As Transaction Cost Economics evolved and entwined with the name of Oliver Williamson, it has absorbed a tension 'between an intuitive commitment to realism...and his commitment to some core presumptions of mainstream economics' [Hodgson 1998]. Most TCE scholars seem to rely on the latter...

The article studies Oliver Williamson's discourse, focusing on the negotiation of core concepts and premises and on how he adjusted his approach to the institutional moulds assembled by different audiences in economics. Citation data are used to support the rhetorical analysis offered