‘Organizational Linkages: Understanding tho Productivity Paradox (1984) iptv np edioperonesD009049043hra 185 Hl copy 1884, 2060 The Ral Acaseny of Seles al ighis ese Decomrosinc Te PRODUCTIVITY LINKAGES paRaDox + 165 into three groups. The first group contains structural characteristics. ‘These factors are fairly permanent organizational characteristics that by their very nature would produce the paradox. The second group involves side effects from organizational interventions that could re- duce or eliminate the positive effects of an intervention. The third group comprises measurement issues. The first two groups of factors have been discussed in earlier chapters and thus are only touched on briefly here for the sake of completeness. Structural Factors Structural factors are characteristics of the organization itself thet could produce the paradox. Time lag is one such factor. Because of the structure of tasks in an organization, improvements in one subsystem sometimes take considerable time to show up in the combined outputs of the broader system. Other structural factors are slack, bottlenecks in the availability of needed inputs, the centrality of the task to the overall functioning of the organization, and the degree of interdepen- dence of people and subsystems in producing the output. (See Chap- ters 2 for discussions of structural factors.) Structural factors have two important things in common. First, they are natural and unavoidable aspects of organizational function- ing. Second, they all reduce the one-to-one correspondence between the outputs of one subsystem and the outputs of a broader subsystem. ‘That is, they will in and of themselves produce data that, look like the productivity paradox. Thus, to the extent that the paradox is caused by structural factors, there is 0 real paradox. This leads to the follow- ing hypothesis: + The greater the presence of structural factors that naturally reduce the one-to-one correspondence between the outputs of sub- systems that combine their outputs, the greater the likelihood of the appearance of a productivity paradox Intervention Side Effects The second group of effects that could produce the paradox consists of unintended consequences of the intervention. It could be that direct measures of the effects of an intervention indicate improvement, but other effects of the intervention have a negative consequence at a broader level of analysis. ‘There are several types of such side effects. One type occurs when the intervention changes the focus of the effort from one unit of analy-