Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: I study the role of \emph{horizontal complexity} -- defined as the variation in actions that similar tasks require -- in organization design. A continuum of workers each choose an action to adapt to a local state that follows a Gaussian process across locations. Headquarters can group workers into \emph{teams}, simplifying the attention problem it faces in coordinating across the organization, at the cost of inhibiting adaptation. Tools from spectral theory identify how horizontal complexity affects team size: roughly speaking, variation left unresolved by headquarters expands teams, while variation concentrated along dimensions that headquarters absorbs through attention shrinks them.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Libgober, Jonathan
Institution: University of Southern California
Topic: Game Theory and Applications
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7169882091
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