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Oliver E. Williamson

Bio: Oliver E. Williamson is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Transaction cost & Corporate governance. The author has an hindex of 80, co-authored 191 publications receiving 117766 citations. Previous affiliations of Oliver E. Williamson include University of California & University of Pennsylvania.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the long run, however, the best strategy is to organize arid operate efficiently as discussed by the authors, which is not to say that strategizing efforts to deter or defeat rivals with clever ploys and positioning are unimportant.
Abstract: best strategy. That is not to say that strategizing efforts to deter or defeat rivals with clever ploys and positioning are unimportant. In the long run, however, the best strategy is to organize arid operate efficiently. Business strategy is a complex subject. It not only spans the functional areas in businessmarketing, finance, manufacturing, international business, etc.-but it is genuinely interdisciplinary-involving. as it does, economics, politics, organization theory, and aspects of the law. Business strategy has become increasingly important with the growth of the multinational enterprise and of international trade and competition. Although several different approaches to the substantive aspects of business strategy can be distinguished, the main contestants cluster under two general headings: strategizing and economizing. The first of these appeals to a power perspective; the second is principally concerned with efficiency. Both of these orientations are pertinent to the study .of business strategy, but power approaches have played a role in the recent business strategy literature that belies its relative importance. Partly that may be because the analysis of efficiency is believed to have reached such an advanced state of development that further work of this kind is not needed. Economizing is important, but we know all about that. What we don’t understand, and need to study, goes the argument, is strategizing. Not only is strategizing where many of the novel practices and new issues are said to reside, but the pressing realities of foreign competition are first and foremost of a strategizing kind. I take exception with arguments of both kinds. Thus, although it is true that efficiency analysis of the firm-as-production function genre has reached a high state of refinement, that does not exhaust all that is relevant to the assessment of efficiency. Efficiency analysis properly encompasses governance costs as well as production costs, and the analysis of comparative economic organization (governance) is still in

1,364 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The application of transaction cost economics to the study of governance is discussed in this article, where the authors present a sketch of the New Institutional Economics, with special emphasis on the "institutional environment" and "institutions of governance".
Abstract: This paper begins with a sketch of the New Institutional Economics, with special emphasis on the ‘institutional environment’ (North and others) and the ‘institutions of governance’ (Coase and others) Thereafter the paper mainly emphasizes the applications of transaction cost economics to the study of governance, the object being to effect an economizing alignment between transactions, which differ in their attributes, and governance structures (firms, markets, hybrids, bureaus), which differ in their cost and competence I raise a series of issues – phenomena of interest, describing human agents, describing firms, purposes served, scaling up – to which any would-be theory of the firm should be expected to speak and indicate how transaction cost economics responds to each I thereafter describe the mechanisms through which transaction cost economics is implemented and develop some of the core conceptual supports out of which it works Applications to public bureaus, strategic management, and intractable transactions are sketched

1,202 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: There is a great deal of evidence that almost all organizational structures tend to produce false images in the decision-maker, and that the larger and more authoritarian the organization, the better the chance that its top decision-makers will be operating in purely imaginary worlds as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: There is a great deal of evidence that almost all organizational structures tend to produce false images in the decision-maker, and that the larger and more authoritarian the organization, the better the chance that its top decision-makers will be operating in purely imaginary worlds. This perhaps is the most fundamental reason for supposing that there are ultimately diminishing returns to scale.

1,006 citations


Cited by
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on recent progress in the theory of property rights, agency, and finance to develop a theory of ownership structure for the firm, which casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature.

49,666 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the link between firm resources and sustained competitive advantage and analyzed the potential of several firm resources for generating sustained competitive advantages, including value, rareness, imitability, and substitutability.

46,648 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them, and describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative.
Abstract: 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.

32,981 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: 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...
Abstract: 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...

31,693 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors 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.
Abstract: 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. **

31,623 citations