Taking Coase Seriously

Robert S. Gibbons

124 citations0/0 files storedAdministrative Science Quarterly

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Economic Theory and Institutions Management Theory and Practice Management and Organizational Studies

Abstract

In this essay I advance two related theses. First, economic theory predicts that organizations will be a mess but not a mystery. Second, classic case studies conducted by organizational sociologists support this prediction. Fully articulating and defending these theses will require a book, so my goal here is simply to render them plausible. I begin by pointing toward the relevant economic theory and sociological evidence, but I devote the bulk of the essay to a particular example: I develop a formal economic model inspired by a passage from Michel Crozier's The Bureaucratic Phenomenon. I conclude by discussing the potential roles of formal economic modeling in organizational research.

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References

1973The Strength of Weak Ties 1983The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields 1985Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness 1977Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony 2004The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields 1937The Nature of the Firm 1970The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism 1973Job Market Signaling

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