Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Firm decentralization around the world Nick Bloom (Stanford Economics) John Van Reenen (Stanford GSB/LSE) Lecture 8: February 2010

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Summary of last lecture on hospitals, school and retail management 1.Huge variation in management practices seems common to every sector we have studied to date 2.The very same practices around monitoring, targets and incentives always associated with superior performance 3.Demonstrates there are basic management best practices, with the grid identifying a core set of these 4.Grid plus data useful tool for change management in that provides evidence base on key practices

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What is decentralization? Measurement and stylized facts Determinants of decentralization Firm Performance and decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What is decentralization? One aspect of firm organization - how power and decision making are distributed Unlike basic management practices no typical “good” and “bad” – just different styles which tend to vary by country Why should you care: –Key in designing your business or advising others –Changing over time, generating broader economic effects, like increased inequality and worker empowerment

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Business Week The 21st Century Corporation, cover story August 21-28, "Globalization and the arrival of the information economy have rapidly demolished all the old precepts. The management of global companies, which must innovate simultaneously and speed information through horizontal globe-spanning networks, has become a daunting challenge. Old, rigid hierarchies are out...." Are things really changing?

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Delayering – Number of positions reporting to CEO Source: Rajan and Wulf, 2006, 300+ large US corporations Evidence is limited, but appears yes, firms are decentralizing

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Formal vs. Real Authority Formal authority in the organization chart (“organogram”) –E.g. Profit centres vs. cost/sales centres Real authority –How things actually get done. Power – Can be different across different types of decisions –e.g. pricing, products and M&A

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Real authority models: Centralized re=related

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 e.g. Universities, but academics generally pretty inefficient Real authority models: Decentralized

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What is decentralization? Measurement and stylized facts Determinants of decentralization Firm Performance and decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Central HQ (New York Site) Example A: Domestic Firm 2 Sites, Single Plant Plant (Albany Site) D, Decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Central HQ (New York Site) Example B: US Domestic Firm Multi-Site, Multi-Plants Plant 1 (Buffalo Site) Plant 3 (Scranton Site) Plant 2 (Albany Site) D1D2 D3

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 The Decentralization Survey Page

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Main measure averages the z-score (scores normalized to mean 0, standard-deviation 1) of each variable: –Hiring senior employees (discrete, 1 to 5) –Maximum Capital expenditure (continuous, in $) –Introduction of new products (discrete, 1 to 5) –Sales and marketing (discrete, 1 to 5) Our empirical decentralization measure

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Decentralization varies heavily across countries Most centralized Asia Southern Europe Least centralized Scandinavian countries Anglo-Saxon countries Decentralization measure

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Decentralization also varies across firms Decentralization measure (higher number is more decentralized)

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 External validation – decentralization over time Only prior firm decentralization measure to cross-check against we are aware of is from Hofstede –Surveyed c.100,000 IBM employees across 50 countries during the 1970s & 1980s –Questions on management style (autocractic/paternalistic or consultative) and preferences for delegation –Combined into Power Distance index (1-100), low means limited (preference for) delegation

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 ‘Power distance’ measures from 1970s & 1980s matches our 2000s decentralization data quite well Decentralization Power distance Correlation= 0.80

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Fiscal decentralization (whether Governments are centrally run) looks similar – so something cultural? Firm Decentralization Fiscal Decentralization (Arzaghi and Henderson, 2005) Correlation= 0.83

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Decentralization also varies across ownership types – with founder and government firms centralized Decentralization measure

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What is decentralization? Measurement and Stylized facts Theories & Determinants of decentralization Firm Performance and decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What do you think are the benefits and costs of decentralization? 22

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Some Benefits of Decentralization 1.Saves on costs of communication and information transfer 2.Improves swiftness of reacting to market changes [e.g. because of less specialization, more multi-tasking] 3.Increase in employee involvement, so possibly more job satisfaction 23

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Some Costs of Decentralization 1.More “mistakes” (e.g. co-ordination in price setting) 2.Harder to exploit returns to scale/specialization – i.e. repetition of same activities across different divisions 3.More stress from control? 24

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Factors affecting Decentralization 1.Technological 2.Economic 3.Cultural/Legal

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Technological Factors affecting Decentralization Complexity: Size, Product and Multinational status Learning: Age and Proximity to technological frontier ICT: Information costs and Communication costs

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Complexity: Larger Firms are more decentralized Number of employees in the firm

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Dependent variable: Decentralization of plants Foreign Multinational0.157*** (0.058) Firm employment (in logs)0.052** (0.022) Plant employment (share of firm)0.089*** (0.030) Plant Skills (% employees with a degree)0.085*** (0.015) Observations3,660 Industry dummies (112)yes Country dummies (12)yes Other controls (60)yes Complexity: Multinationals (even controlling for size) are more decentralized

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Learning: Younger firms are more decentralized

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Learning: More technologically advanced firms (i.e. close to frontier) more likely to be decentralized

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Enterprise Resource Planning0.104*0.116** Information technology (0.054) NETWORK-0.098*-0.110** Communication technology (0.053) Computers/Employee (0.031) Information technology (IT) increase decentralization Communications technology (CT) decreaseas decentralization ICT: Decentralization and the use of ICT Notes: Controls are SIC3 dummies, country dummies, noise controls (interviewer dummies Interviewee tenure and seniority, etc.), public listing, CEO onsite, plant size,

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Factors affecting Decentralization 1.Technological 2.Economic 3.Cultural/Legal

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Economic Factors affecting Decentralization Competition information: Improves the value of timely responses to local conditions incentives: Lower risk of manager abusing autonomy as incentives more aligned with firm Skill: more able workers better at coping with responsibility

Competition proxies Dependent variable: Decentralization Imports/production (three digit industry, ) 0.184*** (0.073) Lerner Index of competition (three digit industry except firm) 2.265*** (1.081) Number of competitors 0.094** (0.034) Observations 2,4973,587 Competition: Firms facing more competition are more decentralized Notes: Other controls are SIC3 dummies, 12 country dummies, noise controls (interviewer dummies Interviewee tenure and seniority, etc.), public listing, CEO onsite, plant size,

35 Skill: Firms with more skilled workers are more decentralized Proportion of employees with a college degree

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Legal and Cultural Factors affecting Decentralization Trust –In high trust areas (e.g. Sweden) managers likely to be trusted to carry out more activities Rule of Law –In good rule of law areas (e.g. US) top management less worried about theft by middle management Religion –Evidence that firms from areas with more centralized religions tend to be more centralized (causal?) 36

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Trust and decentralization How to measure trust? World Value Survey has question: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?” Trust by region of the country defined as % of people answering “yes” to first part of the trust question Experiments show this question linked with trust/trusting behavior (Glaeser et al, 2000, Sapienza et al, 2007)

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Trust by country (means and regional spreads) The graph shows median level of trust. The vertical bars denote minimum and maximum levels.

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Trust (region)1.196***0.825***0.732** (0.429)(0.290)(0.298) Rule of law (country)0.473*** (0.102) Observations 3549 Country dummiesno yes Other controlsno yes Trust, rule of law and decentralization Notes: Other controls are SIC3 dummies, noise controls (interviewer dummies Interviewee tenure and seniority, etc.), public listing, CEO onsite, plant size, competition

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Also look at multinationals as another test of trust Could worry about bias due to trust proxying for other country/regional variables So look at affiliates of foreign multinationals and investigate whether trust in their home country also matters Bilateral trust: (on average) how much do people in the multinational’s home country trust people in the country where the subsidiary is located (Eurobarometer Survey)

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Central HQ (New York Site) Example A: Domestic Firm 2 Sites, Single Plant Plant (Phoenix Site) D, Decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Plant 1 (Lund Site) Global HQ (Tokyo Site) French CHQ (Paris Site) Example D Japanese MNE Sweden CHQ (Stockholm Site) Plant 2 (Lyon Site) Do not observe D Observe D

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Trust (region of location) (0.592)(0.843)(1.908) Trust (country of origin) 0.749***0.152 (0.301)(0.152) Trust (bilateral from origin cty to location cty) 1.809*** (0.768) Full set of controls Yes Regional dummies No Country origin dummiesNo ClusteringRegion Origin country Observations Decentralization and trust in multinational firms

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 What is decentralization? Measurement and Stylized facts Determinants of decentralization Firm Performance and decentralization

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Does decentralization matter for performance? Short run: generally depends on firms circumstances (e.g. country, industry and technology) Short run: one recent factor that has been rapidly affecting this is IT. Evidence that impact of IT on productivity much higher in better managed and more decentralized firms Long run: to be large you need some decentralization, so key for growth (Penrose 1959 and Chandler 1962)

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, 2010 Productivity growth and IT “High Org” = more decentralized IT and decentralization appear complementary

Nick Bloom and John Van Reenen, Management Practices, Wrap-up Decentralization varies heavily by country and ownership Northern European and US firms decentralized, and Southern European and Asian being centralized Founder, family and government very centralized Factors driving this appear to be both economic – competition, technology and skills – but also cultural around trust, rule-of-law and even religion In short-run decentralization is a choice variable depending on circumstances, but necessary for growth in long-run