Organizations and Markets

Bridging O&M and orgtheory.net?

11 June 2008 at 8:56 am Nicolai Foss 1 comment

| Nicolai Foss |

The chaps over at orgtheory.net routinely refer to O&M as their “evil twin.” We have so far resisted this characterization (more the “twin” than the “evil” part, to be sure), but perhaps they’ve got a point. After all, O&M is heavily tainted by Austrian economics; orgtheory.net seems to subscribe to important tenets in the emerging “economic sociology”; and, as Gertraude Mikl-Horke points out in a recent paper, “Austrian Economics and Economic Sociology: Past Relations and Future Possibilities for a Socio-Economic Perspective,” AE and econ soc are closely related in a number of respects: there is a strong thematic overlap and the treatment of some key constructs (uncertainty, interpretation, dynamics . . . ) is strikingly similar. OK, admittedly, her key source for AE insights is NYU/George Mason Austrianism (think O’Driscoll and Rizzo) and more Misesian Austrians may balk at the links Mikl-Horke establishs, but at any rate this is an interesting Aufforderung zum Tanz.Here is the abstract of the paper:

The diversity of approaches within modern economics is often overlooked by
economic sociology focusing on the neoclassical orthodoxy. At the time of the dispute over methods there had been mutual influences between Max Weber and the Austrian version of neoclassical theory, but in the later approaches of economic sociology the special features of Austrian economics, which has developed from being one of the neoclassical schools into a strand of thought with unique characteristics, have not been recognized. Modern Austrian economics emphasizes time, uncertainty, knowledge and dynamic market processes, which are themes of importance for economic sociology. Moreover, the conceptions of individual action and social order in Austrian economics can be of relevance for a socio-economic perspective with regard to overcoming the division between social and economic factors.

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