Search results

Transaction cost economics sees a broad spectrum of governance structures spanned by two types of economic adaptation: autonomous and cooperative. Stakeholder theorists have drawn much inspiration from transaction cost economics but have not paid explicit attention to the centrality of the idea of adaptation in this literature. This study aims to address this gap.

The authors develop a novel conceptual framework applying the distinction between the two types of economic adaptation to stakeholder theory.

The authors argue that the idea of cooperative adaptation is particularly useful for describing the firm’s collaboration with primary stakeholders in the joint value creation process. In contrast, autonomous adaptation is more relevant for firms interacting with secondary stakeholders who are not directly engaged in joint value creation and may not have formal contractual relationships with the firm. Accordingly, cooperative adaptation can be seen as vital for resolving team production problems affecting joint value creation, whereas autonomous adaptation addresses how the firm maintains legitimacy within the larger stakeholder environment.

Similar to its significance for transaction cost economics, the distinction between the two types of adaptation equips stakeholder theory with a new systematic understanding of a potentially broad spectrum of firm–stakeholder collaboration forms.

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.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

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.

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.

Drawing upon a political economy approach, this article aims to analyze the transformations in the labor market within the context of contemporary capitalism, focusing on the phenomenon of financialization.

Financialization is defined as a distinct wealth pattern marked by a growing proportion of financial assets in capitalist wealth. Within financial markets, corporate performance is continuously assessed, in a process that disciplines management to achieve expected financial results, with consequences throughout corporate management.

We find that this phenomenon has implications for labor management, resulting in the intensification of labor processes and the adoption of insecure forms of employment, leading to the fractalization of work. These two mechanisms, added to the indebtedness of workers, constitute three elements for disciplining labor in contemporary capitalism.

We argue that these forms of discipline constitute a subsumption of labor to finance, resulting in an increase in labor exploitation. This formulation of the relationship between financialization and changes in the realm of labor also contributes to understanding the unrealizing potential of social free time in contemporary capitalism.

The literature on leadership is quite extensive; however, this study explains the impact of leadership styles on career success, career competence and career adaptability in the health sector. It explains the impact of servant leadership on career competence and career adaptability with a serial mediating impact of psychological safety and proactive behavior as well as self-efficacy and proactive behavior.

It is a quantitative study, and it tested the suggested model in hospitals in Pakistan. The data were collected from 310 health practitioners from the hospitals, and it was analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling.

The findings suggest that psychological safety and proactive behavior serially mediate the impact of servant leaders on career competence and career adaptability; hence, servant leadership tends to increase career competence and career adaptability of individuals. One more serial mediation has been tested with positive results between servant leadership and career competence and career adaptability.

The study takes a very well theoretically linked model which tests the serial mediating path of servant leadership to career competencies and career adaptability.