https://www.sfu.ca/~wainwrig/Econ400/jensen-meckling.pdf

Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure

Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

/pdf/the-iron-cage-revisited-institutional-isomorphism-and-xas5qn5nhy.pdf

The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields

In this paper, the concept of social capital is introduced and illustrated, its forms are described, the social structural conditions under which it arises are examined, and it is used in an analys...

/pdf/social-capital-in-the-creation-of-human-capital-1836wo2872.pdf

Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital

In this paper, we argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities. We label this capability a firm's absorptive capacity and suggest that it is largely a function of the firm's level of prior related knowledge. The discussion focuses first on the cognitive basis for an individual's absorptive capacity including, in particular, prior related knowledge and diversity of background. We then characterize the factors that influence absorptive capacity at the organizational level, how an organization's absorptive capacity differs from that of its individual members, and the role of diversity of expertise within an organization. We argue that the development of absorptive capacity, and, in turn, innovative performance are history- or path-dependent and argue how lack of investment in an area of expertise early on may foreclose the future development of a technical capability in that area. We formulate a model of firm investment in research and development (R&D), in which R&D contributes to a firm's absorptive capacity, and test predictions relating a firm's investment in R&D to the knowledge underlying technical change within an industry. Discussion focuses on the implications of absorptive capacity for the analysis of other related innovative activities, including basic research, the adoption and diffusion of innovations, and decisions to participate in cooperative R&D ventures. **

/pdf/absorptive-capacity-a-new-perspective-on-learning-and-1n1c9gg9x0.pdf

Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation

The intellectual appeal of a single, unified theory of organization notwithstanding, we are at present operating in a preunified stage of development. Even if a comprehensive, integrated theory were in prospect, which it is not, our understanding of some complex organizational phenomena might be better served by working out of several well-focused perspectives. Exposing the powers and limits of each of the leading approaches and the tensions and complementarities between them can be, and often is, a productive enterprise.

The Economics and Sociology of Organization

Technology and the organization of work

Whether or in what degree transaction cost economics is pertinent to public administration is still unresolved. Terry Moe, for example, expresses grave doubts that the successes of the new economics of organization in helping to better understand complex economic organization will carry over to the study of political organization (1990, p. 119). James Q. Wilson is more optimistic: “The idea of transaction costs has not been applied, as far as I know, to government activities. But I see no reason why it should not be” (1989, p. 358).

Transaction Cost Economics and Public Administration

This chapter examines rudiments of transaction cost economics. It also examines some sociological critiques of the transaction cost economics approach. The New Institutional Economics holds out the prospect that the study of economic organization will benefit from a richer dialogue between economists and sociologists. Economists more readily impute high-powered cognitive capacities to human agents than do other social scientists. Economists again find themselves addressing many phenomena identical to those of interest to sociologists. The chapter discusses functionalist modes of explanation and illustrates a "successful" application of functionalism in the social sciences. Sociologists may place greater emphasis on the limits of rationality and some may reserve judgment on economizing. Charles Perrow's critique of transaction cost economics is unique. Transaction cost economics adopts the view advanced by John R. Commons in the 1930s that the transaction is the basic unit of analysis. Paul Samuelson once remarked that "many economists would separate economics from sociology on the basis of rational or irrational behavior".

Oliver E. Williamson

Papers

The Economics and Sociology of Organization

Technology and the organization of work

Transaction Cost Economics and Public Administration

The Economics and Sociology of Organization : Promoting a Dialogue

Employee ownership and internal governance: A perspective