SEMAINE D'ETUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 
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makers at local nodes? (®) Is he in a better position to reach 
a more consistent, or coordinated, or articulated set of decisions 
pertaining to a representative concrete issue (or set of concrete 
issues) than are the decision makers at higher-order nodes, who 
at least to some extent act independently of each other? Can 
he be said to have an overview advantage in decision making? 
Thus, can we hypothesize that the more an organization’s de- 
cisions are made by the decision maker at the first-order node 
Dollars 
Total 
'nformation 
and 
Decision - 
Making 
Costs. 
74) 5 
"Oentralization 
(or by decision makers at lower-order nodes), in general the 
better the resulting set of decisions, ceteris paribus? In short, 
can an overview advantage be said to exist, which varies di 
rectly with the degree of spatial centralization in the decision 
making structure of an organization? (*!) 
There have been several hypothetical, highly simplified 
examples presented to illustrate the nature of this overview 
advantage. MARSCHAK has developed the case of a ship-build 
{(**) In raising this question one must also keep in mind the extent to 
which information may” flow from lower-order nodes to higher-order nodes, 
and from one node along one branch to another node of the same order 
along a different branch via a lower-order node. 
(#) For some relevant discussion see J. MarscHAK in Haire, op. cit.; 
Brau and Scott, op. cit, pp. 121-128; MARCH and SIMON, op. cit, Pp. 20I- 
210; C. B. McGuire, Some Team Models of a Sales Organization, « Mana- 
gement Science », Vol. 7, January 1961, pp. 101-130; ROY RADNOR, The 
Application of Linear Programming to Team Decision Problems. « Manage- 
ment Science ». Vol. s, Januarv 1959, pp. 143-150. 
“121 Isard - pag. 27