Author Archive
JC Spender Wonders …
| Nicolai Foss |
He mails this: “Why did Ted Schultz, a Nobel winner, in his 1961 Presidential Address to the American Economic Association, “Investment in Human Capital,” not reference any of Solow’s work — for which, after all he too was awarded the Nobel?” A very good question!
“What Does Austrian Economics Predict?”
| Nicolai Foss |
At the professional development workshop on “The Austrian School of Economics: Applications to Organization, Strategy and Entrepreneurship,” arranged by my co-blogger for this year’s Academy of Management Meetings, the first question raised from the audience after the presentations was the one in the heading to this post. (Fabio at orgtheory.net has also made related, ehhh, provocations, which we will deal with later here at O&M).
It wasn’t entirely clear what the person who asked the question meant, the acoustics in the room were terrible (he had to repeat the question twice), and I am sure that complex issues like the symmetry thesis were popping up in the minds of my co-panelists, so there was some hesitation in the panel to address the question. (Afterwards I learned that unfortunately this was taken by some audience members as an implicit admission that AE isn’t predictive).
The question was unclear because it could mean any of this: (more…)
Teaching Game Theory
| Nicolai Foss |
Game theory is fun to teach because the real world applications, exemplifations, etc. are legion, and the theory so often does more than merely redescribe the situation, but actually brings new insight. If, however, you are out of good examples, you may want to check out Game Theory.net’s list of game theory in film, music and fiction.
The Anti-Blog
| Nicolai Foss |
One consequence of the expansion of the blogosphere is, in accordance with the basic Hegelian scheme, the emergence of the anti-blog. Here is the Anti-Becker-Posner-blog dedicated to smashing, well, you guessed it (and here is an alternative conception of what an anti-blog entails).
O&M has been accused of doing “right-wing craponomics,” Peter’s economics has been attacked by Sraffian Robert Viennau, and my comments about pomo and sociologists have often provoked angry reactions. I wonder when the Anti-O&M-Blog will appear? (Hmm, perhaps we shouldn’t play with fire; remember the Corsair Affair involving Søren Kierkegaard? (Tyler will know what I mean)).
Thoughts on Capabilities From the Interesting Sutton
| Nicolai Foss |
We have spent too much time on this blog discussing Bob Sutton. A much more interesting Sutton is John Sutton, the Sir John Hicks Professor of Economics as the London School of Economics. Sutton is the author of numerous papers and books (e.g., the highly influential Sunk Costs and Market Structure). He has had some influence on strategic management thinking, mainly (obviously) among those who base strategic management on industrial economics. (more…)
Pomo Periscope XIII: The Theology of Relativism
| Nicolai Foss |
OK, time to revitalize our successful Pomo Periscope series (seriously, the PP posts are among the most read O&M posts). I am reading Roger Scruton’s recent brilliant A Political Philosophy: Arguments for Conservatism at the moment. The book is an extremely articulate expression of true Burkean conservatism, and very far indeed from both neoconservatism and libertarianism. Anyway, these days Scruton seems unable to write anything without lashing out at pomo. Luckily, because what he says is correct and it must be said. (more…)
Does Management Research Need to Become More Empirical?
| Nicolai Foss |
Or, to put it more precisely, does management research (i.e., the journals) need to become more empirical in the specific sense of allowing for research that is pre-theoretic, but addresses an issue of relevance or detects a pattern to organizational stakeholders, that is, identifies a potentially important stylized fact? (more…)
David Laidler
| Nicolai Foss |
I have been shocked to realize that the young modern macro-economists I’m acquainted with have no knowledge of the work of David Laidler. There was a time when Laidler was seen as primary spokesman for monetarism, as one of the world’s pre-eminent monetary theorists, and as an eminent historian of monetary thought. Laidler was one of my early influences; in particular, I remember being impressed by his excellent 1981 Economic Journal article, “Monetarism: an Interpretation and an Assessment.” Anyway, Laidler (b. 1938) is still very active, and his work is very much worth looking at if you entertain an interest in the theory and history of money, and the doctrinal history of monetary theory. Here is Laidler’s homepage at the University of Western Ontario. And here is the Wiki.
Agency Theory in Management
| Nicolai Foss |
I believe that agency theory is one of the most informative, useful, and interesting theories coming out of economics ever. It is surely also one of the most influential econ theories in management. Agency theory is, however, fundamentally complicated, and difficult to teach. I find it impossible to teach without making use of at least some math (specifically, simple versions of the linear model). In particular, grasping the role that the risk premium plays in the theory, and, in this connection, what is really the source of the agency loss, is often very difficult for students.
However, not only students but also management academics have difficulties understanding the theory. (more…)
Euro Reward Management Conference
| Nicolai Foss |
The First European Reward Management Conference, organized by the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, will take place in Bruxelles Dec. 17-18 this year. Deadline for paper submission is Sept. 4. Who knows, perhaps Alfie Kohn will show up.
Christian Asmussen Receives the Haynes Prize
| Nicolai Foss |
My colleague at CBS’s Center for Strategic Management and Globalization, Dr. Christian Geisler Asmussen, received the highly prestigious Haynes Prize, awarded to “Most Promising Scholar” at this year’s Academy of International Business Meetings, for his paper “Local, Regional or Global? Quantifying MNC Geographic Scope”. The Committee was chaired by Peter Buckley and the selection was made among 700 papers.
Christian started work at the Center as an Assistant Professor 2 months ago. With already 2 accepted articles in Journal of International Business Studies, and a string of book chapters and papers, Christian is unusually talented, a nice guy, and we are most lucky and happy to have him here at CBS-SMG. (Pls, no US offers ;-)).
The Internet, Plagiarism, and Fabulism
| Nicolai Foss |
What is the net effect of the internet on the amount (and type) of plagiarism? Many people have predicted the demise of plagiarism as internet search engines make that nasty activity increasingly easy to detect. However, as any university teacher knows from sad experience with students who got tempted to cheat, the internet also prompts plagiarism because it strongly expands the set of texts that can be plagiarized at little direct cost. (more…)
Who Are Those Young Libertarian Org Scholars?
| Nicolai Foss |
In his keynote address to the 2006 meeting in Bergen (Norway) of the European Group for Organizational Studies, Jim March notes that “European organization studies were influenced deeply by the fact that expansion occurred in the decades following the protest and counterculture movements of the 1960s and 1970s . . . [as seen] . . . in such things as qualitative research on culture, gender, sense-making, social construction and power” (p. 14). (more…)
Economic Freedom and Entrepreneurial Activity
| Nicolai Foss |
Christian Bjørnskov and I have just had our paper with the above title accepted for publication in Public Choice. I was very favorably impressed with the review process, which was comparable to the process at the top academy journals in terms of speed and thoroughness. Mail me at njf.smg@cbs.dk if you want a copy of the paper. Here is the abstract:
While much attention has been devoted to analyzing how the institutional framework and entrepreneurship impact growth, how economic policy and institutional design affect entrepreneurship appears to be much less analyzed. We try to explain cross-country differences in the level of entrepreneurship by differences in economic policy and institutional design. Specifically, we use the Economic Freedom Index from the Fraser Institute to ask which elements of economic policy making and the institutional framework are conducive to the supply of entrepreneurship, measured by data on entrepreneurship from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. We find that the size of government is negatively correlated with entrepreneurial activity and sound money is positively correlated with entrepreneurial activity. Other measures of economic freedom are not significantly correlated with entrepreneurship
Bryan Caplan’s New Book
| Nicolai Foss |
During my libertarian awakening in the mid-1980s, I remember being particularly impressed by public choice theory. While I read the works of the major Austrians and felt strongly inspired by their vision, PC theory seemed richer in predictive implications and concrete policy proposals. It was also much closer to the mainstream economics I was being taught at the University of Copenhagen. (more…)
In the Journals
| Nicolai Foss |
What can possibly be better than to return after a long holiday (Euro-style — 2 weeks!!) and a long conference (the AoM; at 6 days definitely too long) to a stack of lovely journals that arrived in your pigeonhole while you were away? After clearing the administrative, department-head-specific tasks that had accumulated in my absence, I spent this afternoon browsing the journals. Here are some of those papers, special issues, etc. I found particularly interesting, and which may interest the O&M readership: (more…)
Managing Through Incentives
| Nicolai Foss |
In my recent mention of various textbooks on organizational economics I somehow forgot to mention two excellent books on the subject. One is by former O&M guest blogger Joe Mahoney (which makes the omission the more embarrassing), Economic Foundations of Strategy (most of which turns out to be organizational economics). The other is the more managerially oriented Managing Through Incentives by Dwight Lee (my co-blogger’s former University of Georgia colleague) and Donald McKenzie. In addition to watching 300, I read through most of Managing Through Incentives on my flight back from the AoM in Philadelphia.
The book is light and engaging, but not exactly your average management book. Although clearly intended for a management audience it is probably too long and complicated to successfully serve that role. But it is excellent as an inspiration for teachers of organizational economics and organizational strategy. It abounds in nice examples and applications of, mainly, agency theory that can be very usefully applied in teaching. Or you may simply read it for fun. There is a humorous tone to much of the writing, it has appealing libertarian leanings (David Friedman and Robert Hessen are approvingly cited), and it features a nice chapter that takes issue with Alfie Kohn’s views on incentives. Highly recommended!
Most Overrated Econ or Management Papers
| Nicolai Foss |
Here is a controversial, but perhaps fun, exercise for the O&M readership: nominate a paper that you think is grossly overrated. In operational terms you may think of “overrated” in terms of the ratio of Google Scholar hits to actual content/substance. Remember that you, in contrast to the resident O&M bloggers, have the option and benefit of remaining anonymous. Uninspired? You may draw inspiration from our Pomo Periscope series. (And you are welcome to nominate Ferraro, Pfeffer, and Sutton, Academy of Management Review, 2005. ;-))
How Austrian Can Mark Blaug Get?
| Nicolai Foss |
In Austrian circles, Mark Blaug isn’t a popular figure. Many Austrians remember his characterization in his 1980 book, The Methodology of Economics, of Mises’s methodological writings as “so cranky and idiosyncratic that they have to be read to be believed.” In Economic Theory in Retrospect Blaug has tough things to say of Böhm-Bawerk’s capital theory.
And yet, Professor Blaug seems to become very Austrian in his later writings. Here is a smashing from 2003 of the “formalist revolution” in economics that Pete Boettke would find little to disagree with. Here is a thoroughly Austrian defence of “dynamic competition” from 2001. He also has a series of conference papers on “ugly” or “disturbing” currents in modern economics which are all attacks on modern formalist economics, often with substantial Austrian content.
John Hagel’s Blog
| Nicolai Foss |
John Hagel III is one of the most thoughtful consultant-thinkers out there. His work (with John Seely Brown) on productive friction and dynamic specialization is very inspiring, and I have benefited from it when recently starting up an empirical project on how major Danish firms are changing corporate strategies towards dynamic specialization. Hagel runs a nice blog, EdgePerspectives that is worth taking a look at. I particularly liked his discussion of Bill McKelvey’s work on the differences between Gaussian and Paretian worlds.
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