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Corporate acquisitions have received less attention than the “make-versus-buy” paradigm problem within transaction cost economics. However, recent research that has been conducted on acquisitions is a valuable source of ideas that can be put to use in organizational governance studies more broadly. In this paper, I provide a brief review of the M&A literature with the aim of developing two arguments. First, information economics has provided important theoretical underpinnings for this literature and complements transaction cost economics by emphasizing the ex ante exchange hazards that economic actors face. Second, research using information economics offers the potential to enrich the organizational economics research agenda in strategic management and vice versa.

The purpose of the paper is to critically question conventional views of the one‐dimensional, mechanistic and negative image of human nature of Scientific Management. Both for worker behavior and for managerial behavior positive aspects of an image of human nature are reconstructed in organizational economic terms.

Through institutional economic reconstruction, drawing on the methods and concepts of organizational and institutional economics, the portrayal of workers and managers by Scientific Management is critically assessed.

It is suggested that a conceptual asymmetry exists in Taylor's writings regarding the portrayal of human nature of workers and managers. Whereas for workers a model of self‐interest was applied (through the concepts of “systematic soldering” and “natural soldiering”), Taylor portrayed managers through a positive, behavioral model of human nature that depicted the manager as “heartily cooperative”. The key thesis is that by modeling managers through a rather positive image of human nature Taylor could no longer methodically apply the model of economic man in order to test out and prevent interaction conflict between potentially self‐interested managers and workers.

The paper focused on Scientific Management to advance the thesis that the portrayal of human nature has been ill approached by management and organization theorists who were apparently pioneering an institutional and organizational economics. Future research has to broaden the scope of research to other pioneers in management and organization research, but also to critics in behavioral sciences, such as organization psychology, who may misunderstand how economics approaches the portrayal of human nature, in particular regarding self‐interest.

Taylor's portrayal of managers as naturally good persons, who were not self‐interested, caused implementation conflict and implementation problems for Scientific Management and led to his summoning by the US Congress. By modeling managers as heartily cooperative, Taylor could no longer analyze potentially self‐interested behavior, even opportunistic behavior of managers in their interactions with workers. Scientific Management had thus no remedy to handle “soldiering” of managers. This insight, that managerialism needs to be accounted for in a management theory, has manifold practical implications for management consultancy, management education, and for the practice of management in general. Students and practitioners have to be informed about the necessary and useful role a model of self‐interest (economic man) methodically plays in economic management theory.

The paper reconstructs the portrayal of human nature in early management theory, which seemingly anticipated the advances – and certain pitfalls – of modern institutional economics. The paper unearths, from an economic perspective, conceptual misunderstandings of Taylor regarding his image of human nature of workers and managers.

The organizational culture–performance link is fundamental to organization development and building a high-performance culture is a responsibility of leaders. The claim of a culture–performance link is most visible in the 1980s (e.g. In Search of Excellence) but is replaced by skepticism by the 1990s. Using conclusion validity as the framework, the purpose of this paper is to synthesize cross-disciplinary literature in organization studies and the emerging sub-field of organizational economics to lay a foundation to establish the link rigorously.

The drivers of conclusion validity – internal validity, external validity and construct validity – guided the literature search and review. The author began with the concepts of organizational culture and performance, examined the organizational economic literature for the causal culture–performance link (internal validity), reviewed the organization studies literature on the debates in the measurement of organizational culture (external and construct validity) and examined the debate if organizational culture can be managed (internal validity).

Organizational economics (which conceptualizes organizational culture as shared beliefs) shows that cultures that are more homogeneous, encourage teamwork and have a clear mission, enhance organizational performance. In measuring culture, survey instruments using the process-oriented approach can rely on these results to strengthen their construct validity. In the search for the organizational culture–performance link, non-cultural factors affecting performance have to be included as control variables.

The weaknesses of early research on the organizational culture–performance link become clear when examined with the conclusion validity framework. This clearness shows the way toward a rigorous empirical analysis.

This review provides guidance for researchers to evaluate published studies on the organizational culture–performance link. It also helps researchers to design new studies with stronger conclusion validity.

Managerial decision making regarding using organizational forms methodology to develop technological innovations in the context of technological strategy has not been the subject of a prolific number of studies; nevertheless, it has proven to be an important matter. This is particularly notable in the Iberoamerican context, where a theoretical framework has not been developed yet. It is within such a context that this empirical research intends to determine the organizational forms used by companies of the machine‐tool sector of the Basque Country in their implementation of processes of technological innovation. This research is supported by the theoretical framework provided by transaction cost economics, evolutionary economics, and competitive strategy theories. It also uses the contrasting approach as a starting point for proposing some extensive ideas on this issue.

Traditionally, organizational evolution has been forgotten and only recently has it been analyzed by evolutionary theories: evolutionary economics and organizational ecology. According to the evolutionary economics the evolution of the firm is drawn as a process of individual adaptation running parallel to the evolution of environment. However, population ecology suggested that organizations have not the ability to adapt themselves and the process of organizational evolution is out of the organizational field. So, the adjustment to changed environmental conditions is achieved largely by the death of old organizations and the birth of new ones. We propose a model of organizational evolution combining the adaptation perspective ‐‐ evolutionary economics ‐‐ and the selection one ‐‐ population ecology of organizations. The adaptative ability lies in the endowment resource and capabilities that managers build using organizational capabilities.

Ronald Coase's landmark 1937 article, “The Nature of the Firm,” framed the study of organizational economics for decades. Coase asked three fundamental questions: Why do firms exist? What determines their boundaries? How should firms be organized internally? To answer the first question, Coase famously appealed to “the costs of using the price mechanism,” what we now call transaction costs or contracting costs, a concept that blossomed in the 1970s and 1980s into an elaborate theory of why firms exist (Alchian & Demsetz, 1972; Williamson, 1975, 1979, 1985; Klein, Crawford, & Alchian, 1978; Grossman & Hart, 1986). The second question has generated a huge literature in industrial economics, strategy, corporate finance, and organization theory. “Why,” as Coase (1937, pp. 393–394) put it, “does the entrepreneur not organize one less transaction or one more?” In Williamson's (1996, p. 150) words, “Why can't a large firm do everything that a collection of small firms can do and more?” As Coase recognized in 1937, the transaction-cost advantages of internal organization are not unlimited, and firms have a finite “optimum” size and shape. Describing these limits in detail has proved challenging, however.¹

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which scholars have proposed organizational forms combining elements of markets and hierarchies. These hybrid forms are based on networked connections and bottom‐up entrepreneurship, fostering knowledge sharing among semi‐independent units. Despite their suitability to knowledge‐intensive companies, scholars are divided on their views on governance in internal hybrids. While knowledge management scholars emphasize soft community‐like dimensions, organizational economists seek to reduce opportunism through hard hierarchical governance. Because these views act as complementaries, this paper synthesizes them to present organizational governance in internal hybrids.

A case study with 56 interviews describes the functioning of soft and hard governance mechanisms in the Japanese company Maekawa Manufacturing Ltd.

The case study indicates that soft and hard governance mechanisms work in complementary ways in a successfully implemented internal hybrid.

Internal hybrids tend to function most efficiently with a mix of soft knowledge management practices and hard control devices.

Instead of taking an “either/or” perspective, this paper seeks to synthesize contrasting views of knowledge management and organizational economics.

This article seeks to explain the mechanism of adapting enterprises to the requirements of sustainable development. It aims to base this analysis on the concept of new institutional economics.

The theoretical basis of new institutional economics is used to understand and explain the behaviour of enterprises in relation to the natural environment.

The article finds that new institutional economics, compared to rather formalised and abstract mainstream economics, may be quite successfully used in answering why economic entities undertake actions for environmental protection.

New institutional economics may be used as a tool for understanding e.g. why some instruments aiming at environmental protection are more effective and efficient than other instruments. It may provide useful knowledge about the institutional environment while creating new environmental protection instruments. More empirical studies on a greater number of enterprises (not only individual case studies) are necessary to find out which institutions and mechanisms mentioned in the paper are crucial, and which should be supported in order to achieve environmental goals.

There are a great number of empirical papers containing case studies, but only few theoretical attempts to generate a synthesis. This paper fills this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how to incorporate knowledge concepts into analytical models of strategy formulation and the strategic theory of the firm.

The paper examines four different perspectives of the elusive concept of “knowledge”, namely, “knowledge as assets”, “knowledge through innovation”, “knowledge embedded in routines” and “knowledge through learning”. The study attempts to specify and interrelate the concepts of a knowledge‐based strategic theory of the firm.

The “knowledge web” is seen as a partial framework, capturing from a strategic perspective how both specific and organisational knowledge build the competences necessary for the value‐creating activities of the firm.

The paper provides frameworks for understanding how knowledge can reinforce the strategic core competences of the firm.

The paper addresses knowledge as a key element in the development of an enhanced strategic theory of the firm, incorporating the knowledge‐based viewpoint.