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This paper analyzes the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we equate with publicly available information. Decentralized control, on the other hand, delegates authority to a manager with superior information. However, the manager can use his informational advantage to make choices that are not in the best interest of the principal. As the available public information about the specific technology increases, the tradeoff shifts in favor of centralization. We show that firms closer to the technological frontier, firms in more heterogeneous environments, and younger firms are more likely to choose decentralization. Using three data sets on French and British firms in the 1990s, we report robust correlations consistent with these predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the correlations between technological change, organisational change and skill change using a survey on organisational change in manufacturing firms conducted in 1993. Considerable diversity is allowed for in terms of the measure of technological and organisational change, and the analysis shows a positive correlation between technological change and reorganisations, whatever their types. The paper then analyses the relationships between these changes and the employment behaviour of firms. It shows that changes in the required skills and in the occupational structure of firms are more closely connected to organisational than to technological change. Although organisational change affects the work content and skill requirements of blue collar workers, it is mainly indirect workers that are affected in terms of the number employed. Finally, the analysis shows that technology tends to stabilise the workforce whereas the move towards the model of 'flexible enterprise' favours its renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France's civil nuclear power industry emerged from the earlier military nuclear programme as a programme owned and controlled by the state. This was in line with the nation's longstanding style of economic and industrial governance. Such an approach had the advantage that the capacity of nuclear power grew rapidly, with generous funding and close coordination by the state. During the 1980s and 1990s, the nuclear power industry succeeding in resisting broader moves to reduce the role of the state in French industry. Links between the government, the regulator and the industry remained close, aided by longstanding informal networks between key individuals. The first decade of the 2000s saw the start of significant reform of the nuclear regulatory infrastructure. However, by this time the disadvantages of long-term state control of the nuclear industry were becoming increasingly apparent. These included deficiencies in policy making, industry regulation and corporate management which have brought France's nuclear industry to a crisis. This analysis applies institutional theory to show how the nation's longstanding approach to economic and industrial governance has shaped the development of its nuclear industry and thus provides a salutary example for other countries pursuing a similar path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use an innovative survey tool to collect management practice data from 732 medium-sized firms in the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These measures of managerial practice are strongly associated with firm-level productivity, profitability, Tobin's Q, and survival rates. Management practices also display significant cross-country differences, with U.S. firms on average better managed than European firms, and significant within-country differences, with a long tail of extremely badly managed firms. We find that poor management practices are more prevalent when product market competition is weak and/or when family-owned firms pass management control down to the eldest sons (primogeniture). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines how the leadership of coal company Compagnie des Quatres Mines Reunies de Graissessac turned the 1884 miners' strike in Languedoc, France into an instrument of management. Events leading up to and surrounding the strike; Role of regional deindustrialization in the strike organization; Management strategies to contain the strike and profit in the process; Lessons imparted by the Graissessac case for union militance.