A Production Function for Organizations Doing Case Work

Martin J. Beckmann
Additional contact information
Martin J. Beckmann: Brown University

Management Science, 1982, vol. 28, issue 10, 1159-1165

Abstract: This paper examines the contribution of supervisors to an organization's output by constructing a production function in which supervisors' time and case workers' time enter as inputs. There is a quality variable associated with output: average delay. The functional form of the production function is derived for the simplest possible type of queuing model, but the method can be applied to other specifications of the queuing process and of the quality variable. Such a production function can be used to determine the most cost effective span of control. The model is extended to obtain a multi-factor production function for multi-level organizations. Numbers from a welfare agency are used as illustrations but no empirical validation is attempted.

Keywords: organization design; production functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1982
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.28.10.1159 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:28:y:1982:i:10:p:1159-1165

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().