Online Content

1. Morecroft, John D. W. with Geoffrey P. Mott and Zafer J. Achi, "Modeling a Professional Service Firm"

Type:
Document
Date Created:
1983
Collection:
System Dynamic Society Records
Collecting Area:
University Archives
Collection ID:
ua435
Parent Record(s):
23d738ba88f8333bc39725f9cb5bd0b8, cf82ceba47eedd73f41b00918de16477, and b0aa2a699b54f0d19f6a9d93bdbcfa18
Thumbnail Path Ss:
/downloads/47429t62t?file=thumbnail
System Modified Dtsi:
2020-01-02T18:37:07Z
Description:
Practitioners of Management Science have repeatedly confronted the problem of assessing the impact of variables such as job satisfaction and career aspirations on the performance of organizations. This problem is most acutely felt by service firms where the quality of 'output' is directly determined by factors that, because intangible, are difficult to define and control. In this article the authors use the methodology of System Dynamics to model the behavior of a professional CPA firm. The impact of qualitative variables on the behavior of a typical office is explicitly analyzed and translated into 'hard' economic terms. The results make some interesting observations about the key factors influencing long-term behavior in a people-intensive system, particularly in terms of the relationship between actions at senior levels and consequences further down the system. For instance, the way managers and partners allocate their time between apparently 'competing' activities is a critical factor influencing not only short-term behavior at junior levels but also the process whereby long-term judgments are made about the organization. Each activity has a different return profile (particularly with respect to time) and a different set of associated risks. The study contributes to an understanding of how critical aspects of human resource planning such as management time allocation contribute to the broader, strategic direction of the firm.