Virtual enterprise networks: the fifth element of corporate governance

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 171-188
Author(s):  
Nicholas C. Georgantzas
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
System Dynamics ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Virtual Enterprise ◽  
Dynamics Simulation ◽  
Enterprise Networks ◽  
Market Uncertainty ◽  
Competitive Edge ◽  
Exchange Governance

Although still flying low under the popular business media's collective radar, virtual enterprise networks (or nets) do receive increased attention in the strategic management literature. A virtual enterprise network (VEN) is a system of autonomous firms that collaborate to achieve common business objectives. VENs give participants a competitive edge in markets demanding agility and rapid response. Seen as an emerging transactional exchange governance (TEG) form within transaction cost economics (TCE), VENs and the relations among firms that form them posit challenges for researchers and managers. VENs differ substantially from markets and hierarchies, and from recurrent and relational contracts, utterly changing what it means to be a firm in today's business. This essay explores alternative TEG forms, their characteristics and the criteria that bear on the choice of corporate governance: flexible specialization, market uncertainty, product (good or service) complexity, reliance on trust, risk, self-organization, shared knowledge, and socio-territorial cohesiveness. The essay offers propositions on the relations among economic criteria and the choice of transactional exchange governance forms by exploring the dynamics of a generic TEG structure. This is a system dynamics simulation model that partially offsets the shortcomings of transaction cost economics (TCE) and points to the potentially rich contribution of system dynamics to exploring VENs beyond the ideal-type TEG forms of markets and hierarchies that dominate the TCE literature.

scholarly journals Corporate governance and transaction cost economics: A study of the equity governance structure

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimmy A. Saravia Matus ◽  
Silvia Saravia-Matus
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Firm Valuation ◽  
Managerial Discretion ◽  
Full Analysis ◽  
First Time

This paper extends the Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory of the equity governance structure by introducing a (hitherto absent) full analysis of the key TCE issue of bilateral dependency between the firm and its shareholders. In addition, the paper discusses the implications of the analysis for the topic of corporate governance and firm performance. We find that when bilateral dependency holds contractual hazards are mitigated as predicted by TCE, but that when it does not contractual safeguards are altered to the disadvantage of shareholders and managerial discretion costs increase as reflected by lower firm valuation. Importantly, our study documents for the first time a class of transactions where business relationships persist indefinitely even though transaction costs are not minimized.

From transaction costs to transaction value: Overcoming the frictional paradigm

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-81
Author(s):  
D. P. Frolov
Keyword(s):  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Cost Minimization ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Coase Theorem ◽  
Transactional Analysis ◽  
Transaction Sector ◽  
Transaction Value

The transaction cost economics has accumulated a mass of dogmatic concepts and assertions that have acquired high stability under the influence of path dependence. These include the dogma about transaction costs as frictions, the dogma about the unproductiveness of transactions as a generator of losses, “Stigler—Coase” theorem and the logic of transaction cost minimization, and also the dogma about the priority of institutions providing low-cost transactions. The listed dogmas underlie the prevailing tradition of transactional analysis the frictional paradigm — which, in turn, is the foundation of neo-institutional theory. Therefore, the community of new institutionalists implicitly blocks attempts of a serious revision of this dogmatics. The purpose of the article is to substantiate a post-institutional (alternative to the dominant neo-institutional discourse) value-oriented perspective for the development of transactional studies based on rethinking and combining forgotten theoretical alternatives. Those are Commons’s theory of transactions, Wallis—North’s theory of transaction sector, theory of transaction benefits (T. Sandler, N. Komesar, T. Eggertsson) and Zajac—Olsen’s theory of transaction value. The article provides arguments and examples in favor of broader explanatory possibilities of value-oriented transactional analysis.

Governance of supplier-customer relations: An empirical review

2007 ◽  
Vol 158 (12) ◽  
pp. 406-416
Author(s):  
Jon Bingen Sande
Keyword(s):  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Customer Relations ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Exchange Theory ◽  
Forest Industry ◽  
Relational Contracts ◽  
Relational Exchange ◽  
Exchange Relationships ◽  
Relational Exchange Theory

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.

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