrote of “place” as one of the bases for organizing for efficient administrative control, and argued that office layout is one of the important formal determinants of organizational communication systems;
Chandler (1962): in his classic work on firm structure, Chandler made numerous references to the connection between geographical and administrative organization, illuminating problems arising when the two are disconnected;
Penrose (1959): described how firms’ physical assets play an important role in the value creation process, via an interaction with human resources.

Some key questions that I’m currently exploring:

How has multi-site firms’ physical organization (i.e., both the geographic distribution of firm activities, and the activity interdependencies across sites) changed after the mainstream adoption of information technologies?
What are the managerial challenges and strategic implications of physically dispersing firm activities?
What is the relationship between firms’ physical and administrative structures?
How is value created via the interaction of human and material resources (e.g., as argued by Penrose, 1959)?
Why has the role of tangible resources as a key source of administrative control and value creation (which was recognized by Simon, Chandler, Penrose, and others) been underemphasized in modern strategy literature?

At the heart of this inquiry are some fundamental strategy themes, such as:

the nature and distribution of resources,
the managerial and strategic implications of this distribution,
firm boundaries and structure,
sources of firm heterogeneity, and
the dynamics of value creation.

For example, some of my empirical work examines the impact of information/communication technology adoption and globalization on multi-site firm organization (intra- and inter-firm relationships), and the strategic implications of this re-organization. This involves detailed analysis of rich, micro-data of U.S. Computer Programming Services sector firms, and higher-level, “large-n” analyses of multi-sector M&A involving U.S. Targets (domestic and foreign Acquirers); I explore cross-sectional and cross-year (1987-2002) variation in intra- and inter-firm physical organization, finding significant differences by type of firm activity and/or relationship. This is not simply a phenomenological exploration: although I use as the starting-off point some very basic questions about physical organization, such as ‘Has the physical organization of multi-site firm activities changed after the mainstream adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs)?,’ I apply management theoretical lenses to speak to key issues in management discourse - for example, I use a ‘governance’ lens in the analyses of M&A patterns, and discuss how firms use ‘physical proximity’ as an organizing mechanism for monitoring/coordination (my findings confirm that this is still the case, even after the advent of ICTs).

My research philosophy is holistic and integrative, employing a multi-level, intra- and extra-firm approach for studying firm strategy and organizational capabilities (e.g., as advocated by Henderson & Mitchell, 1997), and developing a situated understanding of strategy and a behaviorally-based understanding of the value of firm resources (Kogut & Zander, 2003). My work is also interdisciplinary, and my ideas are developed through an iterative process, integrating:

multiple scales of analysis: for example, within firms, effects at the macro-level (e.g., the relationship between firm location patterns and administrative control), mid-level (e.g., the link between departmental co-location and innovation) and at the micro-level (e.g., workplace design effects on worker behavior)
multiple levels of analysis: for example, I jointly consider firm- and sector-level (i.e., intra- and inter-firm) relationships and mechanisms
multiple research streams: I draw upon theory and findings from management (e.g., strategy, multinational management, organizational behavior/theory), design/behavior (e.g., environmental psychology, architectural research), and geography (e.g., spatial data analysis, economic geography).
multiple methods of analysis: in addition to traditional management research methods (e.g., regression, archival data analysis, interviews), I employ complementary techniques common in other fields (e.g., visualization and point pattern analysis)

Return	Linda M. Cohen

	Research Overview Research keywords: Strategy, Physical Organization, Information Technology, Design/behavior, Operations/Strategic Implementation, Globalization and Geography I explore the relationship between physical organization¹ and economic performance from a firm-centric, strategic perspective, focusing on outcomes that affect value creation and competitive advantage. Broadly, my research asks how the physical organization of firms and firm activities can affect organizational processes and firms’ strategic advantage. Exploring this connection between physical organization and firm outcomes is not new in management inquiry - in fact, a number of key foundational management texts considered the organizational and strategic relevance of firms’ physical organization. For example: Simon (1945): wrote of “place” as one of the bases for organizing for efficient administrative control, and argued that office layout is one of the important formal determinants of organizational communication systems; Chandler (1962): in his classic work on firm structure, Chandler made numerous references to the connection between geographical and administrative organization, illuminating problems arising when the two are disconnected; Penrose (1959): described how firms’ physical assets play an important role in the value creation process, via an interaction with human resources. Some key questions that I’m currently exploring: How has multi-site firms’ physical organization (i.e., both the geographic distribution of firm activities, and the activity interdependencies across sites) changed after the mainstream adoption of information technologies? What are the managerial challenges and strategic implications of physically dispersing firm activities? What is the relationship between firms’ physical and administrative structures? How is value created via the interaction of human and material resources (e.g., as argued by Penrose, 1959)? Why has the role of tangible resources as a key source of administrative control and value creation (which was recognized by Simon, Chandler, Penrose, and others) been underemphasized in modern strategy literature? At the heart of this inquiry are some fundamental strategy themes, such as: the nature and distribution of resources, the managerial and strategic implications of this distribution, firm boundaries and structure, sources of firm heterogeneity, and the dynamics of value creation. For example, some of my empirical work examines the impact of information/communication technology adoption and globalization on multi-site firm organization (intra- and inter-firm relationships), and the strategic implications of this re-organization. This involves detailed analysis of rich, micro-data of U.S. Computer Programming Services sector firms, and higher-level, “large-n” analyses of multi-sector M&A involving U.S. Targets (domestic and foreign Acquirers); I explore cross-sectional and cross-year (1987-2002) variation in intra- and inter-firm physical organization, finding significant differences by type of firm activity and/or relationship. This is not simply a phenomenological exploration: although I use as the starting-off point some very basic questions about physical organization, such as ‘Has the physical organization of multi-site firm activities changed after the mainstream adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs)?,’ I apply management theoretical lenses to speak to key issues in management discourse - for example, I use a ‘governance’ lens in the analyses of M&A patterns, and discuss how firms use ‘physical proximity’ as an organizing mechanism for monitoring/coordination (my findings confirm that this is still the case, even after the advent of ICTs). My research philosophy is holistic and integrative, employing a multi-level, intra- and extra-firm approach for studying firm strategy and organizational capabilities (e.g., as advocated by Henderson & Mitchell, 1997), and developing a situated understanding of strategy and a behaviorally-based understanding of the value of firm resources (Kogut & Zander, 2003). My work is also interdisciplinary, and my ideas are developed through an iterative process, integrating: multiple scales of analysis: for example, within firms, effects at the macro-level (e.g., the relationship between firm location patterns and administrative control), mid-level (e.g., the link between departmental co-location and innovation) and at the micro-level (e.g., workplace design effects on worker behavior) multiple levels of analysis: for example, I jointly consider firm- and sector-level (i.e., intra- and inter-firm) relationships and mechanisms multiple research streams: I draw upon theory and findings from management (e.g., strategy, multinational management, organizational behavior/theory), design/behavior (e.g., environmental psychology, architectural research), and geography (e.g., spatial data analysis, economic geography). multiple methods of analysis: in addition to traditional management research methods (e.g., regression, archival data analysis, interviews), I employ complementary techniques common in other fields (e.g., visualization and point pattern analysis) See also c.v. 1. At the firm level, ‘physical organization’ includes the physical distribution of resources, administrative units and firm activities, as well as the physical design and layout of tangible resources.