Posts filed under ‘Recommended Reading’
Pomo Periscope II: Recommended Reading
| Nicolai Foss |
Here is an old but excellent paper by the great French sociologist Raymond Boudon, “The Freudian-Marxian-Structuralist (FMS) movement in France: variations on a theme by Sherry Turkle,” Revue Tocqueville, vol. II, no. 1 (Winter 1980), pp. 5-24. (Unfortunately, the paper doesn’t seem to exist online, but your library should be capable of getting it for you). The paper is highly recommended, not only for its dissection of the FMS, but also because so much of what says about the FMS fits more contemporary pomo trends perfectly. (more…)
Interview with James March
| Peter Klein |
The October 2006 Harvard Business Review features an interview with James March, one of the most important organizational theorists of the twentieth century. Here’s an online version (possibly behind a subscription firewall). Here’s a summary from the Jackson Library Blog (which I’m finding more and more useful all the time):
The article is called ‘Ideas as Art’ (pp. 82-89). In the introductory part, the author quotes the University of Chicago professor John Padgett who once wrote: “Jim March is to organization theory what Miles Davis is to jazz.” In the interview, March elaborates on the distinction he makes between the practical managerial needs and concerns and scholarly approach to new ideas. He values ideas which contain “some form of elegance or grace or surprise — all the things that beauty gives you” and not being relevant to the immediate needs of an organization manager in a short run. He also explains the essence of his rather famous and colorfully named theories: “garbage can theory”, “technology of foolishness”, and “hot-stove effect”. The interview reveals not only a great and original scholar but also the multifaceted personality of Jim March, a man with appreciation for literature, a poet himself and an author of several books of poetry. In his own words: “What might make a difference to us, I think, is whether in our tiny roles, in our brief time, we inhabit life gently and add more beauty than ugliness.”
Aside from being a brilliant and original thinker, March is also one of the funniest people I have ever met, a brilliant after-dinner speaker who has as many Wisconsin jokes as Garrison Keillor has Minnesota jokes.
Here’s a longer interview from 2000 by Mie Augier and Kristian Kreiner.
American Economists: Not So Free-Market After All
| Peter Klein |
I’ve blogged previously about Daniel Klein’s work on the political identities and policy views of economists and other academics (here and here). A new paper by Klein and Charlotta Stern surveys American Economic Association members on various policy issues, finding that “about 8 percent of AEA members can be considered supporters of free-market principles, and that less than 3 percent may be called strong supporters. . . . Even the average Republican AEA member is ‘middle-of-the road,’ not free-market.”
Why are economists almost universally perceived as strong supporters of the free market? Klein and Stern offer several conjectures. One is that economists tend to be strong supporters of (international) free trade and at least partial liberalization, making it look like economists support free-market principles more generally. Another is that most academics in the social sciences and humanities are strongly opposed to the free market, making economists look like radical free-marketeers by comparison. Yet another is that most of the strong supporters of the free market (in academia) are economists, leading to the mistaken inference that most economists are strong supporters of the free market.
Jon Elster Site
| Nicolai Foss |
Here is a nice site dedicated to Norwegian sociologist, the Robert Merton Professor at Columbia University, Jon Elster, a champion of an interesting (modified) rational choice and clearly methodological individualist sociology. It lists all Elster’s works, including some unpublished papers. Some works are downloadable. Unfortunately, nothing seems to have been done on the site since appr. 2000.
International Journal of Strategic Change Management
| Peter Klein |
The new International Journal of Strategic Change Management aims to join the Strategic Management Journal and Strategic Organization in the top tier of strategic management journals. IJSCM will focus on dynamics and change and on new developments in the economics of organization and in the applied fields of strategic management, industrial organization, and international business.
The journal’s leadership includes Editor-in-Chief Patricia Ordoñez de Pablos, Consulting Editors Anita McGahan and Oliver Williamson, and Executive Editor Margaret Peteraf. Former O&M guest blogger Joe Mahoney serves as Associate Executive Editor, and Nicolai and I are on the Editorial Board, so you know journal is in good hands.
Submissions can be sent by email to patriop@correo.uniovi.es. Instructions for authors are here. Submit a paper today!
Bill Starbuck’s New Book
| Nicolai Foss |
Omar at orgtheory.net dismisses critical discussions of the institutions of publishing social science research as “jeremiads” (see here), that is, “moralistic texts that denounce a society for its wickedness” (Wikipedia), typically written — but by no means always — by old, grumpy men. In contrast, Omar has great faith in the efficiency of these institutions (see the exchanges between my co-blogger and Omar here).
Although Bill Starbuck isn’t young any more, and there no doubt is a certain jeremiad-like quality to his misgivings about research practice in the social sciences, I submit that even Omar stands to benefit from reading Starbuck’s new opus, The Production of Knowledge: The Challenge of Social Science Research. Clearly, Omar has considerable experience with the institutions of publishing, and Bill Starbuck has only been the editor of Administrative Science Quarterly, but there may still be a thing or two to learn. Here is the book’s blurb: (more…)
Schmoller Revisited
| Peter Klein |
The Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung, und Volkswirtschaft, edited by Gusav Schmoller — commonly known as Schmollers Jahrbuch — was one of the most important and influential economics journals of the nineteenth century. Schmoller was the leader of the younger German Historical School and the main opponent of Carl Menger in the Methodenstreit, or battle over methods, that raged between the German historicists and the fledgling Austrian School. (It was Schmoller and his followers who coined the phrase “Austrian School,” the word Austrian being synonymous, among German-speaking intellectuals, for provincial and second-rate). Schmoller and his school are little known to contemporary social scientists, suffering the same fate that befell their American disciples, the Institutionalists Thorstein Veblen, John R. Commons, and Wesley Clair Mitchell. (As Coase once remarked: “Without a theory they had nothing to pass on except a mass of descriptive material waiting for a theory, or a fire.”)
To my surprise I received an email today announcing a new issue of Schmollers Jahrbuch. I had no idea the journal was still being published. The announcement was for a special issue, “Schmoller’s Legacy for the 21st Century.” Papers include “Schmoller’s Impact on the Anglophone Literature in Economics” by Geoffrey Hodgson, “Schmoller and Modern Sociology” by Yuichi Shionoya, “Gustav Schmoller, His Heirs and the Foundation of Today´s Social Policy” by Gerold Blümle and Nils Goldschmidt, and “Gustav Schmoller and Globalisation” by Heinz Rieter and Joachim Zweynert.
Incidentally, Murray Rothbard used to tell the story that during an intense (but friendly) disagreement between himself and Mises at Mises’s New York seminar Mises teasingly called him a “Schmollerite” — the ultimate insult to an Austrian economist!
Beauty and Politics
| Nicolai Foss |
Most of us classical liberals tend to think of politics as largely ugly. But apparently beauty is more important in politics than competence, intelligence, likability, or trustworthiness (not that it is surprising that these may not be that important ….). Check this fascinating new paper.
Lessig on the Two Economies
| Peter Klein |
The Internet has given us an alternate, parallel economy, says Lawrence Lessig:
One economy is the traditional “commercial economy,” an economy regulated by the quid pro quo: I’ll do this (work, write, sing, etc.) in exchange for money. Another economy is (the names are many) the (a) amateur economy, (b) sharing economy, (c) social production economy, (d) noncommercial economy, or (e) p2p economy. This second economy (however you name it, I’m just going to call it the “second economy”) is the economy of Wikipedia, most FLOSS development, the work of amateur astronomers, etc. It has a different, more complicated logic too it than the commercial economy. If you tried to translate all interactions in this second economy into the frame of the commercial economy, you’d kill it.
Lessig is an articulate and passionate advocate for legal rules that favor this second economy. I think he tends to overstate the differences between the two economies, and that a single set of behavioral models, frameworks, theories, etc. works fine for both. Hence I’m not convinced that special rules are needed to promote what Lessig calls the “hybrid” economy, one that links the first and second economies. But his thoughts on licensing practices like FLOSS (not to be confused with Foss) that “inspire the creative work of the second economy, while also expanding the value of the commercial economy” are worth reading.
For alternative perspectives on the relationship between norms and law in cyberspace compare Lessig’s Code and Bruce Benson’s “The Spontaneous Evolution of Cyber Law.”
Chestnut Street: The First “Wall Street”
| Peter Klein |
Did you know that the US’s first financial hub was not in New York, but in Philadelphia? So says Robert Wright’s The First Wall Street: Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, and the Birth of American Finance (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Here’s an interesting point made in Peter Rousseau’s review:
One point that Wright does not make explicitly, but which is nonetheless reinforced by his lively narratives, is the primal nature of real activity as the driving force behind the location and development of finance. At a time when colonial economic activity was more local in nature and commerce more international, Philadelphia’s position as an Atlantic port made it an adequate commercial center, especially since it was already a political center. It was therefore natural for the financial system to have its mainsprings there. A virtuous cycle of real needs leading to finance and promoting further real growth seems to have been the result. But as it became increasingly clear that the new nation and its large land mass was not a featureless plain, the move to New York might be seen as a classic example of Joan Robinson’s famous adage that “where enterprise leads, finance follows.” And follow it did in this case. As Chestnut Street’s best financiers headed off to New York, their expertise went with them. Only large sunk investments in plant and equipment for the Federal mint and the central bank could hold these institutions in the Quaker City, at least until political forces took care of the latter.
New Issue of the QJAE Out
| Nicolai Foss |
The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics is one of three existing periodicals that are 100% devoted to promoting Austrian economics. The other two are the Review of Austrian Economics and Advances in Austrian Economics. QJAE differs by having more of an emphasis on the hardcore Misesian stream of Austrianism. There is, therefore, a focus on the work of a single scholar (Mises) that is rather unusual for an economics journal (this is the one dimension in which the Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics is like the QJAE).
I have read the QJAE since its start nine years ago, and served on its editorial board since the founding of the journal. The most recent issue is, at least to this reader, the best so far. (more…)
Framing and Incentives
| Nicolai Foss |
Here is one more cultural conservatism post, but one that relates to the economics themes that we often treat here at O&M.
I have just completed reading Theodore Dalrymple’s splendid Life at the Bottom: the Worldview that Makes the Underclass. This is confirming, challenging, and inspiring reading for somebody who subscribes, at least to some degree, to the economic worldview, i.e. notions that people respond (rather predictably) to incentives and in many ways react fairly rationally, that separating actions and consequences is often highly unfortunate, etc. (more…)
New Journal: Regulation and Governance
| Peter Klein |
Regulation & Governance aims to serve as the leading platform for the study of regulation and governance by political scientists, lawyers, sociologists, historians, criminologists, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, and others. Research on regulation and governance, once fragmented across various disciplines and subject areas, has emerged at the cutting edge of paradigmatic change in the social sciences. Through the peer-reviewed journal Regulation & Governance, we seek to advance discussions between various disciplines about regulation and governance, promote the development of new theoretical and empirical understanding, and serve the growing needs of practitioners for a useful academic reference.
Here is the journal’s homepage. John Braithwaite, Cary Coglianese, and David Levi-Faur are the editors. The interesting editorial board includes anthropologist Margaret Levi, law professors Susan Rose-Ackerman and Cass Sunstein, and economist Kip Viscusi.
Viscusi, by the way, is a player in Vanderbilt University’s new PhD program in law and economics. (The budget for that program is one of the few big-ticket items for which Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee is not in trouble.)
Scruton
| Nicolai Foss |
The Mission Statement of O&M stipulates that we occassionally discuss cultural conservatism. We do so too rarely, so the following is an attempt to meet that stipulation.
I am admirer of the British conservative philosopher Roger Scruton (Scruton’s homepage is here; check out his hilarious cv). Although I have not bought fully into Scrutonian conservatism (I have problems with his excessive statism — plus I just don’t get his love for Wagner!), I find him to be an extremely profound and challenging writer. One of the very few contemporary conservative thinkers worth taking seriously (e.g., see this and this). And if you really want cultural conservatism, this is it!. (more…)
New Papers: Chandler, Leijonhufvud, Phelps, Summers
| Peter Klein |
The current issue of Capitalism and Society (volume 1, number 2) features an all-star cast. Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., leads off with his newest article, “How High Technology Industries Transformed Work and Life Worldwide from the 1880s to the 1990s” (abstract below). Chandler recently celebrated his 88th birthday, so new Chandler paper — while perhaps not quite as significant as a new Coase paper — is a major event.
In the same issue is a piece by Foss hero Axel Leijonhufvud, “Understanding the Great Changes: A Comment,” which is a comment on Edmund Phelps’s “Understanding the Great Changes in the World: Gaining Ground and Losing Ground since World War II.” The journal also contains a comment on Chandler by Richard Sylla, a paper by Richard Zeckhauser on “Investing in the Unknown and Unknowable,” and a comment on Zeckhauser by Lawrence Summers. (more…)
26 September 2006 at 10:37 am Peter G. Klein Leave a comment
Integrating Hirschman and TCE
| Peter Klein |
Another interesting paper from the May 2006 issue of Economic History Review is Tetsuji Okazaki’s “‘Voice’ and ‘Exit’ in Japanese Firms During the Second World War: Sanpo Revisited.” The “Sanpo” was a government-sponsored labor-bargaining organization for large firms. “This article examines the role of sanpo, using prefecture-level and firm-level data, based on a framework integrating the ‘voice view’ of unionism and transaction cost economics.”
Incidentally, Williamson has an interesting discussion of voice in “Calculativeness, Trust, and Economic Organization” (JLE, April 1993; ch. 10 of The Mechanisms of Governance). Responding to the claim that TCE (and the economic notion of “calculative trust” more generally) elevates exit over voice, Williamson writes:
First, if voice in the absence of an exit option is relatively ineffective, which evidently it is (Hirschman, 1970), then voice really does have a calculative aspect. Second, voice works through mechanisms, and those mechanisms are often carefully designed. . . . The voice mechanics are often defined by the terms of the contract. . . . Plainly, the procedures through which voice is expected to work [in a contract] are laid out in advance. Again, therefore, calculativeness is implicated in the design of ex post governance (voice).
In TCE, therefore, the “importance of voice is not in the least discredited. Instead, voice is encompassed within the extended calculative perspective” (pp. 255-56).
Simon on Hierarchy
| Nicolai Foss |
I have always been surprised and somewhat disturbed by the tendency in Herbert A Simon’s work to elevate hierarchy and organization over markets. Of course, Simon was a liberal democrat — but he was also a great scientist.
The most visible expression of this tendency is probably Simon’s heavily cited 1991 paper in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, “Organizations and Markets.” Another manifestation of the tendency is Simon’s even more (in fact, much more) famous 1962 paper, “The Architecture of Complexity,” in which hierarchical structure is seen as the master-principle for understanding “the architecture of complexity.”
In an interesting paper, “Hierarchy and History in Simon’s ‘Architecture of Complexity’,” UCLA professor Philip Agre argues that Simon’s paper arose as a critique of general systems theory and its attempt to elevate self-organization over any hierarchical principles. He furthermore sees Simon’s argument as very strongly reflecting the general tenor of the times, what may be called McNamaraism (tellingly, Chandler’s Strategy and Structure was also published in 1962); thus, “… the patterns that Simon discerned became visible within the larger context of the time.”
Nothing New Under the Sun
| Peter Klein |
Back when the “New Economy” was in vogue I enjoyed challenging the claim that the “new” phenomena were really new. Before the internet, there was the telegraph. Before the Yahoo! directory there was the telephone book. Before the personal computer there was electric service, the refrigerator, the washing machine, the telephone, and the VCR. In short, such breathlessly touted phenomena as network effects, the rapid diffusion of technological innovation, and highly valued intangible assets are nothing new.
Now comes an interesting paper in the current issue of Economic History Review by Jochen Streb, Jörg Baten, and Shuxi Yin, “Technological and Geographical Knowledge Spillover in the German Empire 1877-1918.” The authors use patent and geographic data to identify four distinct technological waves during this period, drive by innovation in railways, dyes, chemicals, and electrical engineering, respectively. The general claim is that “inter-industry knowledge spillovers between technologically, economically, and geographically related industries were a major source for innovative activities during German industrialization,” and that “technological change affected the geographical distribution of innovative regions.” A nice application of the modern literature on clusters, innovation, and knowledge spillovers to the recent past. Perhaps Ecclesiastes was right after all.
14 September 2006 at 10:44 am Peter G. Klein Leave a comment
Economics and Sociology: Gains from Trade?
| Peter Klein |
Indiana University’s Fabio Rojas, who blogs at orgtheory.net, has an interesting paper, “Economics and Sociology: What are the Gains of Trade?,” forthcoming in Geoff Hodgson’s Journal of Institutional Economics. A review and critique of contemporary economic sociology, the paper points out that “research findings and theoretical developments [in economic sociology] are rarely reconciled or integrated with economic research.” Moreover, the critics tend to deal with a stylized, and rather stale, caricature of neoclassical economics, rather than the best work in modern organizational economics, Austrian or evolutionary economics, or the newer strand of behavioral research (a point made repeatedly on these pages). A good read.
14 September 2006 at 12:30 am Peter G. Klein Leave a comment
Empirical Work on Modularity
| Nicolai Foss |
Modularity has now been on the agenda of strategic management, organizational theory, and technology studies scholars for more than a decade. One of the first (perhaps the first) discussions of modularity in strategic management is the 1996 Strategic Management Journal paper by Ron Sanchez and former O&M guest blogger Joe Mahoney (“Modularity, Flexibility, and Knowledge Management in Product Organization Design”). This paper was largely theoretical.
However, four years earlier another former O&M guest blogger, Dick Langlois, published a paper in Research Policy (“Networks and Innovation in a Modular System,” with Paul Robertson) that remains among the most downloaded RP papers ever. The empirical basis for this paper was case studies of the micro computer and stereo component industries.
Since these two pioneer contributions, much work has been done on modularity, and much of it with an empirical orientation. However, the kind of empirical approach that is dominant in management — quantitative, cross-sectional work — has been very slow in being applied to issues of modularity. (more…)
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