Business History as Institutional History

This paper will revisit the intersection of Chandler with Williamson (and the NIE more generally) and attempt to draw lessons from it. I will argue that despite their similar influences, from both the Carnegie School and more generally from the varied currents of post-war managerialism, Chandler and Williamson modeled the corporation quite differently. On the one hand, their disagreement had what I view as a salutary effect the economics of organization by lending the imprimatur of Chandler to the capabilities approach. On the other hand, Chandler’s rejection of the NIE also arguably threw out the Coasean baby with the Williamsonian – or, more precisely, the asset-specificity – bathwater. I attempt to outline a path for post-Chandlerian business history that retains the lessons of Weber and the Carnegie School while adding the lessons of Coase.