We analyze a key problem in organization theory and design, namely the potential tension between authority (i.e., the power to make decisions which guide the decisions of another person) and the discretion of employees (i.e., the ability of an agent to control resources including his own human...

We argue that the discovery process perspective, developed in the context of Austrian economics, is helpful for understanding the organization of large complex firms, even though the perspective has traditionally been applied to the analysis of market activities. The stress put in the...

Proponents of the knowledge-based approach to the firm argue that organizational economics put all the burden on the allocation of incentives and property rights in the explanation of organizational phenomena, and neglects firm-specific knowledge and processes of learning. We argue that there is...

Although organisational structure has sometimes been mentioned in evolutionary economics as well as in the innovation literature as a possible determinant of innovation performance, very little systematic theoretical and empirical work exist on this issue. In this paper, we take our theoretical...

This report maps research in institutional economics in management science in the European Union for the 1995 to 2002 period. The reports applies Internet search based on a university listing, search on journal databases, key informants and an internet-based survey. 195 researchers are...

Although there is reason to expect that outsourcing plays an increasingly important role in world of commerce, theories of firm boundaries poorly address associated processes of governance change. This paper seeks to address this gap in the spirit of the evolutionary theory of the firm. This...

We address the issue of promoting synergies in divisionalized, diversified firms from the perspectives of the resource-based view and recent work on corporate headquarters, thus connecting the analysis of sustained competitive advantage with organizational issues. We begin by clarifying the...

Like most economists, Austrians have not shown much interest in the theory of the firm. This paper argues, however, that there is much in Austrian economics that dovetails with contemporary theorizing about the firm. Specifically, Austrian economics (in its Hayekian version) is compared to the...