组织经济学与管理学ch08 Transaction and influence costs.pptVIP

Chapter 8 Transaction and influence costs George Hendrikse What is a firm? Coase (1937) What is the difference between the employer-employee relationship and the customer-grocer relationship? According to Alchian and Demsetz there is no difference. “I can ‘punish’ you only by withholding future business or by seeking redress in the courts for any failure to honour our exchange agreement. This is exactly all an employer can do. He can fire or sue, just as I can fire or sue my grocer by stopping purchasing from him or sue him for delivering faulty products.”  A realistic organisation theory is not possible with complete (contingent) contracts e.g. customer – grocer relationship Figure IV.2: Positioning Part IV: Nexus of incomplete contracts Bounded rationality The gap between the cognitive capabilities of the decision maker and the complexity of the activity. Implication Contracts are incomplete, i.e. circumstances may emerge which are not covered by the contract. Incompleteness is due to: Unforeseeable circumstances Costs of writing contracts Ambiguity of language Costs of enforcing contracts Problem Who decides in unforeseen contingencies? Solution The incomplete contract is completed by allocating the authority to decide in unforeseen contingencies to somebody. There are two behavioural assumptions in TCE Opportunism Bounded rationality There are three environmental variables Asset specificity Frequency Uncertainty Transaction costs Costs of collecting information Time spend on enforcing contracts Costs of preventing non-compliance Organisational solutions are chosen to minimise transaction costs, i.e. to limit the hazards associated with incomplete contracts. Figure 8.5: Transaction costs economics Possible governance structures Market Hierarchy, e.g. firm, cooperative Hybrid, e.g. long term contract, franchise Asset specificity Investments which have a higher value within a specific relationship than outside it. Types of asset specificity Physical