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Throughout his illustrious career Professor Clem Tisdell has displayed a holistic sense of scholarship rare amongst contemporary economists. Tisdell has been prepared to look both within and beyond his discipline and maintain a critical but balanced assessment of the shortcomings of mainstream microeconomic theory and the offerings of rival research programs on a broad range of economic issues, not the least of which includes the focus of this paper, business management. Having a penchant for Marshallian, “fieldwork‐driven” industrial economics and practical application of micro theory, Tisdell has traversed a range of topics of interest to management scholars including management motivation, R&D effort, business strategy, and institutional arrangements making for positive externalities and technology transfer. It is argued that this makes for a better “conversation” or dialogue between economists and management analysts, particularly strategy scholars, as both essentially have at heart a similar explanandum: the nature and causes of value and wealth creation conceived both in micro and in macroeconomic contexts.

To overcome the errors of the exogenous growth theories of the past, the new growth theories, currently in vogue, attempt to incorporate technological change as endogenous to the growth process. While making a commendable effort to see into that black box of technological change, these so‐called new growth theories are also subject to question and critique on a variety of grounds. One of these is that the new growth theories are not really that new. Another area of concern relates to their empirical relevancy. This is especially evident in assessing the practical use of the new growth theories in terms of problem identification and policy resolution. Other problem areas relate to issues of conceptual clarity and underlying assumptions. By assuming the process of economic growth to be synonymous with that of economic development the result is to avoid the prerequisite structural transformation inherent in the dynamics of culture evolution. Culture evolution in turn is predicated upon technological advance conceptualized as both material and social technology. It is argued in this paper that an explanation as to why technology is endogenous to the processes of growth and economic development is best served vis‐à‐vis an analysis of the dynamics of culture evolution.

The purpose of this paper is to help foster the global reach of Iberoamerican scholars, based on the author's own experiences and observations in the field.

This is an inductive study trying to generate a framework of “academic positioning” using the author's own experience as an example.

This paper presents an analytical framework of “academic positioning” and derives some practical suggestions for young Iberoamerican scholars.

The paper offers an analytical framework that informs likely career paths for young Iberoamerican scholars.

In the view of most economists, highways and streets are “public goods,” not amenable to ordinary market competition. The present papers argues, to the contrary, that these thoroughfares are conducive to competitiveness, and then applies these insights to automobile insurance and price controls.

This paper explores the interface between institutional theory and Austrian theory. We examine mainstream institutionalism as exemplified by D. C. North in his work with Wallis and Weingast on the elite compact theory of social order and of transitions to impersonal rights, and propose instead an Austrian process-oriented perspective. We argue that mainstream institutionalism does not fully account for the efficiency of impersonal rules. Their efficiency can be better explained by a market for rules, which in turn requires a stable plurality of governance providers. Since an equilibrium of plural providers requires stable power polycentricity, the implication goes against consolidating organized means for violence as a doorstep condition to successful transitions. The paper demonstrates how to employ Ostroms’ Bloomington School Institutionalism to shift, convert, and recalibrate mainstream institutionalism's themes into an Austrian process-oriented theory.

In this chapter, we examine and expand institutional theory. While acknowledging that actors and organizations interrelate in an institutional (legal, political and socio-economic) framework and that this interaction between them shapes economic activities (North, 1990; Scott, 1995), we argue that the boundaries of today's institutional environments have significantly evolved. They encompass not only the traditional domains of micro (individual/organization) and macro (nation-state) levels as well as of a co-located physical environment captured by received institutional theory but also an added dimension that transcends physical space. This new dimension includes a dispersed, borderless environment that invisibly cuts across nation-states. We discuss the implications of this extended view of institutional domains for theory and practice.

Purpose – Inspired by “old” institutional arguments, this chapter presents the ideas of both the “old” and “new” institutional perspective as their arguments appear in the economic anthropology literature following the substantivist–formalist debate of the 1960s.

Design/methodology/approach – During the 1960s the substantivist–formalist debate, otherwise known as the “Great Debate,” thrust institutional thought to the forefront of economic anthropology. By the close of the 1960s, the substantivist–formalist debate passed unresolved. Institutional economic anthropology reached a crossroad – it could continue the legacy of the substantivism as represented by “old” institutionalism or follow the path of “new” institutional economics. Against the long shadow of the “Great Debate,” this chapter identifies key epistemological ideas that are present within the recent history of the institutional economic anthropology literature.

Findings – On the basis of epistemological arguments, the chapter suggests that if the substantivist–formalist debate, often times referred to as the “Great Debate,” is ever to achieve closure, then practitioners of institutional economic anthropology would benefit by moving beyond “new” institutional thought.

Originality/value – This chapter provides a unique evaluation of the institutional perspective within the history of economic anthropology. Residing within this history are clear and poignant distinctions between the “old” and “new” institutional perspectives. As a result, this chapter seeks to bring to social scientists interested in institutional economists, important insights from economic anthropology that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Two major advances in the theory of the firm and (micro)economics more generally are arguably transaction costs economics (TCE) and the theory of firm resources. TCE has originally been applied to the theory of the firm, but found applications in virtually all fields of economic inquiry. The theory of firm resources currently spans much of the industrial organisation (IO) and strategic management literature. In some fields, e.g. diversification, it has already acquired dominant status. Despite significant progress in TCE there still seem to remain significant unresolved issues. Indeed we claim that transaction cost economics fail to supply convincing answers to the issues of the nature of the firm (why do firms exist?), and their essence (running a business). It offers a partial explanation of the “nature” and little on the “essence”. The resource value view complements the nature side and goes far beyond on the essence issue. It provides a fruitful starting point for an integrative framework. This, we suggest, should be based on the resource value perspective story and craft (dynamic) transaction costs in the ensuing evolutionary tale.

This chapter focusses on the links between economic ideas, sustainability and the circular economy. Economics begins with the view that all resources are scarce and careful and informed choices must be made to ensure resources are used efficiently and not wasted. Given the fundamental importance of markets to human resource allocation decisions, unless economic concepts, especially markets and prices, are used to help transition towards the circular economy, a sustainable economic growth process is unlikely to be achieved. Economists have long grappled with the problems of resource depletion, unsustainable growth and intergenerational equity. Their ideas and views about the interconnection between markets, the environment and resource use have been in existence for several centuries. While frequently overlooked, some of these ideas have important insights for sustainable development and the implementation of a circular economy. The chapter will consider how economic concepts could be used to help society transition to a circular economy. It will also argue that difficulties with the implementation of a circular economy lie less with the application of economic instruments, and more with the political and institutional constraints that reduce our ability to think creatively and innovatively about ‘cradle-to-cradle’ processes.

The history of international business has generated a growing literature. Over the AIB's fifty years, scholars associated with AIB have contributed to this literature but it has been a far broader one. This chapter surveys a sample of the wide variety of works on the history of multinational enterprise, published from the 1950s onward. The works are not only in business history but also in diplomatic and legal history. The literature makes it clear that the multinational enterprise has a long history and is far from a post-World War II or post-1989 phenomenon. The chapter shows the variety in the accumulation of studies in business history directly related to international business as well as the forums where business historians present their findings. It considers why and how international-business history matters for international-business research.