The robustness of optimal organizational architectures: A note on hierarchies and polyarchies

In this note we study the robustness of optimal organizational architecture s, focusing on hierarchies and polyarchies. These two specific architecture s are often applied in economic systems and have received considerable atte ntion in the literature. It turns out that the application of these archite ctures usually involves inefficiency, namely, the use of suboptimal organiz ational systems. This is demonstrated by proposing a measure of size robust ness of optimal architectures and by analyzing the implications of its magn itude for hierarchies and polyarchies.