IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/mpifgd/216.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The organizational roots of market design failure structural abstraction, the limits of hierarchy, and the California energy crisis of 2000/01

Author

Listed:
  • Rilinger, Georg

Abstract

Economic sociologists have rarely studied organizational reasons why market design processes fail. Drawing on the organizational literature on mistakes and accidents, the paper identifies such reasons for a fatal design decision during the creation of California's first electricity markets. Designers proposed weak oversight structures even though their models called for active and permanent regulatory control. Sellers like Enron could therefore manipulate the market without fear of detection, prolonging the western energy crisis. A process of 'structural abstraction' explains this mistake. Designers were split into three groups that worked in different divisions and relied on local frames to understand the oversight requirements. Each group missed information the others were aware of and arrived at the conclusion that minimal oversight would suffice. Higher levels of the hierarchy should have discovered and resolved these discrepancies. However, these levels considered the issue at a higher level of abstraction. Such structural abstraction made room for ambiguities that obscured the local disagreements.

Suggested Citation

  • Rilinger, Georg, 2021. "The organizational roots of market design failure structural abstraction, the limits of hierarchy, and the California energy crisis of 2000/01," MPIfG Discussion Paper 21/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:216
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/250379/1/1789719216.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Waldinger, 2021. "Targeting In-Kind Transfers through Market Design: A Revealed Preference Analysis of Public Housing Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(8), pages 2660-2696, August.
    2. Paul L. Joskow, 1997. "Restructuring, Competition and Regulatory Reform in the U.S. Electricity Sector," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 119-138, Summer.
    3. Donald Mackenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Post-Print halshs-00149145, HAL.
    4. Callon, Michel, 2009. "Civilizing markets: Carbon trading between in vitro and in vivo experiments," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(3-4), pages 535-548, April.
    5. Songcui Hu & Richard A. Bettis, 2018. "Multiple Organization Goals with Feedback from Shared Technological Task Environments," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 873-889, October.
    6. Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu, 2007. "Introduction to Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics," Introductory Chapters, in: Donald MacKenzie & Fabian Muniesa & Lucia Siu (ed.),Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics, Princeton University Press.
    7. Francesco Guala & Luigi Mittone, 2005. "Experiments in economics: External validity and the robustness of phenomena," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 495-515.
    8. Bilian Ni Sullivan, 2010. "Competition and Beyond: Problems and Attention Allocation in the Organizational Rulemaking Process," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(2), pages 432-450, April.
    9. Garber, Don & Hogan, Willian W. & Ruff, Larry, 1994. "An efficient electricity market: Using a pool to support real competition," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 7(7), pages 48-60, September.
    10. Hitzig, Zoë, 2020. "The normative gap: mechanism design and ideal theories of justice," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 407-434, November.
    11. Wolak, Frank A., 2003. "Diagnosing the California Electricity Crisis," The Electricity Journal, Elsevier, vol. 16(7), pages 11-37.
    12. Nick Oliver & Thomas Calvard & Kristina Potočnik, 2017. "Cognition, Technology, and Organizational Limits: Lessons from the Air France 447 Disaster," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 729-743, August.
    13. Michael G. Jacobides, 2007. "The Inherent Limits of Organizational Structure and the Unfulfilled Role of Hierarchy: Lessons from a Near-War," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 455-477, June.
    14. William Ocasio, 1997. "Towards An Attention‐Based View Of The Firm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 187-206, July.
    15. Karl E. Weick, 1988. "Enacted Sensemaking In Crisis Situations[1]," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 305-317, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shaozeng Zhang, 2017. "From externality in economics to leakage in carbon markets: An anthropological approach to market making," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(1), pages 132-143, January.
    2. Mélodie Cartel & Eva Boxenbaum & Franck Aggeri & Jean-Yves Caneill, 2017. "Policy making as collective bricolage: the role of the electricity sector in the making of the European carbon market," Post-Print hal-01615460, HAL.
    3. Alvial-Palavicino, Carla & Ureta, Sebastián, 2017. "Economizing justice: Turning equity claims into lower energy tariffs in Chile," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 642-647.
    4. Laure Cabantous & Jean-Pascal Gond, 2011. "Rational Decision Making as Performative Praxis: Explaining Rationality's Éternel Retour," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(3), pages 573-586, June.
    5. Sarah Bracking, 2012. "How do Investors Value Environmental Harm/Care? Private Equity Funds, Development Finance Institutions and the Partial Financialization of Nature-based Industries," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(1), pages 271-293, January.
    6. Eva Lövbrand & Johannes Stripple, 2012. "Disrupting the Public–Private Distinction: Excavating the Government of Carbon Markets Post-Copenhagen," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(4), pages 658-674, August.
    7. Torik Holmes & Josi Fernandes & Teea Palo, 2021. "‘Spatio-market practices’: conceptualising the always spatial dimensions of market making practices," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 11(3), pages 316-335, December.
    8. Mélodie Cartel & Eva Boxenbaum & Franck Aggeri & Jean-Yves Caneill, 2017. "Policy making as collective bricolage: the role of the electricity sector in the making of the European carbon market," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-01615460, HAL.
    9. Pucci, Richard & Skærbæk, Peter, 2020. "The co-performation of financial economics in accounting standard-setting: A study of the translation of the expected credit loss model in IFRS 9," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    10. Lilian Muchimba & Alexis Stenfors, 2021. "Beyond LIBOR: Money Markets and the Illusion of Representativeness," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(2), pages 565-573, April.
    11. Leon Wansleben, 2013. "Dreaming with BRICs," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 453-471, November.
    12. Loconto, Allison & Rajão, Raoni, 2020. "Governing by models: Exploring the technopolitics of the (in)visilibities of land," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    13. Aleksandra Kuzior & Aleksy Kwilinski & Ihor Hroznyi, 2021. "The Factorial-Reflexive Approach to Diagnosing the Executors’ and Contractors’ Attitude to Achieving the Objectives by Energy Supplying Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, April.
    14. François-Xavier de Vaujany & Sabine Carton & Carine Dominguez-Perry & Emmanuelle Vaast, 2012. "Performativity and Information Technologies: An inter-organizational perspective," Post-Print halshs-00851315, HAL.
    15. Franck Cochoy & Martin Giraudeau & Liz McFall, 2010. "Performativity, Economics And Politics," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 139-146, July.
    16. Heidi Østbø Haugen, 2018. "The unmaking of a commodity: Intermediation and the entanglement of power cables in Nigeria," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1295-1313, September.
    17. Severin Borenstein & James Bushnell, 2015. "The US Electricity Industry After 20 Years of Restructuring," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 437-463, August.
    18. Benjamin Braun, 2016. "From performativity to political economy: index investing, ETFs and asset manager capitalism," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 257-273, May.
    19. Kristin Asdal & Béatrice Cointe, 2022. "Writing good economics: how texts 'on the move' perform the lab and discipline of experimental economics," Post-Print hal-03429169, HAL.
    20. Kristin Asdal & Béatrice Cointe, 2021. "Experiments in co-modification: a relational take on the becoming of commodities and the making of market value," Post-Print hal-03168937, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:mpifgd:216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mpigfde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.