scholarly journals Integrating variable risk preferences, trust, and transaction cost economics – 25 years on: reflections in memory of Oliver Williamson

Author(s):  
John F. McMackin ◽  
Todd H. Chiles ◽  
Long W. Lam

Abstract In this essay, we honour the memory of Oliver Williamson by reflecting on Chiles and McMackin's 1996 Academy of Management Review article ‘Integrating variable risk preferences, trust, and transaction cost economics’. The article, which built on Williamson's work in transaction cost economics (TCE), went on to attract attention not only from the authors’ home discipline of management and organisation studies, but also from other business disciplines, the professions and the social sciences. After revisiting the article's origins and core arguments, we turn to selectively (re)view TCE's development since 1996 through the lens of this article, focusing on trust, risk and subjective costs. We cover conceptual and empirical developments in each of these areas and reflect on how our review contributes to previous debates concerning trade-offs implicit in relaxing TCE's behavioural assumptions. We conclude by reflecting on key points of learning from our review and possible implications for future research.

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey T. Macher ◽  
Barak D. Richman

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the empirical literature in transaction cost economics (TCE) across multiple social science disciplines and business fields. We show how TCE has branched out from its economic roots to examine empirical phenomena in several other areas. We find TCE is increasingly being applied not only to business-related fields such as accounting, finance, marketing, and organizational theory, but also to areas outside of business including political science, law, public policy, and agriculture and health. With few exceptions, however, the use of TCE reasoning to inform empirical research in these areas is piecemeal. We find that there is considerable support of many of the central tenets of TCE, but we also observe a number of lingering theoretical and empirical issues that need to be addressed. We conclude by discussing the implications of these issues and outlining directions for future theoretical and empirical work.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092096201
Author(s):  
Leandro Rodriguez-Medina ◽  
Hebe Vessuri

Due to the interest in formal relationships at work or to the difficulty to define what personal means, personal bonds in the social sciences have been an understudied topic. Even less has been the interest in connecting such bonds with the internationalization of careers and knowledge. In this article, the authors aim at filling this gap by studying what role personal bonds have played in the internationalization of the social sciences in Latin America. They identify factors that affect personal bonds as well as translations that scholars produce to capitalize on these ties. The most relevant of such translations, academic mobility, has to be interpreted, from a peripheral standpoint, as operating within a logic of leveling, a process that highlights structural asymmetries in the global social sciences. The authors describe both dimensions of this process and, in the concluding section, offer some policy implications and future research directions.


1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nicholson

The Economic and Social Research Council recently published a Report commissioned from a committee chaired by Professor Edwards, a psychiatrist, so that the Council, and the social science community in general, might know what was good and bad in British social sciences, and where the promising future research opportunities lie over the next decade. Boldly called ‘Horizons and Opportunities in the Social Sciences’, the Report condensed the wisdom of social scientists, both British and foreign, and concludes with a broadly but not uncritically favourable picture of the British scene.


This study reviews the recent quantitative and qualitative evidence on the need to develop our natural environments for creative and leisure purposes. Previous studies described the problem of tourism to be a universal one, as virtually all countries are faced with the problem of providing inadequate tourism for their citizens. In Nigeria urban centres the tourism conditions were not properly documented. The study investigated the tourism condition in Lagos, Nigeria. The study observed that tourism condition in the nation is presently not provided for all citizenry. The need of the majority was not considered while some of the existing few are in deplorable condition. Previous literatures reviewed shows that almost 75 percent of tourist centres are for children meaning they lack creative environment. This paper also attempts to discuss in detail the little infrastructural evidences that exists in tourism. Fifteen centres were selected and eight were investigated in this study. The study discuss the consistency of findings across Lagos State, using different methodological approaches with consideration to the major key compares the magnitudes of developing natural environment. The study adopted questionnaire as the tool for the investigation, the tool was randomly administered after which the outcomes were analysed with the use of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, SPSS version 16. Furthermore, aside that personal observation data was also recorded. The study identifies the emerging policy, business opportunity strategy and activities for good governance and better environment. Service provider should be willing to create the inspiration garden in other to have a greater benefits and more patronage. Since most of the centres investigated are static in nature, the study suggested that in the future, research should focus on the analysis of respondent welfare in a dynamic sense.


Author(s):  
Thorsten Gruber ◽  
Alexander E. Reppel ◽  
Isabelle Szmigin ◽  
Rödiger Voss

Laddering is a well-established research technique in the social sciences which provides rich data to help understand means-end considerations otherwise hidden from quantitative research. It does this through revealing relationships between the attributes of individuals, objects or services (i.e., means), the consequences these attributes represent for the respondent, and the values or beliefs that are strengthened or satisfied by the consequences (i.e., ends). This chapter describes how qualitative researchers can successfully apply laddering in an online environment. Through an explanation of the different stages of the online laddering process, the authors hope to encourage researchers to use this technique in their urban planning research projects. To illustrate the benefits of the technique, the authors describe a research study that successfully used the laddering technique in an online environment. The chapter concludes with the discussion of the limitations of using laddering online and suggests avenues for future research.


Author(s):  
Elena Portacolone

This chapter proposes a framework for identifying and recognising precarity based on qualitative research. It begins with a discussion of the context for precarity from the vantage point of the author’s background and broader theoretical influences. Next, challenges associated with recognizing and measuring precarity are presented. The chapter then turns to the methods used to detect precarity in two research studies, with a focus on four markers of precarity: uncertainty; limited access to appropriate services; the importance of maintaining independence, and; cumulative pressures. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the contribution made from the research studies as a means to inform future research.


Economies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Fu-Sheng Tsai ◽  
Chin-Chiung Kuo ◽  
Julia L. Lin

Transaction Cost Economics is one of the most critical theories for business studies, including Franchise research. Knowing this stream of research well can help researchers to ground and sustain their studies on a more solid theoretical foundation. Through a Scientometric literature review via the Search-AppraisaL-Synthesis-Analysis (SALSA) procedures, this paper proposes, investigates and demonstrates the knowledge heterogenization (i.e., the knowledge structure becoming heterogeneous) of literature in the social science domain. Focused on the Transaction Cost Economics application in Franchising research that intersects Economics and Business areas, knowledge heterogenization is found and demonstrated in the following aspects of research stream development: research topics, targeted outlets, empirical (geographical) contexts, analytic approaches, as well as important scholars and publications. However, we did not find heterogenization in terms of the adoption of cross-sectional versus longitudinal research design and quantitative versus qualitative data sources. Implications for the continuous practices and theory development of this research stream are discussed. Mainly, we argue that knowledge heterogenization is an approach for a scientific community to achieve developmental sustainability.


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