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Abstract

Details

Communicating Climate
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-643-6

Abstract

Details

Communicating Climate
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-643-6

Abstract

Details

Communicating Climate
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-643-6

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 13 March 2024

Keanu Telles

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

Design/methodology/approach

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

Findings

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

Originality/value

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

Details

EconomiA, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1517-7580

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 25 March 2024

Eleanor Ross

Abstract

Details

Communicating Climate
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-643-6

Article
Publication date: 21 March 2024

Keshav Krishnamurty

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Findings

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

Research limitations/implications

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

Originality/value

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

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