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Research Details
Governance Channels and Organizational Design at General Electric: 1950-2001
Abstract
This study advances an attention-based view of corporate strategy and explores its implications for organizational design. We examine the governance of resource allocation in a multi-business organization through the firm's network of decision-making and communication channels. Using both primary and secondary sources, we analyze the changes in the decision-making channels at General Electric (GE) over a 51-year period across four CEO regimes: Ralph J. Cordiner, Fred J. Borch, Reginald H. Jones and John F. Welch. We identify four distinct channel functions: reporting, staff, control and agenda management. Through our analysis, we find that strategy does not emerge from any unitary, bounded process but from the pattern that emerges from a network of tightly and loosely coupled channels operating simultaneously.
Type
Book Chapter
Author(s)
William Ocasio, John Joseph
Date Published
2006
Citations
Ocasio, William, and John Joseph. 2006. Governance Channels and Organizational Design at General Electric: 1950-2001.