48121182

Upload: tudor-carstoiu

Post on 07-Apr-2018

235 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    1/11

    167CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU

    A TRIBUTE TO OLIVER WILLIAMSON:

    Williamsons Impact onthe Theory and Practiceof Management

    David J. Teece

    Although unknown to most CEOs, at least until his recent recogni-

    tion by the Nobel Economics Prize Committee, Oliver William-

    son has had a large impact on management theory and practice.

    There are many organization and strategy questions where his

    research is highly relevant. He has spent much of his career trying to understand

    how things ought to be organized to promote efficiency, minimize manageable

    contractual risk, and achieve profitability. He developed transaction cost eco-

    nomics as a framework to assist in this.

    Williamson has also spent considerable effort in exploring not just theprivate benefits associated with various organizational structures, but the social

    benefits as well. The latter line of inquiry has provided many insights into pub-

    lic policy, where they have had great impact. His insights have been employed

    by antitrust and regulatory agencies around the world. In some countries, his

    work has animated economy-wide reform efforts. The dramatic and successful

    economic reforms in New Zealand during the 1980sespecially in energy and

    telecommunicationshave his fingerprints on them, as he was very influen-

    tial with senior officials in the New Zealand Treasury. That history is described

    elsewhere and will not be repeated here.1

    Key Management Issues

    Williamson has not been writing to a management audience; but thats

    not to say that he hasnt influenced management thinking. Managers often

    dont know it because his work, while accessible to practitioners (the amount

    of mathematical theory is minimal), is unlikely to be read by them because it is

    very general and may not seem to be directly applicable. Nevertheless, leading

    management consultants and scholars have helped propagate his ideas, often

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    2/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU168

    watered down and translated to make them a bit more user friendly to execu-

    tive audiences unfamiliar with the scholarly literature.

    Here is a thumbnail sketch of just a few of the management ideas that are

    part of the collective received wisdom attributable, at least in part, to Oliver E.

    Williamson: the contract logic behind vertical integration, the inherent hazards

    of contractual relationships, and the potential benefits of transforming organiza-

    tional structures.

    The vertical integration of economic activity is not always best understood

    by reference to particular technological benefits associated with performing side-

    by-side activities under one roof. Rather, make-or-buy decisions can better be

    framed, and understood, as contracting issues. Every time an expansion of eco-

    nomic activity is contemplated, Williamson admonishes the analyst/executive

    to ask whether the task is best done internally or outsourced. In Williamsons

    paradigm, the answer depends not just on capabilities and related production

    costs (which he recognizes but doesnt analyze), but mainly on strategic risk

    management factors associated with relying on contracts versus inside-the-firmarrangements.

    Williamson asks us to recognize that contracts are by their very nature

    incompleteone simply cannot think of everything when negotiating and writ-

    ing a contract. Because of that, there is an inherent risk associated with con-

    tracts, particularly when investment in (transaction-specific) physical or human

    capital is involved. Unforeseen contingencies will surely arise. This matters a

    great deal if the parties to the contract dont have other options available to

    them and could be held over a barrel (Williamsons hold-up problem).

    Stated differently, if one of the parties to a contract makes a relationship-

    specific investment in reliance on the promises of the other party, then their

    investmentwhether in physical capital, financial capital, or human capitalis

    in a situation of strategic dependence and

    therefore at risk. Moreover, this dependence

    may not be there at the time the contract is

    entered into; but once investment is made

    in reliance on the other partys continued

    commitment, strategic vulnerability emerges. Williamson called this the funda-

    mental transformationand managers must be careful that they arent blind-

    sided by it.

    Another management idea championed by Williamson is that organiza-

    tions themselves can be the subject of innovation. He showed why the multi-

    divisional form of business organizationwith each division organized as an

    independent profit center (once firms get above a certain size)is desirable asa structure for allocating resources internally. It allowed for better decisions (by

    separating operational and strategic decisions) and reduced managerial discre-

    tion. Organizational form matters, as every executive knows, even if scholars are

    prone to ignore it.2

    More generally, Williamson reminds us that new forms of business orga-

    nization (such as the multidivisional structure introduced in the early twentieth

    David Teece is the Thomas Tusher Professor at

    the Haas School of Business at the University of

    California, Berkeley.

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    3/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU 169

    century) and new business models (such as Dells direct-to-consumer model for

    personal computers) ought be thought of as organizational innovations. Their

    importance is often neglected not only by many professional economists, but

    also by managers. Williamson has been clear that we should think of such orga-

    nizational innovations as great productivity boosters to both the U.S. and globaleconomies. Empirical research supports his predictions.3

    Specific Applications

    The nature of a Laureates contribution is that the insights must be quite

    general to make a contribution to theory. Williamsons work is no exception.

    The framework he developed has come to be known as transactions cost eco-

    nomics (TCE). The natural elegance of this framework is much appreciated by

    scholars; however its less appreciated by executives, some of whom do not rec-

    ognize its practical value. Yet Williamsons theories are very pragmatic. Here, for

    example, are two principles that follow from his work: When investing in anything, always ask whether one should make or

    buy. In assessing the trade-off, one should generally favor buy over

    make unless transaction (relationship) specific investments have to be

    made to enable performance on a contract. Such investments will lead to

    switching costs, and exposure to switching costs should tilt decisions in

    favor of alternative arrangements (if they dont suffer from other prob-

    lems.)

    Its not just desirable but probably necessary to outsource commodity

    items. Williamson gives meaning to what a commodity is (for purposes

    of making outsourcing decisions). If there arent switching costs now and

    in the future, then the manager is probably looking at a commodity item

    that should be sourced externally if competitive conditions exist.4

    Others have taken Williamsons ideas and applied them to particular

    industrial contexts. For instance, my own work on Profiting from Innovation

    found great utility in Williamsons contracting framework as a guide to helping

    innovators decide what complementary assets they should own in order to not

    just be able to commercialize an innovation, but to do so profitably.5 The con-

    tracting framework Williamson developed enabled me to build a model that

    both guides management and predicts how available profits will be shared.

    Britains EMI, for instance, derived minimal profit from its development of the

    CT-Scannerthe greatest innovation in radiology since x-raysbecause of its

    failure to line up the relevant complementary assets. EMI eventually realized

    that it needed a manufacturing capability, which the company tried to buildinternally, but it was too little too late. The insights provided by the Profiting

    from Innovation framework come from the pairing of Williamsons contract-

    ing framework with an understanding of the limits of patents, trade secrets, and

    trademarks as a way to protect the profit streams which successful innovation

    creates.6

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    4/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU170

    Powerful insights into such real-world issues using Williamsons frame-

    work have now been provided by a veritable army of TCE scholars. Williamson

    himself has employed TCE to analyze decisions with respect to the capital struc-

    ture (especially debt and equity) of the business enterprise.7

    At the industry level, TCE has been applied to help understand the orga-

    nization of the automobile, aircraft, petroleum, and semiconductor industries,

    to name a few. Gary Pisano, for example, has applied Williamsons contracting

    framework to the study of the biotech industry, where the most common orga-

    nizational form is an alliance between a young specialist R&D company that

    gives up some degree of control to an established pharmaceutical company that

    provides access to capital and to regulatory, marketing, and distribution know-

    how.8 However, within these parameters there is a great deal of variability. The

    start-ups managers must decide how much control theyre willing to cede and

    whether to integrate into manufacturing or even distributiondecisions where

    the TCE framework has proved useful. For example, many early biotech compa-

    nies, when the industrys technology infrastructure was incomplete, were devel-oping generic technologies (e.g., new inputs for research) that could be widely

    licensed. As drug development efforts began to produce end products, alliances

    became much more relationship-specific, raising the hold-up problem.9 Manage-

    ment of such contracting risks is a vital skill.

    Management Theory

    Williamsons work has influenced theory relevant to deciding where

    management should draw the boundaries of the firm. While this is not the only

    contribution Williamson has made to management theory, it is perhaps the most

    widely appreciated.

    General

    A fundamental question in management theory is when the firm should

    give way to the market and vice versa if long-run profits are to be maximized.

    These organizational or firm boundary questions are absolutely central to the

    field of strategic management. Vertical integration, outsourcing, diversification,

    joint ventures, and divestiture are all fundamentally boundary issues; analysis

    and advice on such issues is the lifeblood of many leading management consult-

    ing firms.

    Before Williamsons development of transaction cost economics, there

    were almost no analytic frameworks in management that addressed these issues

    coherently. This is where TCE first began to affect business practice. Williamsonhad a coherent theory of integration, and hence of outsourcing. Not only did the

    theory have explanatory power with respect to describing the organization of

    firms, but it had normative power as well.10 There is now a very large bound-

    aries literature in the field of strategic management that uses transaction cost

    economics or some variant of it.

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    5/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU 171

    Vertical Integration

    There are a plethora of studies in both industrial organization and strate-

    gic management that draw on transaction cost economics to help explain inte-

    gration questions in particular industrial contexts. The very first industry-specific

    applications of transaction cost reasoning to vertical integration in a specific

    industrial context were in the petroleum industry,11 followed by automobile

    manufacturing,12 and aerospace.13 Other early applications included forward

    integration into selling.14 These initial applications illustrated the power of the

    framework and stimulated a considerable research program and literature.15

    While these applications in the academic literature were sometimes two

    steps removed from what managers and consultants find readily digestible, there

    have been many successful efforts to present the framework in ways useful to

    managers. For instance, a very faithful rendering of the framework (in clear,

    uncluttered managerial language) can be found in Stuckey and White.16

    In recent years, TCE-inspired researchers have looked at the virtual cor-

    poration, exploring the limits of firms rather than the limits of markets.17 Trans-action cost economics has much to say (as do some other approaches) about

    outsourcing.18

    Diversification and the Multinational Firm

    An equally expansive literature has emerged in the TCE tradition around

    the question of diversification. While not explicitly addressed by Williamson

    early on, the transaction cost economics framework can be used to explain lat-

    eral diversification, particularly if explicit attention is given to knowledge assets.

    The first efforts to apply the TCE framework in the context of the diversification

    includes some of my own work from the early 1980s.19 These papers sparked a

    series of related papers, showing not only the opportunities for, but also the lim-

    its of diversification. They also made clear that the identification of economies of

    scope might well be a necessary but certainly not a sufficient reason for diversifi-

    cation to be profit enhancing.

    The beauty of the TCE approach is that it is discriminating. Integration

    and diversification are desirable in some circumstances, but not in others. Prior

    to TCE, there was no discriminating framework in the field of strategic man-

    agement to help examine these issues. TCE helps the manager decide when

    and why. Moreover, transaction cost economics has been extended to embrace

    know-how/intellectual assets and the role of complements.20

    The theory of the multinational enterprise has likewise borrowed heav-

    ily from TCE. The concept of internalization has also become a major synthe-

    sizing and unifying concept. Applied in a pure Coasian way,21 the concept can

    become tautological: firms internalize imperfect markets until the cost of further

    internalization outweighs the benefits. Buckley and Casson were the first to

    lay out the internalization argument in the context of multinational enterprise,

    self-consciously employing TCE.22 Some of my own work has juxtaposed the

    efficiency (TCE) framework against the monopoly (internalization) framework

    and endeavored to provide an integrated framework in which foreign direct

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    6/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU172

    investment is just a special case of vertical integration, or horizontal expansion

    to exploit difficult-to-trade knowledge assets.23

    Alliances and Cooperation

    Williamson has expanded his analysis beyond the markets and hierar-

    chies dichotomy to include hybrid forms of organizationlong-term contracts,

    franchises, alliances, and so forth.24 Hybrid firms of economic organization,

    especially strategic alliances, have generated tremendous interest in recent years.

    This is in part because of the ubiquity of the phenomena since at least since the

    late 1970s.25 The drivers of alliance formation were seen to be (at least in the

    context of innovation) transaction costs, appropriability, and access/location

    issues.

    There is no doubt that TCE is a useful element for the study of alliances

    and hybrid forms. However, asset specificity can only go so far in explaining the

    nature and structure of alliances. An important strand in the alliances literature

    looks at the central role of innovation and the need for cooperation to assistfirms not only to develop, but also to commercialize innovation. Ownership of

    the right complementary assets is also seen as significantly affecting the distribu-

    tion of the rents from innovation. Hence, internalization is not only a mecha-

    nism to protect specific assets from re-contracting hazards, it is also a way to

    benefit from asset appreciation.

    Beyond Pure TCE

    As mentioned, asset specificity, by itself, does not carry the day, especially

    when innovation is at issue. Williamson recognizes this, explicitly noting that

    the introduction of innovation plainly complicates the earlier described assign-

    ments of transactions to markets or hierarchies based entirely on an examina-

    tion of their asset specificity qualities.26 Boeing has discovered this to their cost;

    their 787 Dreamliner was more than two years delayed because an ambitious

    initiative to rely heavily on outside suppliers suffered from inadequate capabili-

    ties at some suppliers to develop parts for the new aircraft design combined with

    inadequate oversight by Boeing.

    Williamson accepts that other frameworks, such as capabilities, are

    complementary to his. Firms, for instance, often knowingly enter into asym-

    metric dependency relations with suppliers where building, rather than protect-

    ing, knowledge assets is critical.27 In other cases, asymmetric dependence in

    one contract can be balanced by an offsetting asymmetric dependence in other

    contracts.28

    In short, avoiding the pitfalls of asset specificity is only one part of the

    story. However, it is a very important part.

    In the case of semiconductors, the emergence of fabless (design-only)

    semiconductor firms (and their corollary, semiconductor contract manufacturers,

    known as foundries) would, on its face, seem to contradict TCE reasoning, inas-

    much as for more than two decades the design and fabrication of semiconductor

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    7/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU 173

    devices took place inside the same firm. The fabless chip designer is dependent

    on the foundries it uses because switching costs (including nonrecurring engi-

    neering and delays) are considerable if the design house wants, for any reason,

    to change foundries. However, designer firms seem to live with the potential

    hold-up risk associated with the switching cost because of the cost saving associ-ated with using a virtual fab. The large minimum efficient scale of advanced

    chip manufacturing means that owning a fab is very expensive unless one is

    able to drive sufficient business through ones own fab so as to maintain high

    utilization.

    The procurement hazards identified by Williamsonpredicted to be high

    for the fabless design housecan be mitigated through: multiple contractual

    arrangements;29 spreading the business around (to remind foundries that, in

    the medium run, the customer has choices); and savings in per unit procure-

    ment costs.

    A case in point is Broadcom. Broadcom outsources the manufacture

    of all of its chip designs, but it does so to multiple foundries. This isnt secondsourcing in the traditional sense of breaking a procurement order up, as this

    would dilute Broadcoms purchasing clout. Rather, purchase orders (requests to

    build) for different components are spread around amongst the primary found-

    ries (TSMC, UMC, Chartered, SMIC) approximately according to their market

    shares, thereby creating competitive tension and dampening any incentive that

    might exist for any one supplier to do anything other than offer Broadcom reli-

    able foundry services at very good prices.

    Put differently, while a contracting framework places a needed focus on

    potential contracting problems, it will also help lead towards solutions, and it

    will highlight ameliorating factors. Indeed, the Williamsonian framework has

    always seen transaction costs/contracting problems as just one set of factors

    going into integration decisions; but it is a most important one.

    Epilogue: A Personal Statement

    The selection of Oliver Williamson to receive the 2009 Nobel Laureate in

    economics was a long time in coming, and it is richly deserved. No other econo-

    mist has had such a big impact on my own professional development, and there

    is no other colleague from whom I have learned more and taken more inspira-

    tion through all stages of my career.

    I was most fortunate to be a graduate student at the University of Penn-

    sylvania (hereafter Penn) in economics when Olly was on the faculty. While I

    never took a class from himand he was on leave at the University of Warwickin the UK when I was seeking a thesis advisormy early academic career was

    animated by my great admiration for Ollys work and my eagerness to see it

    empirically verified and applied to real problems in business and public policy.

    Applying and testing the TCE paradigm was my preoccupation for the decade

    1975-1985. Since then I have continued to embrace it, extend it, and apply it in

    my scholarship, teaching, and consulting. There is rarely a problem or an issue

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    8/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU174

    I look at which doesnt sooner or later benefit from the application of some

    insight from Ollys scholarship.

    I am especially proud of two small personal triumphs. First, I had

    the privilege of reading Ollys transformational workMarkets and Hierarchies

    (published in 1975) in 1974 when I was a graduate student at Penn and the

    manuscript was in draft. Olly generously shared a copy with me and asked for

    comments. I returned to his office three days later and reported: This is a great

    book. Why has it taken me four years at Penn to discover a framework that

    addresses deep questions about the business firm and its organization? I also

    declared that the book would lead to Olly winning the Nobel Prize in econom-

    ics, a prediction I kept forcefully making to anyone who would listen. Second, I

    am especially proud that I was able to lead the recruiting effort at Haas to attract

    Olly to UC Berkeley from Yale. We achieved that successfully in 1988, with

    enthusiastic support coming from Business, Economics, and Law. I am not aware

    of another faculty member at UC Berkeley who has successfully earned and

    maintained a three-way appointment involving these departments. This speaksto the intellectual eclecticism of UC Berkeley. It also speaks highly to Ollys inter-

    disciplinary skills. He is also one of the very few leading economists who has

    taken management issues seriously and has been respectful to disciplines outside

    of economics.

    Ollys arrival at UC Berkeley was successfully leveraged into a 25-year

    epoch of great scholarship and intellectual enthusiasm at Haas for the study of

    organizations, strategy, and technology, particularly in the Business and Public

    Policy program. I was pleased to co-advise many of Ollys Ph.D. students who

    went on to be successful scholars in economics, strategic management, and

    organizations. The two decades (1985-2005) saw a great flowering of talent

    and active scholarship on multidisciplinary topics in economics and organiza-

    tion. The Institute for Management, Innovation, and Organization (IMIO) at theHaas School became the linchpin of these efforts. Indeed, Olly came up with the

    name! We all benefited (and continue to benefit) from his active involvement.

    Thank you, Olly.

    Notes

    1. L. Evans, A. Grimes, and B. Wilkinson, with D. Teece, Economic Reform in New Zealand

    1984-95: The Pursuit of Efficiency, Journal of Economic Literature, 34/4 (December 1996):

    1856-1902.

    2. O.E. Williamson, Alfred D. Chandler, Biographical Memoirs, Proceedings of the American

    Philosophical Society, 153/2 (June 2009): 226-227.

    3. H.O. Armour and D.J. Teece, Organizational Structure and Economic Performance: A Test

    of the Multidivisional Hypothesis, The Bell Journal of Economics, 9/1 (Spring 1978): 106-122;D.J. Teece, Internal Organization and Economic Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the

    Profitability of Principal Firms, Journal of Industrial Economics, 30/2 (December 1981): 173-

    199.

    4. Competitive conditions implies that the required production capabilities are ubiquitously

    distributed across suppliers.

    5. D.J. Teece, Profiting from Technological Innovation, Research Policy, 15/6 (December 1986):

    285-305; D.J. Teece, Reflections on Profiting from Innovation, Research Policy, 35/8 (Octo-

    ber 2006): 1131-1146.

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    9/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW VOL. 52, NO. 2 WINTER 2010 CMR.BERKELEY.EDU 175

    6. S.G. Winter, The Logic of Appropriability: From Schumpeter to Arrow to Teece, Research

    Policy, 35/8 (October 2006): 1100-1106.

    7. O.E. Williamson, Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance, Journal of Finance, 43/3

    (July 1988): 567-591.

    8. G.P. Pisano, Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech (Boston, MA:

    Harvard Business School Press, 2006).9. G.P. Pisano, The Governance of Innovation: Vertical Integration and Collaborative Arrange-

    ments in the Biotechnology Industry, Research Policy, 20/3 (June 1991): 237-249,

    10. See K. Monteverde and D.J. Teece, Appropriable Rents and Quasi-Vertical Integration,

    Journal of Law and Economics, 25/2 (October 1982): 321-328.

    11. D.J. Teece, Vertical Integration and Vertical Divestiture in the U.S. Petroleum Industry (Stanford,

    CA: Stanford Institute for Energy Studies, 1976); H.O. Armour and D.J. Teece, Organiza-

    tional Structure and Economic Performance: A Test of the Multidivisional Hypothesis, Bell

    Journal of Economics, 9/1 (Spring 1978): 106-122.

    12. K. Monteverde and D.J. Teece, Supplier Switching Costs and Vertical Integration in the

    Automobile Industry, Bell Journal of Economics, 13/1 (Spring 1982): 206-213; Monteverde

    and Teece (October 1982), op. cit.

    13. S. Masten, The Organization of Production: Evidence from the Aerospace Industry, Journal

    of Law and Economics, 27/2 (October 1984): 403-417.

    14. E. Anderson and D.C. Schmittlein, Integration of the Sales Force: An Empirical Examina-

    tion, RAND Journal of Economics, 15/3 (Autumn 1984): 385-395.15. H.A. Shelanski and P.G. Klein, Empirical Research in Transaction Cost Economics: A

    Review and Assessment, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, 11/2 (October 1995):

    335-361.

    16. J. Stuckey and D. White, When and When Not to Integrate, Sloan Management Review, 34/3

    (Spring 1993): 71-83.

    17. The earlier focus was more on market, not organizational, factors. However, an excellent

    treatment of organizational factors can be found in Williamsons discussion of the limits of

    vertical integration in O.E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implica-

    tions (New York, NY: Free Press, 1975).

    18. Illustrative efforts are H. Chesbrough and D.J. Teece, When Is Virtual Virtuous? Organizing

    for Innovation Harvard Business Review, 74/1 (January/February 1996): 65-73; D.C. Mow-

    ery, J.E. Oxley, and B.S. Silverman, Strategic Alliances and Interfirm Knowledge Transfer,

    Strategic Management Journal, 17 (Winter 1996 Special Issue): 77-91.

    19. The first efforts to show application of the transaction cost economics framework in the con-

    text of the diversification were D.J. Teece Economies of Scope and the Scope of the Enter-

    prise, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1/3 (September 1980): 223-247; D.J.

    Teece, Towards an Economic Theory of the Multiproduct Firm, Journal of Economic Behavior

    and Organization, 3/1 (March 1982): 39-63.

    20. Empirical tests in the transaction cost economics spirit that statistically explain diversifica-

    tion activities include C.E. Helfat, Know-How and Asset Complementarity and Dynamic

    Capability Accumulation: The Case of R&D, Strategic Management Journal, 18/5 (May 1997):

    339-360.

    21. See R.A. Coase, The Nature of the Firm, Economica, 4/16 (November 1937): 386-405.

    22. P.J. Buckley and M. Casson, The Future of the Multinational Enterprise (London: Holms and

    Meier, 1976).

    23. D.J. Teece, Internal Organization and Economic Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the

    Profitability of Principal Firms, Journal of Industrial Economics, 30/2 (December 1981): 173-

    199; Teece (1982), op. cit.; D.J. Teece, Multinational Enterprise, Internal Governance, and

    Industrial Organization,American Economic Review, 75/2 (May 1985): 233-238.

    24. O.E. Williamson, Comparative Economic Organization: The Analysis of Discrete Structural

    Alternatives,Administrative Science Quarterly, 36/2 (June 1991): 269-296.25. Early efforts to employ TCE to explain alliances include Teece (1986), op. cit.; G.P. Pisano,

    M.V. Russo, and D.J. Teece, Joint Ventures and Collaborative Agreements in the Telecom-

    munications Equipment Industry, in D. Mowery, ed., International Collaborative Ventures in

    US Manufacturing (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988), pp. 23-70; G.P. Pisano, W. Shan, and

    D.J. Teece, Joint Ventures and Collaboration in the Biotechnology Industry in D. Mowery,

    ed., International Collaborative Ventures in US Manufacturing (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988),

    pp. 183-222; G.P. Pisano and D.J. Teece, Collaborative Arrangements and Global Technol-

    ogy Strategy: Some Evidence from the Telecommunications Equipment Industry, in R.A.

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    10/11

    A Tribute to Oliver WilliamsonWilliamsons Impact on the Theory and Practice of Management

    Burgelman and R.S. Rosenbloom, eds., Research on Technological Innovation, Management and

    Policy, Volume 4 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1989), pp. 227-256.

    26. O.E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting,

    (New York, NY: Free Press, 1985), p. 143.

    27. A. Shuen, Technology Sourcing and Learning Strategies in the Semiconductor Industry,

    Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.28. J.M. de Figueiredo and D.J. Teece, Mitigating Procurement Hazards in the Context of Inno-

    vation, Industrial and Corporate Change, 5/2 (1996): 537-559.

    29. Ibid.

    Subscribe, renew, and order reprints online at cmr.berkeley.edu

    California Management Review

    University of California F501 Haas School of Business #1900 Berkeley, CA 94720-1900

    (510) 642-7159 fax: (510) 642-1318 e-mail: [email protected] web site: cmr.berkeley.edu

  • 8/4/2019 48121182

    11/11

    Copyright of California Management Review is the property of California Management Review and its content

    may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express

    written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.