scholarly journals Transaction Cost Economics: An Assessment of Empirical Research in the Social Sciences

Author(s):  
Barak D. Richman ◽  
Jeffrey Macher
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.


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.


2007 ◽  
Vol 158 (12) ◽  
pp. 406-416
Author(s):  
Jon Bingen Sande

The forest industry is riddled with exchange relationships. The parties to exchanges may have diverging goals and interests, but still depend upon each other due to non-redeployable specific assets. Formal and relational contracts may be used to deal with the resulting cooperation problems. This paper proposes a framework based on transaction cost economics and relational exchange theory, and examines to what extent empirical research has found formal and relational contracts to deal with three different governance problems. To that end, I review the results from 32 studies in a range of settings. These studies generally support the view that exchanges characterized by high degrees of specific assets should be supported by formal and relational contracts.


Author(s):  
Alex Galeno ◽  
Fagner Torres de França

The article intends to revisit the contribution of the french thinker Edgar Morin (1921-) to the construction of a plural and open method of research in Social Sciences. We will have as theoretical-epistemological basis the sociology of the present, an approach of social phenomena developed by the author during three decades, from the 1940s to the 1970s, constituting the matrix of complex thinking. The present work defends the idea that the central categories of the present sociology, such as phenomenon, crisis and event, as well as the so-called living method of empirical research are still fundamental today in the sense of proposing an opening of the social sciences to phenomena increasingly more complex and multidimensional. This presupposes the researcher's subjective and objective engagement, narrative ability, and sensitivity to grasp revealing detail.


1980 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Froese

AbstractThis essay is a systematic investigation of the problems concerning the measurement of theoretical qualities in the social sciences. If someone wants to measure theoretical qualities like attitudes, intelligence or aggressivity the first and most difficult task is to formulate an operationalisation. To show such operationalisations being correct is the central problem of empirical research. In this essay it is shown that no adequate methods exist to demonstrate operationalisations as true ore false statements. As long as the problem of operationalisation is treated and analysed as a problem of isolated statements it seems to be absolutely unsolvable. The problem of the correctness of operationalisations must be interpreted as the problem of the correctness of the theories in which they are used. Whether an operationalisation is accepted or not depends only on the empiricai success of the theory in which it is contained. This implies that we can only measure theoretical qualities if we have successful theories working with these theoretical qualities.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Donna Starks ◽  
Kerry Taylor-Leech

AbstractIn globalized times, high mobility has complicated the meanings of allegiance to place, creating a need for a critical awareness of place identity. Although place identity has made important contributions to the social sciences, there is little empirical research on how it can be operationalized, or critically interrogated. In response to this need, we analyzed ways that Australian secondary school students responded to the question, “If someone asks you ‘Where are you from?’ how do you answer this question and why?”, and created a basic typology of place formulations to serve as a starting point for interpreting notions of place identity in research, professional and educational settings.


2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Borchert

Max Weber's 1919 lecture Politik als Beruf is still considered a classical text in the social sciences. The reception of the text in the Anglo-Saxon world has been profoundly shaped by the translation provided by Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, first appearing in 1946. Their Politics as a Vocation is more than a vivid transposition of Weber's rather peculiar German rhetoric—it is rendered in a way that suggests a certain interpretation and makes others highly improbable. The present article traces the reception of Weber's text back to certain decisions made by the translators after World War II. It argues that the translation emphasized philosophical and ethical parts of the text at the expense of others that were more geared toward a political sociology of modern politics. Moreover, the adoption of Weber's approach in empirical research was hindered if not foreclosed by a distorted presentation of his key typologies and some central concepts.


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