What firms do? Coordination, identity, and learning

What firms do? Coordination, identity, and learning
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DOI:
10.1287/orsc.7.5.502
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发表时间:
1996-09-01
影响因子:
4.1
通讯作者:
Zander, U
Zander, U
中科院分区:
管理学2区
文献类型:
--
作者:
Kogut, B;Zander, U

文献摘要

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企业是代表协调和学习的社会知识的组织。但是,为什么它们的边界要划定其成员的知识和能力的数量变化?知识不应该也存在于相互作用的企业网络中吗?这一系列的问题提出了一个挑战,即提出一个替代“企业理论”的观点,这个理论已经从赛斯早期对企业行为的处理转移到对所有权、激励和自我利益的关注。我们回到赛斯最初的洞察力,了解人力资源管理的成本和收益,但基于一个观点,即个人的特点是一个“非社会性的社会性。是机会主义的感知产生了将市场交易整合到fimi中的需要,还是公司的边界导致了机会主义的归属?这种自我利益和渴望归属之间的基本二分法是企业在解决一个根本困境时优于市场的行为基础:生产力随着劳动分工而增长,但专业化增加了沟通和协调的成本。当身份导致支持协调和沟通的社会知识时,企业的知识具有超过市场交易的经济价值。通过识别,程序规则被学习,协调和沟通促进了不同专业能力的个人和团体。企业不同于市场,因为协调、沟通和学习不仅在物理上位于本地,而且在心理上位于同一性。由于身份意味着一种道德秩序以及排斥规则,因此依赖公司进行交换而不是市场交换是有限制和成本的。这些成本并不一定是传统上分配给层级收益递减类别的成本。例如,身份意味着某些做法和业务可能在概念上相互不一致。程序正义的规范,确定与一个公司意味着,并不是所有的技术上可行的补充是允许在一个共同的身份的逻辑。因此,身份的成本抵消了利益。由于组成一个组织的元素的集合受到一致性的要求,身份排除了潜在的有趣的途径创新和creatives.We说明这些想法,通过返回到原来的囚徒困境游戏和分析的一致性的公司作为一个搜索的补充,是符合规范的程序正义。我们认为,潜在的动态囚徒困境游戏揭示了问题的协调,沟通和冲突的规范正义时,球员被剥夺了社会知识和共享的身份。同样,确定一个企业的一致性,是出于对其活动的“分类”中道德和概念一致性的要求,而不是技术上的必要性。这些想法是通过高绩效工作系统中的逻辑互补的实证检验来说明的。
Firms are organizations that represent social knowledge of coordination and learning. But why should their boundaries demarcate quantitative shifts in the knowledge and capability of their members? Should not knowledge reside also in a network of interacting firms?This line of questioning presents the challenge to state an alternative view to the ''theory of the firm,'' a theory that has moved from Cease's early treatment of what firms do to a concern with ownership, incentives, and self-interest. We return to Cease's original insight in understanding the cost and benefits of a hrm but based on a view that individuals are characterized by an ''unsocial sociality.'' Does the perception of opportunism generate the need to integrate market transactions into the fimi, or do boundaries of the firm lead to the attribution of opportunism?This basic dichotomy between self-interest and the longing to belong is the behavioral underpinning to the superiority of firms over markets in resolving a fundamental dilemma: productivity grows with the division of labor but specialization increases the costs of communication and coordination The knowledge of the firm has an economic value over market transactions when identity leads to social knowledge that supports coordination and communication. Through identification, procedural rules are learned, and coordination and communication are facilitated across individuals and groups of diverse specialized competence.A firm is distinct from a market because coordination, communication, and learning are situated not only physically in locality, but also mentally in an identity. Since identity implies a moral order as well as rules of exclusion, there are limitations and costs to relying upon a firm for exchange as opposed to the market. These costs are not necessarily those traditionally assigned to the category of decreasing returns to hierarchy. For example, an identity implies that some practices, and business, may be notionally inconsistent with each other. Norms of procedural justice that are identified with a firm imply that not all technically feasible complements are permissible within the logic of a shared identity. There is consequently a cost to an identity that offsets the benefits. Because the assemblage of elements that compose an organization are subject to requirements of consistency, identities rule out potentially interesting avenues of innovation and creativity.We illustrate these ideas by returning to the original prisoners' dilemma game and by an analysis of the coherence of a firm as a search for complements that are consistent with norms of procedural justice. We argue that the underlying dynamic of a prisoners' dilemma game reveals the problems of coordination, communication, and conflicts in norms of justice when players are deprived of social knowledge and shared identity. Similarly, the determination of a firm's coherence arises out of the demand for a moral and notional consistency in the ''categorization'' of its activities, as opposed to a technological necessity. These ideas are illustrated through an empirical examination of logical complements in high performance work systems.