This paper generalizes Porter’s notion of the value chain for the analysis of service industries. The generalization entails that the flow and the physical transformation and assembly of goods that are characteristic of manufacturing are generalized into flows and transformation of data and...

We consider the problem of control of access to a firm's productive asset, embedding the decision makers into a structure of formal authority relationships.Within such a structure, decision makers act as principal to some decision makers, while they act as agent to other decision makers.We study...

Much of the research on industry dynamics focuses on the interdependence between the sectorial rates of entry and exit.This paper argues that the size of firms and the reaction-adjustment period are important conditions missed in this literature.I illustrate the effects of this omission using...

We analyze competition among academic faculties for new researchers. The value to individual members through social interaction within the faculty depends on the average status of their fellow members. When competing for new members, existing members trade off the effect of entry on average...

Cooperative behavior as well as other cultural rules and values are made explicit in organizational units that procure and provide a common service. The common service is procured by a club, which consists of a user-value function, a representation governance, and a budget-allocation function....

This paper gives a survey of insights into inter-firm alliances and networks for innovation, from a constructivist, interactionist perspective on knowledge, which leads to the notion of 'cognitive distance'.It looks at both the competence and the governance side of relationships.Given cognitive...

Using insights from 'embodied cognition' and a resulting 'cognitive theory of the firm', I aim to contribute to the further development of evolutionary theory of organizations, in the specification of organizations as 'interactors' that carry organizational competencies as 'replicators', within...

We investigate the determinants of decentralization and performance measurement choices in multidivisional firms.We extend the research on the economics of organizational design choices by examining the impact of two important determinants of those choices, namely, subunit interdependencies and...

Recent insights from the ‘embodied cognition’ perspective in cognitive science, supported by neural research, provide a basis for a ‘methodological interactionism’ that transcends both the methodological individualism of economics and the methodological collectivism of (some) sociology,...