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Disclaimer. Don't rely on these old notes in lieu of reading the literature, but they can jog your memory. As a grad student long ago, my peers and I collaborated to write and exchange summaries of political science research. I posted them to a wiki-style website. "Wikisum" is now dead but archived here. I cannot vouch for these notes' accuracy, nor can I say who wrote them.
Williamson. 1981. The economics of organization: The transaction cost approach. American Journal of Sociology 87: 548-77.
A somewhat dense analysis of how transaction costs affect organizational decisions. In effect, this is the point: Using a complex structure to govern simple transactions incurs unneeded costs, but using a simple structure to govern a complex transaction invites strain (562). Thus, because there are many types of transactions, there are many types of organizations (568).
Research on similar subjects
Tags
Williamson, Oliver (author) • Economics • Transaction costs • Structuralism • Functionalism • Rational Choice • Institutions • Origins of Institutions • Bounded Rationality
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