Posts filed under ‘– Foss –’
We Always Suspected It — Part II
| Nicolai Foss |
As we recently noted O&M has had the dubious honour of being included in the set of “heterodox newslettes and weblogs” along with blogs such as “Actuel Marx.” But it gets worse!! O&M has just received mention in Accounts: ASA Economic Sociology Section Newsletter vol. 6, issue 1, Fall 2006 (on p.15). We tremble when we consider what may come next. Honorable mention on webdeleuze? Endorsements from Bob Sutton?
HT to Teppo.
Co-Authors From Hell
| Nicolai Foss |
Casual empiricism seems to indicate that co-authorship is constantly gaining ground vis-a-vis sole authorship (anyone who knows of any solid studies of social science authoring practice?). There are numerous forces that positively influence the choice of teaming up with other scholars for the purpose of writing books and articles, such as career concerns (writing with a Big Guy), hierarchical concerns (writing with a Local Big Guy may help your chances of promotion), political calls for co-authorship between academia and industry, and, of course, team-based benefits, such as exposure to new perspectives, effort sharing, the social experience, etc.
It is well known that there is a significant latent moral hazard problem in connection with teams (cf. this paper). But of course there is also a potentially heavy adverse selection problem. It does matter which type you pick to co-author a paper with. I have been involved in numerous co-authored paper projects, and usually I have been lucky with my co-authors. Indeed, Kirsten, Peter, Keld, Torben, Teppo, Joe, and Yasemin are exemplary and excellent co-authors.
But I certainly haven’t always been lucky. (more…)
Students as Editors!?!?! A Law Journal Bleg
| Nicolai Foss |
My employer, Copenhagen Business School, has recently decided to adopt a “Top 60 Journals” list. It contains the usual suspects (SMJ, AMJ, ASQ, Org. Science, etc.) and a number of lesser journals, including some distinct outliers (such as Scandinavian Journal of Management :-)). It has now been proposed by the Dean that the list be used in connection with promotions; for example, a Full Professor must, according to the proposal, have at least one article published in a Top 60 journal. An extremely modest requirement, one would think. Not so. (more…)
We Always Suspected It …
| Nicolai Foss |
… but we are not sure we like it — “it” being the fact that O&M has now received certification that we belong to the distinct group of “heterodox newsletters and weblogs” along with “Actuel Marx” and “Lettre de la Regulation.” Hmmmm …
Another Journal Jere(h)miad
| Nicolai Foss|
A feuilleton here at O&M is what Omar at orgtheory.net (see here) has christened our “jerehmiads” (aka “jeremiads”) concerning journals. The implication is that we are grumpy old men who moralistically denounce the rationality of the journal institutions (e.g., here, here, here, and here). Whatever that may be here is another, errr, observation on our journals:
All journals that I know of require that for the final submission of a manuscript, it must be submitted in a certain format, including meeting rules for spacing, margins, maximum number of words, etc. Many, and perhaps most, journals also formally require that first submissions must stick to such a format, usually specified under “Instructions to Authors.”
However, at least until recently, very few journals would desk-reject a submission that did not follow the specified format (save for manuscripts that were obviously too long), and no reviewer would dream of complaining about manuscripts not following the journal’s specified format. (more…)
Are Profitable Firms Always Founded?
| Nicolai Foss |
No, says Matthias Kräkel. Here is the abstract of his recent neat paper, “On the ‘Adverse Selection’ of Organizations“:
According to New Institutional Economics, two or more individuals will found an organization, if it leads to a benefit compared to market allocation. A natural consequence will then be internal rent seeking. We discuss the interrelation between profits, rent seeking and the foundation of organizations. Typically, we expect that highly profitable firms are always founded but it is not clear whether the same is true for firms with less optimistic prospects. We will show that internal rent seeking may lead to a completely reversed result. The impact of internal rent seeking on overall investment and the implications of firm size and competition on the foundation of organizations are also addressed.
Admittedly, Kräkel’s stark result, that highly profitable firms may not be founded because of the prospect of heavy internal rent seeking, only holds for the situation where technology is exogeneosly given (he does relax this assumption and obtains other interesting results, however) and begs the question why exactly it is that rational cooperating individuals cannot constrain internal rent-seeking. However, there is a wider message in his paper, particularly for the resource-based approach in strategic management which — with the exception of the work of Russ Coff (see his 1999 Org Science paper and his 1997 AMR paper), Lippman and Rumelt (their 2003 SMJ paper on bargaining), and more recently Joe Mahoney (check Joe’s work on stakeholder theory) — has neglected internal bargaining processes in firms, including rent-seeking. Thus Kräkel’s work suggests that even if a projected venture controls resources that are strategic in the RBV sense, the venture may not materialize because of fear of rent-seeking in the second stage of the game (after the firm is actually founded).
Easterly versus Sachs on Hayek
| Peter Klein |
William Easterly takes Jeff Sachs to task in Wednesday’s W$J for failing to understand Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (regular version; version for muzzy management types).
Hayek’s great book is all about the dangers of large-scale state economic planning, courageously written in 1944 when Soviet central planning, technocratic socialism and administrative control of the wartime economy appealed as a peacetime model to many New Dealers, celebrity economists and policy wonks of all stripes.
The countries that are now rich subsequently listened enough to Hayek and to common sense to avoid the road to serfdom. Yet today, Mr. Sachs (in his book “The End of Poverty”) is peddling his own administrative central plan — 449 steps in all — to end world poverty. In his plan, the U.N. secretary-general (to whom he is an adviser) would supervise and coordinate thousands of international civil servants and technocratic experts to solve the problems of every poor village and city slum everywhere. Mr. Sachs is not in favor of central planning as an economic system, but he offers it as a solution, anyway, to the multifold problems of the world’s poorest people.
NB: The editor’s decision to accompany the essay with a picture of Salma Hayek, while aesthetically pleasing, is a bit silly. After all we know Fritz beats Salma hands down.
Micro-Foundations and Realism
| Nicolai Foss |
As readers of O&M know, I have often endorsed the search for the badly missing micro-foundations in management research (e.g., here, here and here). Building micro-foundations means providing accounts (whether formal or verbal-logical) of how human action and interaction produce collective outcomes (whether intended or unintended).
To me such an approach is inherently mechanism-oriented. Accordingly, I tend to think of methodological individualism and mechanismic explanation as close philosophical allies. I also think that in terms of theorizing, attention to micro-mechanisms rooted in individual action and interaction requires close attention to behavioral assumptions. Apropos Milton Friedman the one part of his thinking that I have never made peace with is his methodological instrumentalism.
Until recently, I thought that virtually nobody in management research — with the exception of Teppo Felin — entertained similar views (OK — a bit over the top, but not much), until, that is, the advent of the November issue of the Strategic Management Journal features an article, “Behavioral Assumptions and Theory Development: The Case of Transaction Cost Economics,” by Eric Tsang that is explicit about how behavioral assumptions link to realistic explanation. (I just noticed that Tsang also has an earlier paper on critical realism). (more…)
Milton Friedman Has Died
| Nicolai Foss |
Under the heading Requiescat in Pace, Economist.Com briefly and concisely notes:
MILTON FRIEDMAN has died. An economics giant, he not only revolutionised monetary theory, but singlehandedly did more than almost any economist in history to advance the cause of free markets. He was not merely an accomplished economist, but an accomplished popular writer; his Newsweek columns remain gems of clarity and brilliance decades later. We will not soon see his like again.
Peter and I both expect to blog on Friedman and his contributions in the near future.
Taleb on Mathematical Economics
| Peter Klein |
More on Nassim Taleb: From Bob Murphy I learn of this passage from Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness:
What has gone with the development of economics as a science? Answer: There was a bunch of intelligent people who felt compelled to use mathematics just to tell themselves that they were rigorous in their thinking, that theirs was a science. Someone in a great rush decided to introduce mathematical modeling techniques (culprits: Leon Walras, Gerard Debreu, Paul Samuelson) without considering the fact that either the class of mathematics they were using was too restrictive for the class of problems they were dealing with, or that perhaps they should be aware that the precision of the language of mathematics could lead people to believe that they had solutions when in fact they had none. . . . Indeed the mathematics they dealt with did not work in the real world, possibly because we needed richer classes of processes — and they refused to accept the fact that no mathematics at all was probably better. (p. 177)
Pomo Periscope VI: Performativity
| Nicolai Foss |
Teppo Felin at orgtheory.net has an excellent post today on Donald MacKenzie’s An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets — a book that has received praise from Michel Callon, Karin Knorr-Certina — and Paul Samuelson!
As the title of the book indicates, the book puts our old friend here at O&M — reflexivity (cf. this post) — to work in the context of the interplay between financial markets and financial economics. It sounds as if this will be a great read for the Ferraro-Pfeffer-Suttons of this World. (I haven’t read the book yet myself, so I cannot judge the accuracy of what Teppo says about it). (more…)
Italian Academia Goes International
| Nicolai Foss |
The universities of quite a number of European countries have reputations — well-deserved in a number of cases — of being hostile to foreign influences as well as foreigners (particularly those yanks!), nepotistic, insular, and introverted, particularly in the social sciences and the humanities. Large European countries, such as France, Italy, and Germany still run a major infrastructure of learned journals in the native tongue, and it is often understood that publishing in one of these (e.g., the Sardinian Journal of the Economics of Olive Production) may be better for one’s career than publishing in irrelevant (and, oh horror, American) journals such as Journal of Political Economy or the Strategic Management Journal.
Luckily, things are changing all over Europe concerning the internationalization of the Academy. Here is an example: The Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies, opened last year to support “PhD programs and research activities in the fields of political and social sciences, market regulations, economics, management, biorobotics, industrial and computer technologies.” On its frontpage it stresses that among its “distinctive features” (!) are “open and competitive selection processes” and “international faculty.” Telling!
Note also the job openings for assistant professors and post-doctoral fellows. Lucca isn’t a bad place at all to spend a part of your life!
Machlup on Equilibrium
| Nicolai Foss |
The notion of equilibrium in economics has been discussed on an earlier occasion here at O&M (here). Perhaps as a reaction to this, former guest blogger, Joe Mahoney, has mailed a long but important quotation from Fritz Machlup’s (1967) Essays in Economic Semantics (pp. 44-5, 54, 56-7) which is reproduced below. (Joe notes that “as a humorous aside the original 1963 version of the book was titled: Essays ON Economic Semantics, but since only one chapter of the book was actually ON the topic of economic semantics, the 1967 paperback version title was changed to Essays IN Economic Semantics” — very interesting!) Here is the quotation (and a few comment below): (more…)
Network Positions and Competitive Advantage
| Nicolai Foss |
One of the most important trends in strategic management research over the last decade or so has no doubt been the application of arguments developed in sociology by the likes of Mark Granovetter and Ron Burt. In the hands of able interpreters, such as Gautam Ahuaja, Olav Sorenson, Brian Uzzi, Toby Stuart, and many others, these arguments mark the real advent of sociology as a forceful voice in the conversation of strategic management scholars, a conversation that had until clearly been dominated by arguments drawn from various fields in economics.
Although I am usually impressed with the efforts of the above scholars, I have also sometimes felt a bit uneasy when reading papers that draw on the sociology literature on networks. Theoretical development seems conspicuous by its absence. Many things seem to be taken as exogenos, notably positions themselves. Moreover, the literature often seems to suggest that network positions may be associated with competitive advantage, but the precise mechanism that makes this happen is far from clear. (more…)
Political Correctness and Public Sector Management
| Nicolai Foss |
The following is ephemera, but we have noted from the blog stats that our readership appreciates this category of posts. And we believe in giving the market what the market wants.
I was recently accused by an (admittedly weird) external lecturer here at CBS for having fascist sympathies. I thought my political leanings were classical-liberal, which I would tend to associate with rather the opposite of fascism. Oh well; the reasoning of this person was that I ran a blog that linked to the Ludwig von Mises Institute; that institute was known for being associated with people who had an unconventional view of the American Civil War; a view, this person added, that any sane human being would recognize as fascist! QED
I was reminded of this incident when I read this story in the UK newspaper, The Daily Mail. (more…)
Grounded Theory
| Nicolai Foss |
At least until recently I considered “grounded theory” to be one of my favorite Hermann Göring words (“When I hear the word ‘grounded theory’ I reach for my Browning”). I know that this is an assessment that many practicioners of a, dare we say more “positivist” research methodology share. Too often I have witnessed presentations where “grounded theory” comes across as a bad excuse for not knowing the relevant literature. Epistemologically, grounded theory sometimes stands out as a variant of naïve inductivism. (more…)
Pomo Periscope V: Motivation Theory Under Attack
| Nicolai Foss |
As we know pomo is placing its tentacles virtually everywhere. Having long ago attacked and partially conquered organization studies, pomo is now increasingly visible in the organizational behavior field. Here is an extract from the blurb for a recent book, The Passion of Organizing: (more…)
Strategic Management Society Meetings
| Nicolai Foss |
I am currently in beautiful Wien for the Strategic Management Society Meetings. Beforehand I had decided that this would be the test case: Should I continue paying those exorbitant conference fees and expensive hotels for a mediocre conference, or should I just forget about it?
While the pre-conference sessions yesterday were a bit of a disappointment (too many presentations apparently improvised on the trans-Atlantic flight), I must say that I have only attended excellent paper sessions today (Monday). So far the conference is far superior to last year’s conference in Orlando (and the food is better).
Europeans constitute the majority of the participants, but that hasn’t harmed paper quality at all (on the contrary?). The days where the quality gap in strategic management between the US and Europe was huge and pronounced may be over. The Euro research community in strategic management is really shaping up (largely as a result of interaction with US research and import of US research methodology). Bottom line: I will probably give the SMS meetings a shot next year as well!
New Perspectives on Political Economy
| Nicolai Foss |
New Perspectives on Political Economy is a Prague-based journal, edited by Josef Sima and Dan Stastny of the University of Economics in Prague. It is now in its second year of existence. It is a much like a mix of the Journal of Libertarian Studies and The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. All issues/articles can be downloaded here. Here is the list of contents of the most recent issue: (more…)
Pomo Periscope IV: A Rothbard Classic
| Nicolai Foss |
Pomo had no greater enemy than the late Murray Rothbard. Here is a hilarious comment on “the hermeneutical invasion of philosophy and economics,” which was originally published in 1989 in the Review of Austrian Economics (and published a bit later in Danish translation by yours truly in the rather short-lived Danish Austrian economics journal, Praxeologica). (more…)
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