This paper documents the growing linkages between primary care-centered medical groups and specialists and between physicians and hospitals under managed care. We evaluate the two alternative forms of organizational coordination: "vertical integration," based on unified ownership, and "virtual integration," based on contractual networks. Excess capacity and the need for investment capital are m...

We develop a simple model that links the adoption of a productivity-enhancing technology to increased vertical integration and a less skilled workforce. We test the model’s key prediction using novel microdata on vehicle ownership patterns from the Economic Census during a period when computerized dispatching systems were first adopted by taxicab firms. Controlling for time-invariant firm-speci...

Boundary spanning systemic innovations such as building information modeling (BIM) are difficult to implement. Literature suggests that vertical integration facilitates the implementation of systemic innovations. This study examines the role of vertical integration in the implementation of BIM as an example of a systemic innovation. It analyzes and compares two opposite case studies from the Fi...

One of the main limits of the current technology for the management of large plant is the lack of Vertical and/or Horizontal Integration of Information. Vertical integration refers to the need to integrate systems implemented at different administrative level of an organisation. Horizontal integration allows the user of large plant to execute very complex transformations on data coming from sev...

This paper examines complementarity among vertical integration decisions in automobile product development. Though most research assumes that contracting choices are independent of each other, contracting complementarity may arise when governance choices impact the equilibrium degree of coordination among agents. First, effective coordination may depend on the level of (non-contractible) effort...

The continuing growth and decentralization of power networks creates immense interoperability and integration challenges for ICT systems performing control and coordination tasks. On the one hand, large amounts of data coming from low-level field and automation systems need to be interpreted, aggregated, and made available to the business information systems to inform local decisions within pow...

Using satellite-tracked real-time data on the movements of a vertically integrated fishing firm’s own ships and its long-term supplier ships, this paper studies the impact of integration after the acquisition of those suppliers. The results suggest an increase in obedience to deployment policies, no change in fishing skills, higher productivity, and higher downstream product quality brought abo...

The Norwegian Military Academy (Army) has initiated a project with the main ambition to explore possible avenues to enhancing operational effectiveness through an increased use of simulation-based training and exercises. Within a cost/benefit framework, we discuss opportunities and limitations of vertical and horizontal integration of the existing tactical training system. Vertical integration ...

This paper focuses on the connection between product complexity and vertical integration using original empirical evidence from the auto industry. A rich literature has addressed the choice between internal production and external sourcing of components in the auto industry. More recent literature has developed the concept of product architecture as another choice variable that may be one of th...