Market Characteristics, Intra-Firm Coordination, and the Choice of Human Resource Management Systems: Evidence from New Japanese Data

This paper explores theoretically and empirically potentially important yet often-neglected linkage between task coordination within the organization and the structure of organization and bundling of HRMPs (Human Resource Management Practices). In so doing, we also provide fresh insights on the interplay between the firm’s technological and output market characteristics and its choice of HRMP system. We begin with constructing a team-theoretic model and derive three task coordination modes: vertical control, horizontal coordination, and hybrid coordination. The model provides rich implications about complementarity involving task coordination modes, HRMPs, training and hiring, and management strategies, and illustrates how such complementarity is affected by the firm’s technological and output market conditions. Guided by the theoretical exploration, we analyze unique data from a new survey of Japanese firms which provide for the first time data on newer forms of HRMPs adopted by Japanese firms (such as cross-functional offline teams and self-managed online teams). One novel finding (which is consistent with the theory) is that the adoption of both self-managed online teams and cross-functional offline teams usually arises in firms with shop-floor committees while the introduction of cross-functional offline teams alone often takes place in firms with joint labor-management committees. We also confirm implications from our theory that firms in more competitive markets are more likely to adopt both types of teams while firms facing more erratic price movement tend not to adopt self-managed online teams.

Robust Management, Risk and the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

Biodiversity has not been a prominent consideration in conventional fishery management, even though biological concerns and the concept of "sustainability" are long-established in fisheries. This is because traditionally, the focus of management has been on determining the harvest of fish that can be taken as a "sustainable yield" and then restricting the catch of fish to within this limit. Typically missing from the analysis have been (1) interactions of fishing with the broader marine ecosystem, and (2) interactions of the fishery with the broader coastal economy and coastal communities. Accordingly, there is a need to move toward a "big picture" perspective, a "Fishery System Approach", in which fisheries are understood and managed in the context of marine ecosystems and coastal human systems, thereby addressing the needs of both biodiversity conservation and integrated management of multiple ocean uses. This paper elaborates on these themes, exploring the duality of the Ecosystem Approach and the Livelihood Approach as means to move toward sustainable, resilient fishery systems, ones in which biodiversity values can be more fully included

The Grip of History and the Scope for Novelty: Some Results and Open Questions on Path Dependence in Economic Processes

-Path dependence, irreversibility, increasing returns, learning, lock-in.

Learning in evolutionary environments

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On the Convergence of Evolutionary and Behavioral Theories of Organizations: A Tentative Roadmap

The behavioral theory of the firm has been acknowledged as one of the most fundamental pillars on which evolutionary theorizing in economics has been built. Nelson and Winter’s 1982 book is pervaded by the philosophy and concepts previously developed by Cyert, March and Simon. On the other hand, some behavioral notions, such as bounded rationality, though isolated from the context, are also at the heart of some economic theories of institutions such as transaction costs economics. In this paper, after briefly reviewing the basic concepts of evolutionary economics, we discuss its implications for the theory of organizations (and business firms in particular), and we suggest that evolutionary theory should coherently embrace an “embeddedness” view of organizations, whereby the latter are not simply efficient solutions to informational problems arising from contract incompleteness and uncertainty, but also shape the “visions of the world”, interaction networks, behavioral patterns and, ultimately, the very identity of the agents. After outlining the basic features of this perspective we analyze its consequences and empirical relevance.

Learning in Evolutionary Environments

The purpose of this work is to present a sort of short selective guide to an enormous and diverse literature on learning processes in economics. We argue that learning is an ubiquitous characteristic of most economic and social systems but it acquires even greater importance in explicitly evolutionary environments where: a) heterogeneous agents systematically display various forms of "bounded rationality"; b) there is a persistent appearance of novelties, both as exogenous shocks and as the result of technological, behavioural and organisational innovations by the agents themselves; c) markets (and other interaction arrangements) perform as selection mechanisms; d) aggregate regularities are primarily emergent properties stemming from out-of-equilibrium interactions. We present, by means of examples, the most important classes of learning models, trying to show their links and differences, and setting them against a sort of ideal framework of "what one would like to understand about learning...". We put a signifiphasis on learning models in their bare-bone formal structure, but we also refer to the (generally richer) non-formal theorising about the same objects. This allows us to provide an easier mapping of a wide and largely unexplored research agenda.Learning, Evolutionary Environments, Economic Theory, Rationality

Adaptation to the International Business Environment: a resource advantage perspective

This paper discusses the importance of the adaptation of the firm to the International Business Environment. Using concepts from the literature on resource advantage, we posit that the firms’ adaptation capability to different International Business Environments is a valuable, difficult to imitate, non-tradeable, rare but not scarce and path dependent resource. We further suggest that adaptation to International Business Environment is a non-substitutable core source of competitive advantage for the multinational enterprises, developed over time through the firms experiences and built into their routines. In line with this argument, some propositions are formulated. We conclude with a broad discussion and suggesting some avenues for future research