Carlos Rodríguez-Monroy

Organizational Structure Shapes Performance in Dynamic Environments: Studying the Relationship Between Structure and Performance

There has been a long-standing concern that strategy literature needs a better understanding of how organizational structure can affect performance and decision making within organizations. Previous research indicates that the relationship between organizational structure and performance is unexpectedly asymmetric. The balance between too much and too little structure is critical for an organization’s high performance in dynamic environments. Organizations with too little structure lack enough guidance but can be flexible, while organizations with too much structure are too constrained and lack flexibility. In addition, less structured emergent strategies tend to be high performing in dynamic environments, whereas more structured prescriptive strategies tend to perform well in stable environments. Accordingly, the optimal amount of structure decreases with increasing environmental dynamism, a consistent finding in existing literature. In this paper a review of literature on how organizational structure influences performance within organizations and the role of the environment is presented. It also incorporates and signifies the role of the Strategy, Structure and Performance (SSP) paradigm, which has played a central role within strategy research. By means of this, we will be able to know how the core knowledge required for decision-making and the coordination challenges within firms drive their internal structures, and how the implication of the appropriate degree of strategy-structure fit on the performance of a firm. The aim here is to develop a more precise theory of the fundamental relationships among structure, performance and the environment.

Levels of Application of Public R&D&I Policy Models

With the analysis by researchers and institutions regarding experiences in designing public R&D&I policies, to strengthen the capacity of innovation in the industrial sector, international cooperation was possible to understand the difficulties and recommendations for linking and integrating SMIs with the other members of the Innovation System. With this information, four levels of implementation of public policy models in R&D&I are presented. Among the proposed alternatives level 4 is the one recommended since it presents the best model of integration, coordination and governmental evaluation in the design of public R&D&I policies.

Mandatory Convertible Bonds as an Efficient Method of Issuing Capital

Mandatory Convertibles Notes (MCNs) mean only a small fraction of all the securities issued by corporate or financial institutions, however, they represent nearly a 30% in volume of the convertible securities issued every year. MCNs share characteristics of equity and debt securities but rating agencies assign them a high equity component and are commonly treated as equity by accounting standards. Despite the high facial coupon that MCNs seem to pay, a deeper analysis shows that the cost of MCN can be lower than the cost of issuing hybrid or subordinated debt and in some cases similar to the cost of issuing senior debt. Mandatory convertibles were profusely issued by financial institutions amid the global crisis as a means to increase capital and could be considered as a predecessor of some types of AT1 and Contingent Convertible. The academic literature about Mandatory Convertibles is scarce and we consider necessary to shed some light on a type of security that can be very useful for the real economy.

Limitations and pitfalls of the brain that prevent us from thinking

When we think or make decisions, we must not forget that there are several internal “pitfalls” that cause our brain to make decisions incorrectly. Many authors have written on various pitfalls that may affect us. In this paper, five of them are identified and they are: The use of patterns when thinking, the relativity of things, the anchor effect, loss aversion, value attribution and diagnosis bias.

Analysis of the operational risk sources in electric utilities

The aim of this study is to review the state of the art and the opinion of experts of organizations to define if it is possible to adapt the guidelines issued for the banking sector by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements (BCBS-BIS) concerning the administration of the Operational Risks (OpR). After defining the adaptation of BCBS-BIS guidelines to companies different from those of the banking sector, a case study that empirically underpins the feasibility of implementing the BCBS-BIS guidelines is presented. For the selection of the case study a country is defined based on the opinion of the major risk rating agencies and for the selection of the company the criteria is based on the economic and social impact within the selected country. Finally, several OpR in the research unit have been obtained from secondary data sources in the industry, so the foundations have been established for the realization of future ad-hoc research within that organization. Likewise the feasibility of implementing and adapting the BCBS-BIS guidelines in any non-financial sector is also confirmed.

Economic analysis of the renewable energy policies in the European Union

The European energy sector is undergoing a major transformation and is facing a series of difficult challenges. These include a high and increasing dependence on external energy resources; dramatically reduce the need for the emissions of greenhouse gases to meet environmental objectives and the difficulties related to the promotion of energy market effectively integrated and competitive. Some of the policies associated with the various objectives are sometimes in conflict with each other, while in other cases are mutually reinforcing. The aim of this paper is to do a scientific analysis of the developments so far and the expectations for the coming period focusing on the pillars of energy policy in the EU in terms of security of supply, environment, climate change and promoting a competitive and integrated market. The use of renewable energy sources is seen as a key element of European energy policy and should help to: reduce dependence on fuel from non-member countries; reduce emissions from carbon-based energy sources, and; decouple energy costs from oil prices.