Oliver Williamson (1991) argued that institutional economics was "vitiated" as it has attached too much importance to spontaneous mechanisms in comparison to intentional governance. As a result, it needs a "symmetrical treatment" of both of them. However, contrary to Williamson's recommendation, Hayekian approaches proliferated in the 1990s. A shared idea by this school of thought was that the increase of information issues in the firm management would necessary lead to withered authority relations and reduction of centralized hierarchy. Unfortunately, Hayekian organizational analysis has left us with two questions unanswered. The first one stems from empirical research. As Richard Langlois (1995) noticed, most firms keep their specific organizational management and do not necessarily merge into the market's spontaneous order or even imitate its way of operating. This fact seems to be partly in contradiction to Friedrich Hayek's theory. Why do firms prefer a centralized coordination device? Why do they still plan and pay expensive wages to their managers if the best equilibrium should be obtained spontaneously by market relations?
展开▼
