Economic Activity and Institutions

This paper is one of two working papers concerning the waste management sector transition project run from MERIT under the direction of René Kemp. This paper examines some of the numerous meanings and interpretations associated with the words “institution” and “institutions” and the different levels at which the two notions are employed. Institutionalism, institutionalization, institutional change and related terms are discussed followed by an examination of the links between “institutionalism” and the discipline of economics. The analytical, policy and political implications of the institutionalist approach are discussed and ways in which the institutionalist approach may be applied to changes in the economy during transitions are explored.Institutions, Institutional Analysis, Scale, Policy

Epoch, Epistemology and the Virtual Organization

This paper engages with contemporary discussions of ?the virtual organization?. Starting with some influential accounts that were published in the 1990s, the paper highlights the continued significance of control ration alities in the increasingly dispersed and disaggregated organizations of the advanced industrial societies. The paper also takes issue with the ?epochalist? tendency to equate virtuality with the ?end of organization?, and it puts the case for a more historically situated view of technology in ?post bureaucratic? or ?virtualised? organizational settings

Japan's silver market: creating a new industry under uncertainty

It has often been asked whether today´s Japan will be able to move into new and promising industries, or whether it is locked into an innovation system with an inherent inability to give birth to new industries. One argument reasons that the thick institutional complementarities among labour, innovation, and finance among its enterprises and the public sector favour industrial development in sectors of intermediate uncertainty, while it is difficult to move into areas of major uncertainty. In this paper, we present the case of the silver industry or, somewhat more prosaically, the 60+ or even 50+ industry, for which most would agree that Japan has indeed become a lead market and lead producer on the global market. For an institutional economist, the case of the silver industry is particularly interesting, because Japan´s success is based on the cooperation of existing actors, the enterprise and public sector in particular, which helped overcome the information uncertainties and asymmetries involved in the new market by relying on several established mechanisms developed well before. In that sense, Japan´s silver industry presents a case of of what we propose to call successful institutional path activation with the effect of an innovative market creation, instead of the problematic lockin effects that are usually associated with the term path dependence

Mitigations to Reduce the Law of Unintended Consequences for Autonomy and Other Technological Advances

The United Nations states that Earths population is expected to reach just under 10 billion people (9.7) by the year 2050. To meet the demands of 10 billion people, governments, multinational corporations and global leaders are relying on autonomy and technological advances to augment and/or accommodate human efforts to meet the required needs of daily living. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) gene-edited plants and cloning will be utilized to expand human food supply. Biomimetic implants are expected to improve life expectancy with 3D printed body parts. Human functioning will be extended with wearables and cybernetic implants continuing humanitys path toward transhumanism. Families will be strengthened with 3 parent households. Disease will surely be eradicated using the CRISPR-CAS9 genetic engineering revolution to design out undesirable human traits and to design in new capabilities. With autonomous cars, trucks and buses on our roads and on-demand autonomous aircraft delivering pizzas, medical prescriptions and groceries in the air and multi-planet vehicles traversing space, utopia will finally arrive! Or will it? All of these powerful, man-made, technological systems will experience unintended consequences with certainty. Instead of over-reacting with hysteria and fear, we should be seeking answers to the following questions - What skills are required to architect socially-healthy technological systems for 2050? What mindsets should we embody to ameliorate hubris syndrome and to build our future technological systems with deliberation, soberness and social responsibility

The evolution of retail banking services in United Kingdom: a retrospective analysis

The purpose of this paper is to assess the sequence of technological changes occurred in the retail banking sector of the United Kingdom against the emergence of customer services by developing an evolutionary argument. The historical paradigm of Information Technology provides useful insights into the ‘learning opportunities’ that opened the way to endogenous changes in the banking activity such as the reconfiguration of its organizational structure and the diversification of the product line. The central idea of this paper is that innovation never occurs without simultaneous structural change. Thus, a defining property of the banking activity is the diachronic adaptation of formal and informal practices to an evolving technological dimension reflecting the extent to which the diffusion of innovation (re)generates variety of micro level processes and induces industry evolution.Information Technology; Retail Banking; History of Technology; Innovation Systems.

Institutional Theories and Public Institutions.

This chapter covers the evolution of institutional theory and its application to public adminsitrations in the last 20 years. It discusses the various streams, their reseach agendas and their contributions, but also their limits to add value to knowledge.New institutional theories: historical, sociological, "new institutionalism", co-constructed local orders.

Social Software, Groups, and Governance

Formal groups play an important role in the law. Informal groups largely lie outside it. Should the law be more attentive to informal groups? The paper argues that this and related questions are appearing more frequently as a number of computer technologies, which I collect under the heading social software, increase the salience of groups. In turn, that salience raises important questions about both the significance and the benefits of informal groups. The paper suggests that there may be important social benefits associated with informal groups, and that the law should move towards a framework for encouraging and recognizing them. Such a framework may be organized along three dimensions by which groups arise and sustain themselves: regulating places, things, and stories