Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Anna Maria Costanza Rinaldi
determine <strong>the</strong> type <strong>of</strong> organization to create and act on it. Borrowing from <strong>the</strong> information technology
jargon, we can state that a group acts on <strong>the</strong> “divide et impera” principle.
In what appears to be <strong>the</strong> first development phase <strong>of</strong> this organizational form, <strong>the</strong> subdivision by
functions is minimal, while <strong>the</strong> one by phases is highest.
Is <strong>the</strong>refore possible to assume a sequential process <strong>of</strong> creation and evolution <strong>of</strong> groups, that leads
not in <strong>the</strong> direction indicated by Chandler (1982) and Williamson (1985) <strong>of</strong> transformation from group
to multidivisional enterprise but in ano<strong>the</strong>r: from an horizontal structure to a pyramidal structure,
where <strong>the</strong> first represents <strong>the</strong> prodromal stage <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> second. Once <strong>the</strong> desirable levels <strong>of</strong> division <strong>of</strong>
labor are reached, <strong>the</strong> entrepreneur can opt for a wider organization articulation, as well as
“institutionalize” o<strong>the</strong>r functions, previously handled by <strong>the</strong> holding, or outsourced.
Therefore, <strong>the</strong> group institutionalizes such peculiar division <strong>of</strong> labor, by fixing it in separate legal
entities.
We initially assumed that <strong>the</strong> chosen efficiency criteria by <strong>the</strong> group was to rationalize <strong>the</strong> input and
output flow <strong>of</strong> knowledge, achieved by assigning an autonomous legal status to <strong>the</strong> different
enterprise functions and phases <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> production process.
In this way, I want to emphasize that <strong>the</strong> group, as an organizational architecture <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> firm, has a
fundamental advantage: <strong>the</strong> ability to produce competences (Potts, 2000), that is cognitive efficiency
as it has been named in this paper.
From this perspective, <strong>the</strong> small groups, as stated by Rosa and Scott (1999), can be looked at as <strong>the</strong>
physiological form <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> expansion phase <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> enterprise.
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