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Atmosphere, private ordering, and industrial pluralism: Williamson's evolving science of organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2021

Virgile Chassagnon
Virgile Chassagnon*
Affiliation:
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble INP*, CREG, 38000Grenoble, France IREPE Research Institute, Grenoble, France
*
Corresponding author. Email: virgile.chassagnon@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr
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Abstract

The major contribution of Oliver Williamson, who was a 2009 Nobel Prize co-Laureate in economics, consists of proposing a heuristic analysis of governance structures, namely, the firm, the market, and what he will later call the ‘hybrid forms’. This cardinal issue in organizational economics has made it possible to propose rigorous arbitration tools for the famous ‘make or buy’ decisions in modern market economies based on asset specificity and quasi-rents. However, Williamson's work goes far beyond these contributions alone. His contribution is based on a multidisciplinary theoretical background in building the science of organization. This is the important but sometimes neglected aspect of Williamson's work that I wish to highlight in this paper in memory of Williamson in regard to three major pieces on atmosphere (and informal organization), private ordering, and industrial pluralism. In doing so, I also propose reconsidering the different stages of Williamson's evolving science of organization from recent neo-institutional works.

Keywords

Atmosphereindustrial pluralisminformal organizationOliver E. Williamsonprivate orderingscience of organizationB20B40D20L20
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 237 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Millennium Economics Ltd.

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