IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/intecp/978-1-349-18204-6_7.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Incentive Limits of Firms: A Comparative Institutional Assessment of Bureaucracy

In: Economic Incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver E. Williamson

Abstract

Why can’t a large firm do everything that a collection of small firms can do and more? This is a variant of a question that has been asked many times before but for which an adequate answer has never been devised — to wit, what is responsible for limitations in firm size? Yet another way of putting this same issue is this: why not organize everything in one large firm?

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver E. Williamson, 1986. "The Incentive Limits of Firms: A Comparative Institutional Assessment of Bureaucracy," International Economic Association Series, in: Bela Balassa & Herbert Giersch (ed.), Economic Incentives, chapter 7, pages 204-237, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:intecp:978-1-349-18204-6_7
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18204-6_7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eccles, Robert G., 1981. "The quasifirm in the construction industry," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 335-357, December.
    2. Oliver E. Williamson, 1967. "Hierarchical Control and Optimum Firm Size," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(2), pages 123-123.
    3. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    4. Kirk Monteverde & David J. Teece, 1982. "Supplier Switching Costs and Vertical Integration in the Automobile Industry," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 206-213, Spring.
    5. Riordan, Michael H. & Williamson, Oliver E., 1985. "Asset specificity and economic organization," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 365-378, December.
    6. Buttrick, John, 1952. "The Inside Contract System1," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 205-221, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ufuk Akcigit & Nathan Goldschlag, 2023. "Where Have All the "Creative Talents" Gone? Employment Dynamics of US Inventors," NBER Working Papers 31085, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Cambini Carlo & Filippini Massimo & Piacenza Massimiliano & Vannoni Davide, 2011. "Corporatization and Firm Performance: Evidence from Publicly-Provided Local Utilities," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 191-213, July.
    3. Samuel, Sajay, 2018. "A conceptual framework for teaching management accounting," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 25-34.
    4. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski & Aleksandar B. Todorov, 2024. "Foundations of Contemporary Economics: New Institutional Economics vs. New Economic Sociology – The Granovetter-Williamson Debate," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 37-53.
    5. Birger Wernerfelt, 1988. "Economic Organization of Trading Relationships: Hierarchies and Asset Ownership," Discussion Papers 824, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Kumkar, Lars, 1998. "Privatwirtschaftliche Koordinierungsstrukturen in vertikal strukturierten Industrien: Eine Analyse der Stromwirtschaft auf Grundlage der neuen Institutionenökonomik," Kiel Working Papers 873, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    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. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    2. repec:bla:jomstd:v:47:y:2010:i:s1:p:859-883 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Staffan Canback, 2004. "Diseconomies of scale in large corporations: Theory and empirical analysis," Industrial Organization 0402001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Staffan Canback & Phillip Samouel & David Price, 2003. "Strategy and structure in interaction: What determines the boundaries of the firm?," Industrial Organization 0303003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Mar 2003.
    5. Staffan Canback, 1998. "Managerial diseconomies of scale: Literature survey and hypotheses anchored in transaction cost economics," Industrial Organization 9810001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 04 Oct 2002.
    6. Glenn Hoetker & Anand Swaminathan & Will Mitchell, 2007. "Modularity and the Impact of Buyer-Supplier Relationships on the Survival of Suppliers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(2), pages 178-191, February.
    7. Yvrande-Billon, Anne & Menard, Claude, 2005. "Institutional constraints and organizational changes: the case of the British rail reform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 675-699, April.
    8. Gonzalez-Diaz, Manuel & Arrunada, Benito & Fernandez, Alberto, 2000. "Causes of subcontracting: evidence from panel data on construction firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 167-187, June.
    9. H. R., Ganesha & Aithal, Sreeramana, 2020. "Rational Organizational Structure: For Brick-and-Mortar Lifestyle Retailers in India to Overcome Diseconomies of Scale and Protect Firm’s Sustainability (ROLS-b)," MPRA Paper 102553, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Fan, Joseph P. H., 2000. "Price uncertainty and vertical integration: an examination of petrochemical firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 345-376, December.
    11. Thiele, Veikko, 2007. "The Demand for Tailored Goods and the Theory of the Firm," MPRA Paper 2471, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Swaminathan, Anand & Hoetker, Glenn & Mitchell, Will, 2002. "Network Structure and Business Survival: The Case of U.S. Automobile Component Suppliers," Working Papers 02-0105, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    13. Tang, Shufen & Zheng, Yuqing & Li, Taiping & Zhou, Li, 2021. "The Hold-up Problem in China’s Broiler Industry: Empirical Evidence from Jiangsu Province," 2021 ASAE 10th International Conference (Virtual), January 11-13, Beijing, China 329410, Asian Society of Agricultural Economists (ASAE).
    14. Jain, Amit, 2011. "Connaissance, ressources, concurrence et les frontières de l'entreprise," Economics Thesis from University Paris Dauphine, Paris Dauphine University, number 123456789/6403 edited by Thiétart, Raymond-Alain.
    15. Bucheli, Marcelo & Mahoney, Joseph T. & Vaaler, Paul M., 2007. "Chandler's Living History: The Visible Hand of Vertical Integration in 19th Century America Viewed under a 21st Century Transaction Costs Economics Lens," Working Papers 07-0111, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    16. W. Coles, Jerilyn & Hesterly, William S., 1998. "The impact of firm-specific assets and the interaction of uncertainty: an examination of make or buy decisions in public and private hospitals," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 383-409, August.
    17. Mikko Ketokivi & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2020. "Transaction Cost Economics As a Theory of Supply Chain Efficiency," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 1011-1031, April.
    18. Claude Ménard, 2003. "Économie néo-institutionnelle et politique de la concurrence les cas des formes organisationnelles hybrides," Économie rurale, Programme National Persée, vol. 277(1), pages 45-60.
    19. Shufen Tang & Yuqing Zheng & Taiping Li & Li Zhou, 2021. "The hold‐up problem in China's broiler industry: Empirical evidence from Jiangsu Province," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 69(4), pages 539-554, December.
    20. Woodruff, Christopher, 2002. "Non-contractible investments and vertical integration in the Mexican footwear industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 1197-1224, October.
    21. Rolf Bühner, 1998. "Unternehmensspaltung — Motive und Aktienmarktreaktionen," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 50(9), pages 809-840, September.

    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:pal:intecp:978-1-349-18204-6_7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    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.