(E-book available via MyiLibrary) In even the most market-oriented economies, most economic transactions occur not in markets but inside managed organizations, particularly business firms. Organizational economics seeks to understand the nature and workings of such organizations and their impact on economic performance. The Handbook of Organizational Economics surveys the major theories, evidence, and methods used in the field. It displays the breadth of topics in organizational economics, including the roles of individuals and groups in organizations, organizational structures and processes, the boundaries of the firm, contracts between and within firms, and more.
This unique and timely book offers an up-to-date, clear and comprehensive review of the economic literature on contract law. The topical chapters written by leading international scholars include: precontractual liability, misrepresentation, duress, gratuitous promises, gifts, standard form contracts, interpretation, contract remedies, penalty clauses, impracticability and foreseeability. Option contracts, warranties, long-term contracts, marriage contracts, franchise contracts, quasi-contracts, behavioral approaches, and civil contract law are also discussed. This excellent resource on contract law and economics will be particularly suited to contract law scholars, law teachers, policy makers, and judges. For experts in and practitioners of contract law this will be a key book to buy.
The legal sector is being hit by profound economic and technological changes (digitalization, open data, blockchain, artificial intelligence ...) forcing law firms and legal departments to become ever more creative in order to demonstrate their added value. To help lawyers meet this challenge, this book draws on the perspectives of lawyers and creative specialists to analyze the concept and life cycle of legal innovations, techniques and services, whether related to legislation, legal engineering, legal services, or legal strategies, as well as the role of law as a source of creativity and interdisciplinary collaboration.
This book brings together classic writings on the economic nature and organization of firms, including works by Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, and Michael Jensen and William Meckling, as well as more recent contributions by Paul Milgrom, Bengt Holmstrom, John Roberts, Oliver Hart, Luigi Zingales, and others. Part I explores the general theme of the firm's nature and place in the market economy; Part II addresses the question of which transactions are integrated under a firm's roof and what limits the growth of firms; Part III examines employer-employee relations and the motivation of labor; and Part IV studies the firm's organization from the standpoint of financing and the relationship between owners and managers. The volume also includes a consolidated bibliography of sources cited by these authors and an introductory essay by the editors that surveys the new institutional economics of the firm and issues raised in the anthology.
How does social control theory explain the relationships between business firms and organizations? This book aims to answer that question. Providing a comprehensive organizing framework of control (1st, 2nd, and 3rd party control), this book focuses on informal and formal applications of control mechanisms such as contracts, monitoring mechanisms, incentives, and punishments. In doing so, it reviews existing control/governance theories such as transaction cost analysis, agency theory, power/dependence theory, contract theory, incentives theory and others. Social control theory is introduced as a meta-theory of governance and control. The derivation of control, the outcomes of control and, particularly, when and how control might be successful are discussed in detail.The book hypothesizes that the control mode and mechanisms in use are a function of the cost of control to the controller based on its desire to manage the relationship and its outcomes, and the target of control's extent of agreement with the control processes in use. The various components of costs of control are identified and discussed. Drawing on interdisciplinary sources of information, it is a must-read for all who are interested in understanding the mechanisms of control and relationships underpinning business organizations.
Renowned Stanford economist David M. Kreps reveals the fundamental principles of employee motivation. Getting your employees to do their best work has never been easy. But it is a particular challenge for knowledge workers, who must attend to many different tasks and whose to-do list is often ambiguous, requiring outside-the-box thinking. Lists of dos and don’ts are rarely effective. Instead, your best bet is to align their interests with your own—the heart of motivation—and set them free to use their own drive and creativity on their, and your, behalf. But how do you align their interests with your own? How do you avoid incentive schemes that warp priorities, encourage perfunctory and sloppy work, or cause unethical behavior? In The Motivation Toolkit, economist and management expert David Kreps offers a variety of tools, drawn from the disciplines of economics and social psychology, that you can adapt to your specific situation to achieve better motivation. This starts with understanding both the economic and social relationship your employees have with their work, their jobs, and your organization, then using that understanding to find economic or psychological motivators that will work. Whatever your business, and whether you’re a newly minted manager, a seasoned executive hungry for your employees’ best work, or a curious leader looking for new ways to be effective, The Motivation Toolkit will prove a useful and enlightening read.
The social sciences, especially economics, management, and organizational science, are experiencing a tremendous renewed interest for their epistemological and methodological statutes, as witnessed by the many books and specialized journals established during the last two decades. Relational Methodologies and Epistemology in the Economics and Management Sciences identifies and presents the four main network-based methodologies including network analysis, Boolean network simulation modeling, artificial neural network simulation modeling, and agent-based simulation modeling in addition to their conceptual-epistemological implications and concrete applications within the social and natural sciences. Featuring a critical assessment of relational methodologies and their practical applications, this timely publication is ideal for use by corporate R&D departments, researchers, theorists, and graduate-level students.
"Magnificent."—The Economist From the Nobel Prize–winning economist, a groundbreaking and comprehensive account of corporate finance Recent decades have seen great theoretical and empirical advances in the field of corporate finance. Whereas once the subject addressed mainly the financing of corporations—equity, debt, and valuation—today it also embraces crucial issues of governance, liquidity, risk management, relationships between banks and corporations, and the macroeconomic impact of corporations. However, this progress has left in its wake a jumbled array of concepts and models that students are often hard put to make sense of. Here, one of the world's leading economists offers a lucid, unified, and comprehensive introduction to modern corporate finance theory. Jean Tirole builds his landmark book around a single model, using an incentive or contract theory approach. Filling a major gap in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance is an indispensable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as researchers of corporate finance, industrial organization, political economy, development, and macroeconomics. Tirole conveys the organizing principles that structure the analysis of today's key management and public policy issues, such as the reform of corporate governance and auditing; the role of private equity, financial markets, and takeovers; the efficient determination of leverage, dividends, liquidity, and risk management; and the design of managerial incentive packages. He weaves empirical studies into the book's theoretical analysis. And he places the corporation in its broader environment, both microeconomic and macroeconomic, and examines the two-way interaction between the corporate environment and institutions. Setting a new milestone in the field, The Theory of Corporate Finance will be the authoritative text for years to come.
