The Firm as a Communication Network
分析企业如何最小化信息处理和通信成本，指出专业化收益超过通信成本时，多个代理人协作于企业是有效的，并证明高效网络具有集中化特征。
This paper analyzes how organizations can minimize costs of processing and communicating information. Communication is costly because it takes time for an agent to absorb new information sent by others. Agents can reduce this time by specializing in the processing of particular types of information. When these returns to specialization outweigh costs of communication, it is efficient for several agents to collaborate within a firm. It is shown that efficient networks involve centralization, that individuals delegate tasks to subordinates only if they are overloaded, and that the number of transits to the top tends to be equalized across individual information items.