Which would your community prefer: the headquarters of a diversified management-controlled corporation with divisions nationwide, or the headquarters of a locally owned company specializing in a few industries? According to Don Palmer, an associate professor of organizational behavior in the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, most communities would choose the former even though it's "not necessarily the best company to have in your city." Just how much a company will benefit a community economically depends as much on the company's structure and ownership as on its prestige and assets, according to statistics gathered by Palmer. "In setting priorities, economic developers need to determine such things as whether a company's decision-making process is centralized or decentralized, whether its ownership is local or dispersed," Palmer says. For instance, the economic value of a corporate headquarters can vary sharply depending on whether management is organized by division or by function.