Transaction cost economics in Scandinavian business administration

This Introduction briefly surveys transaction cost economics and explains its general relevance for business administration. A discussion of the impact of transaction cost economics on Scandinavian work in business administration is offered, after which the contributions to the present Special Issue are introduced.     

Antecedents of vertical integration: Transaction cost economics and resource-based explanations

This article focuses on antecedents of vertical integration. A model of vertical integration derived from transaction cost economics and the resource-based view is tested empirically with data from the mechanical maintenance services market in the hydroelectricity industry. The results show that asset specificity and closeness to present competence are positively related to vertical integration, while tacit knowledge is negatively related to vertical integration. The positive interaction effect between asset specificity and closeness to present competence on vertical integration is also supported, indicating that the decisions on insourcing and outsourcing can benefit from using transaction cost economics and the resource-based view in tandem.     

Transaction cost economics and corporate governance: the case of CEO age and financial stake

Agency theory provides a valuable lens for understanding the role and importance of many varied governance mechanisms. We argue that transaction cost economics (TCE) provides a complementary theoretical lens for studying corporate governance because it illuminates the various contingencies that moderate the importance of alternative governance mechanisms. Using agency theory, we argue and find evidence that the confluence of advancing CEO age and large CEO stock holdings will cause the CEO to become overly risk‐averse. Moreover, we use TCE to more fully explicate the ensuing performance consequences as well as the contextual factors that critically moderate this relationship. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accounting and business economics traditions in the Netherlands

Until the 1970s Dutch accounting theorists generally showed a strong inclination towards the formulation of deductive theories. A set of different disciplines, all related to the problems of the business firm, made up a whole called ‘bedrijfseconomie’ (business economics). The theory of value, which was tantamount to the theory of replacement value, was without doubt the core of ‘bedrijfseconomie’. This paper elaborates on the changes in contents and consequences of this theory of replacement value during the second part of this century. Furthermore three other technical aspects of the accounting part of business economics will also be discussed: social accounting and reporting, translation of foreign currencies, and intangibles, especially goodwill. Since the seventies the construct of ‘bedrijfseconomie’ has fallen apart. Each discipline formerly belonging to it, has independently found its tie-up with the respective international scientific developments. ‘Bedrijfseconomie’ has lost its significance as a comprehensive academic discipline.     

试析企业环境成本

本文对企业环境成本进行了分析和研究,在界定企业环境成本定义的基础上对其作了分类,以期为我国企业环境会计的建立和实施提供借鉴.     

管理会计学视角下的交易成本测量

本文概述了近年来有关交易成本的概念界定及实证研究方面的研究成果,并站在企业这个微观层面对交易成本进行划分,指出交易成本测量在管理会计学分析方面的可行性和价值,强调了从总体测量与效率分析(主要是利用比较的方法)两个角度对交易成本进行分析.     

工程造价管理研究

文章以提高建筑施工企业成本管理水平和施工项目经济效益为目的,对工程项目的成本管理进行了深入研究,并提出了项目成本控制存在的主要问题,可为工程造价管理过程中避免出现不利因素提供参考。     

企业管理新模式:虚拟经营

加入WTO后如何提升企业经营管理水平已成为亟待解决的问题。本文从虚拟经营产生的背景入手 ,指出虚拟经营是适应知识经济时代要求的新型企业管理经营模式 ,对虚拟经营的主要运作方式进行了分析 ,并结合实际案例指出实施虚拟经营的难点以及解决对策     

Accounting and the absence of a business economics tradition in the United Kingdom

Economics was slow to emerge as a distinct academic and professional discipline in the United Kingdom. In the years around 1900, some British universities began to offer degrees in commerce, including accounting. These degrees were influenced by the contemporary emergence of business economics (betriebswirtschaftslehre) in Germany. However, there was no substantive emergence of a body of economic theory relating specifically to the business organization. Later attempts in the 1930s to apply economic argumentation to the problems of business and accounting, in the context of both profit determination and costing, centred around the Department of Business Administration and the Accounting Research Association, based at the London School of Economics. Although the activities of these groups are often viewed in terms of the influence of economics on accounting, there were reverse currents in that accounting notions helped in the formalization of macroeconomic notions such as national income and in the development of social accounting by Richard Stone and others. However, the intervention of the Second World War curtailed this interchange of ideas. In the post-war period, the rapid expansion of accounting as both an academic discipline and a professional practice was accompanied by a greater awareness of economic ideas and concepts. In financial reporting, these had an important influence on the inflation accounting debate of the 1970s and 1980s. In management accounting, economic ideas often operated as criticisms of existing practices. However, both the comparatively underdeveloped application by economists of their theories to business problems and the continuing intellectual barriers between academic and professional accountants made the practical interaction of accounting and economics a sporadic phenomenon.     

Offshore outsourcing of professional services: A transaction cost economics perspective

This research utilizes the framework of transaction cost economics (TCE) to develop an understanding of how firms manage the costs and risks of offshore outsourcing of professional services. This research examines the perspectives of eight organizations through interviews with 10 high-ranking supply management executives. The paper first explores the rationale for offshore outsourcing among the organizations studied. Using the tenants of TCE, this paper postulates that fixed costs of establishing the relationship dominate the variable costs of day-to-day transactions, and that organizations will not offshore outsource areas where there is high perceived degree of unmanageable risk. The paper expands on themes provided by TCE and offers some lessons learned, and guidelines for managing and controlling offshore outsourced services relationships.     

法国、英国的水务管理模式

对水资源等稀缺自然资源的合理利用和有效管理是可持续发展的重要前提.合理利用和有效管理自然资源在很大程度上有赖于相关的法律制度和科学管理模式的构建.欧盟国家以市场为基础,配置以法律和行政的手段,建立了行之有效的水法体系和现代水务管理模式.通过对法国和英国水务管理的实证研究,从立法和管理的角度解析欧盟国家现代水务管理模式,有助于中国城市化进程中现代化的水务管理理念、综合化的水资源管理、市场化的公共服务以及法制化的社会监管等的建立.     

执政经济成本的效益测评

执政是要支付成本的。执政经济成本的高低与执政的业绩有很大联系。“提高执政效率”是党的十六届四中全会《决定》中的一个重要思想。要提高执政效率,就必须考察执政的成本与效益之间的关系,开展对执政的经济成本效益及其测评方法的研究。     

Resolving ethical dilemmas through international human resource management: a transaction cost economics perspective

This paper examines the interaction between cross-cultural variation in ethics and international human resource management. Literature is reviewed that suggests the ethical orientation of a culture can vary based upon whether the culture values collective outcomes or adherence to generally accepted rules, processes, and rights. Drawing on transaction cost economics and social contracts theory, it is suggested that differences in ethics between a multinational organization and its host culture(s) can damage the multinational's reputation, reduce its ethical decision-making capacity, raise its transaction costs, and reduce performance. Theory is developed suggesting the appropriate approach to international human resource management can attenuate these problems.     

浅析企业成本的经济内涵与企业经营业绩评价的内在联系

随着我国经济体制改革的不断深入 ,资本市场日益成熟 ,现代企业成本的经济内涵日益丰富 ,如何确保国有资产的保值增值 ,如何确保广大投资者的合法权益 ,正确真实反映企业经营业绩 ,以促进社会资源的合理配置 ,推动我国经济的可持续发展 ,已成为一个亟待解决的重要课题。本文拟就成本内涵与经营业绩评价的内在联系给予浅析 ,并试图引起广大理论和实践工作者的重视。     

A decomposition of US business sector TFP growth into technical progress and cost efficiency components

A problem with index number methods for computing TFP growth is that during recessions these methods show declines in TFP. This is rather implausible since it implies technological regress. We develop a new method to decompose TFP growth into technical progress and inefficiency arising from the short run fixity of capital and labour, and apply this to new data on the US corporate nonfinancial sector and the noncorporate nonfinancial sector. The analysis sheds light on sources of the productivity growth slowdowns over the period 1960–2014.     

The administration of union business: the role of the Certification Officer

This commentary reports on the role of the Certification Officer in the regulation of trade union internal affairs. Debate concerning the amount of external supervision of the internal affairs of trade unions has been a recurring theme in labour law for many years.     

The production economics of economics production

How is new economic knowledge produced over time? That depends on how the expertise of authors is managed within economic journals. Using data from 41 major economics journals spanning 21 years (1994–2014), we find that both the intensive margin (article length) and extensive margin (article number) of the discipline have been growing. In particular, the extensive margin has outgrown the intensive margin, such that each article produces absolutely more but relatively less knowledge. This pattern is highly consistent with a model of within‐journal specialization. As predicted by the model, the share of an individual article shrinks less in general interest journals and in more prestigious journals, where expertise is less substitutable across topics.     

Transaction organizations and transaction cost analysis: A theoretical investigation of the domain-expansion decisions of firms employing a mediating technology

We use the theory of network externalities in applying transaction cost economics (TCE) to inter-mediator transactions. We propose network specificity as an additional form of asset specificity associated with such transactions. Specifically, we identify and analyze two integration decisions that are distinctive to mediators and that both depend on network specificity: the network integration of nodes and the vertical integration of complement exchange activities. We derive some implications of this for managerial practice, public policy and further research.     

The (un)importance of unemployment fluctuations for the welfare cost of business cycles

This paper studies the cost of business cycles within a real business cycle model with search and matching frictions in the labor market. We endogenously link both the cyclical fluctuations and the mean level of unemployment to the aggregate business cycle risk. The key result of the paper is that business cycles are costly: fluctuations over the cycle induce a higher average unemployment rate since employment is nonlinear in the job-finding rate and the past unemployment rate. We show this analytically for a special case of the model. We then calibrate the model to U.S. data. For the calibrated model, too, business cycles cause higher average unemployment; the welfare cost of business cycles can easily be an order of magnitude larger than Lucas's (1987) estimate. The cost of business cycles is the higher the lower the value of nonemployment is, or, equivalently, the lower is the disutility of work. The ensuing cost of business cycles rises further when workers' skills depreciate during unemployment.     

The history of business administration and management education in the two Germanies - a comparative approach

Most analyses of the evolution of pay strategies in the last decade emphasize the macro–level components of changes, e. g. government policies, the crisis of tripartite negotiation. Yet more than a ‘push’ from the centre, we are witnessing a ‘pull’ from the periphery, the world of companies and management. New pay policies, both collective and individual, seem especially geared towards increase–ing the effectiveness of wages as a means of fostering employee motivation hence leading to a greater relevance of the company level and more differentiation in pay in response to segmented company labour markets.