Knowledge, Economic Organization And Property Rights

‘Nicolai J. Foss is without doubt one of the leading business economists in Europe and beyond. However, his writings have been published in many different journals. It is therefore wonderful to have his work collected in one book. A valuable contribution indeed.’
– Bruno S. Frey, University of Zurich, Switzerland

Nicolai Foss, the influential European management scholar presents, in this essential book, sixteen of his most prominent papers. Written from a new institutional and Austrian economics perspective, this book focuses on the knowledge-based view of the firm, economic organization and property rights economics.

The author critically examines notions of routines and capabilities and calls for the use of micro-foundations in management research. He illustrates the need for more emphasis to be placed upon managerial opportunism and other organizational costs, and highlights how concepts of property rights can inform strategic management.

Accompanied by a lively and accessible introduction, this informative volume will invigorate strategic management, organization and international business students and scholars, as well as economists concerned with organization.

Contents:

Introduction

PART I: KNOWLEDGE AND MICRO-FOUNDATIONS
1. Knowledge-based Approaches to the Theory of the Firm: Some Critical Comments

2. Bounded Rationality and Tacit Knowledge in the Organizational Capabilities Approach: An Assessment and a Re-evaluation

3. Strategic Organization: A Field in Search of Micro-foundations

4. The Rhetorical Dimensions of Bounded Rationality: Herbert A. Simon and Organizational Economics

5. Transferring Knowledge in MNCs: The Role of Sources of Subsidiary Knowledge and Organizational Context

6. The Use of Knowledge in Firms

7. Theoretical Isolation in Contract Theory: Suppressing Margins and Entrepreneurship

8. The Emerging Knowledge Governance Approach: Challenges and Characteristics

PART II: ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION
9. Coase vs Hayek: Economic Organization and the Knowledge Economy

10. Selective Intervention and Internal Hybrids: Interpreting and Learning from the Rise and Decline of the Oticon Spaghetti Organization

11. ‘Tying the Manager’s Hands’: Constraining Opportunistic Managerial Intervention’

12. Performance Pay, Delegation and Multitasking under Uncertainty and Innovativeness: An Empirical Investigation

PART III: PROPERTY RIGHTS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
13. Assets, Attributes and Ownership

14. Resources and Transaction Costs: How Property Rights and Economics Furthers the Resource-based View

15. Original and Derived Judgment: An Entrepreneurial Theory of Economic Organization

16. Economic Freedom and Entrepreneurial Activity: Some Cross-country Evidence

Index