After the IUTAM Symposium on Optimization in Structural Design held in Warsaw in 1973, it was clear to me that the time had come for organizing into a consistent body of thought the enormous quantity of results obtained in this domain, studied from so many different points of view, with so many different methods, and at so many levels of practical applicability. My colleague and friend Gianantonnio Sacchi from Milan and I met with Professor Prager in Savognin in July 1974, where I submitted to them my first ideas for a treatise on structural optimization: It should cover the whole domain from basic theory to practical applications, and deal with various materials, various types of structures, various functions required of the structures, and various types of cost . . Obviously, this was to be a team effort, to total three or four volumes, to be written in a balanced manner as textbooks and handbooks. Nothing similar existed at that time, and, indeed, nothing has been published to date. Professor Prager was immedi ately in favor of such a project. He agreed to write a first part on optimality criteria with me and to help me in the general organization of the series. Since Professor Sacchi was willing to write the text on variational methods, it remained to find authors for parts on the mathematical programming approach to structural optimization (and, more generally, on numerical methods) and on practical optimal design procedures in metal and concrete.

Design Models for Hierarchical Organizations: Computation, Information, and Decentralization provides state-of-the-art research on organizational design models, and in particular on mathematical models. Each chapter views the organization as an information processing entity. Thus, mathematical models are used to examine information flow and decision procedures, which in turn, form the basis for evaluating organization designs. Each chapters stands alone as a contribution to organization design and the modeling approach to design. Moreover, the chapters fit together and that totality gives us a good understanding of where we are with this approach to organizational design issues and where we should focus our research efforts in the future.

Issues of Organizational Design: A Mathematical Programming View of Organizations analyzes the view that organizations can be represented satisfactorily by a mathematical programming model and relates it to other theories of organizational behavior. The potential of this approach to organizational analysis is evaluated. Comprised of seven chapters, this book begins with an overview of the three major schools of organizational theory: the classical/structural school, the human relations school, and the contingency school. It then defines what an organization is and outlines the relationship between organizational elements. The example of the two-product firm is used to illustrate the basic model framework, and how coordination, diversification, and incentives can be treated in this framework.Subsequent chapters explore the relationship between the contingency approach and the mathematical programming approach to organizational design; the coordination problem and the process of decision making in a decentralized organization; the decomposition of the organization into a number of smaller units; and types of evaluation and incentive schemes for addressing cheating in a multi-level organization. The book also presents a series of empirical studies where a mathematical programming view of organizations has been assumed before concluding with a discussion on the process of designing organizations. This monograph will be useful for students of organizational design and for practitioners who use models in connection with decision making.