Markets and Hierarchies

Markets and Hierarchies

Author: Oliver E. Williamson

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This study analyzes organization of economic activity within and between markets and hierarchies. It considers the transaction to be the ultimate unit of microeconomic analysis, and defines hierarchical transactions as ones for which a single administrative entity spans both sides of the transaction, some form of subordination prevails and, typically, consolidated ownership obtains. Discusses the advantages of the transactional approach by examining three issues: price discrimination, insurance, and vertical integration. Develops the concept of the organizational failure framework, and demonstrates why it is always the combination of human with environmental factors, not either taken by itself, that causes transactional problems. The study also describes each of the transactional relations of interest, and presents the advantages of internal organization with respect to the transactional condition. The analysis explains why primary work groups of the peer group and simple hierarchy types arise. The same transactional factor which impede autonomous contracting between individuals also impede market exchange between technologically separable work groups. Peer groups can be understood as an internal organizational response to the frictions of intermediate product markets, while conglomerate organization can be seen as a response to failures in the capital market. In both contexts, the same human factors, such as bounded rationality and opportunism, occur. Examines the reasons for and properties of the employment relation, which is commonly associated with voluntary subordination. The analysis attempts better to assess the employment relation in circumstances where workers acquire, during the course of the employment, significant job-specific skills and knowledge. The study compares alternative labor-contracting modes and demonstrates that collective organization is helpful in enhancing the acquisition of idiosyncratic knowledge and skills by the work force. The study then examines more complex structures -- the movement from simple hierarchies to the vertical integration of firms, then multidivisional structures, conglomerates, monopolies and oligopolies. Discusses the market structure in relation to technical and organizational innovation. The study proposes a systems approach to the innovation process. Its purpose is to permit the realization of the distinctive advantages of both small and large firms which apply at different stages of the innovation process. The analysis also examines the relation of organizational innovation to technological innovation. (AT).


Markets, Hierarchies and Networks

Markets, Hierarchies and Networks

Author: Grahame Thompson

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 1991-12-30

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780803985902

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This interdisciplinary reader provides a distinctive introduction to the way social, political and economic life is coordinated. It brings together three quite different models of coordination - markets, hierarchies and networks - and places them into a comparative framework, presenting a comprehensive and insightful overview of social coordination. The articles dealing with each model explore the characteristics of that coordinating mechanism, outlining key theoretical issues and drawing on various empirical examples. The final section shows how these models can be compared and contrasted. It also assesses the respective strengths, weaknesses and limitations of each model. Markets, Hierarchies and Networks is a set


Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets

Public Management and the Metagovernance of Hierarchies, Networks and Markets

Author: Louis Meuleman

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2008-04-03

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 3790820547

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Public managers can, to a certain extent, choose between various mana- ment paradigms which are provided by public and business administration scholars and by politicians as well. How do they find their way in this c- fusing supermarket of competing ideas? This book explores how public managers in Western bureaucracies deal with the mutually undermining ideas of hierarchical, network and market governance. Do they possess a specific logic of action, a rationale, when they combine and switch - tween these governance styles? This chapter sets the scene for the book as a whole and presents the - search topic and the research question. 1.1 Problem setting Since the Second World War, Western public administration systems have changed drastically. The hierarchical style of governing of the 1950s to the 1970s was partly replaced by market mechanisms, from the 1980s - wards. In the 1990s, a third style of governing, based on networks, further enriched the range of possible steering, coordination and organisation - terventions. In the new millennium, public sector organisations seem to apply complex and varying mixtures of all three styles of what we will - fine as governance in a broad sense. This development has brought about two problems.


Markets from Culture

Markets from Culture

Author: Patricia H. Thornton

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780804740210

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Institutional logics, the underlying governing principles of societal sectors, strongly influence organizational decision making. Any shift in institutional logics results in a similar shift in attention to alternative problems and solutions and in new determinants for executive decisions. Examining changes in institutional logics in higher-education publishing, this book links cultural analysis with organizational decision making to develop a theory of attention and explain how executives concentrate on certain market characteristics to the exclusion of others. Analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data from the 1950s to the 1990s, the author shows how higher education publishing moved from a culture of independent domestic publishers focused on creating markets for books based on personal, relational networks to a culture of international conglomerates that create markets from corporate hierarchies. This book offers broader lessons beyond publishing--its theory is applicable to explaining institutional changes in organizational leadership, strategy, and structure occurring in all professional services industries.


The Economic Intstitutions of Capitalism

The Economic Intstitutions of Capitalism

Author: Oliver E. Williamson

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 068486374X

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This long-awaited sequel to the modem classic "Markets and Hierarchies" develops and extends Williamson's innovative use of transaction cost economics as an approach to studying economic organization by applying it to work and labor as well as the corporation itself. In addition, Williamson explores its growing implications for public policy, including its potential influence on antitrust and merger guidelines, labor policy, and SEC and public utility regulations.


Economic Foundations of Strategy

Economic Foundations of Strategy

Author: Joseph T. Mahoney

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1412905435

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The theoretical foundations of management strategy are identified and outlined in this text. Five theories are considered in the light of questions about how organisations operate efficiently, cost minimization, wealth creation, individual self-interest, and continued growth.


Teams, Markets and Systems

Teams, Markets and Systems

Author: Claudio U. Ciborra

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-11-28

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521574655

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Despite the waves of re-engineering, there is still a gap between the opportunities offered by information technology and the progress of business transformation. New forms of information technology offer an increasing variety of network-based applications that range from groupware to electronic commerce, but its applications lack a sound understanding of the link between organizational processes, information and technology. This book provides a new set of concepts and methods to design new forms of business organizations around the latest network infrastructures. Professor Ciborra uses the principles of institutional economics to propose reforms of the relationships with suppliers, customers, strategic partners, and internal work organisation, based on a different mix of three basic organizational forms: teams, markets and hierarchies. Information technology can indeed be harnessed to shape businesses and markets so as to increase the transparency of markets, the agility of hierarchies, and the effectiveness and quality of the working life of teams.


Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization

Conventions and Structures in Economic Organization

Author: Olivier Favereau

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 9781840645101

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"This book contributes to the current rapprochement between economics and sociology. It examines the fact that individuals use rules and interdependencies to forward their own interests, while living in social environments where everyone does the same. The authors argue that to construct durable organizations and viable markets, they need to be able to handle both. However, thus far, economists and sociologists have not been able to reconcile the relationship between these two types of constrains on economic activity." -- BOOK JACKET.


Hierarchy in International Relations

Hierarchy in International Relations

Author: David A. Lake

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-08-15

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 0801457696

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International relations are generally understood as a realm of anarchy in which countries lack any superior authority and interact within a Hobbesian state of nature. In Hierarchy in International Relations, David A. Lake challenges this traditional view, demonstrating that states exercise authority over one another in international hierarchies that vary historically but are still pervasive today. Revisiting the concepts of authority and sovereignty, Lake offers a novel view of international relations in which states form social contracts that bind both dominant and subordinate members. The resulting hierarchies have significant effects on the foreign policies of states as well as patterns of international conflict and cooperation. Focusing largely on U.S.-led hierarchies in the contemporary world, Lake provides a compelling account of the origins, functions, and limits of political order in the modern international system. The book is a model of clarity in theory, research design, and the use of evidence. Motivated by concerns about the declining international legitimacy of the United States following the Iraq War, Hierarchy in International Relations offers a powerful analytic perspective that has important implications for understanding America's position in the world in the years ahead.