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Corporate Culture and the Nature of the Firm

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Transaction Cost Economics and Beyond

Part of the book series: Recent Economic Thought Series ((RETH,volume 48))

Abstract

In part, what sustains transaction cost and, more generally, contractarian approaches to the understanding of the firm is a particular view of social science. It is the reductionist view that phenomena have to be understood by breaking them down conceptually into smaller and smaller constitutive components: it is said that wholes should be explained in terms of their parts. In the social sciences, these injunctions typically take the form of an atomistic ontology and a challengeable methodological individualism (Hodgson, 1988). Yet it has been repeatedly asserted by philosophers, including Popper (e.g., Popper and Eccles, 1977, p. 18), that complete reductionism has never been achieved in any science. At least in economics, it is arguable that complete reductionism is not possible (Hodgson, 1993b; Udéhn, 1987).

This is a dramatically shortened version of the paper presented at a conference in June 1994 in Rotterdam. The author is grateful to Croxson, Dietrich, Dore, Foss. Groenewegen, Joskow, Kerstholt, Kay, Khalil, Loasby Mäki, Nelson, Noorderhaven, Nooteboom, Penrose, Williamson and other colleageus for helpful remarks on earlier drafts of this essay, Further relevant bibliographical references are given in the longer version, produced as University of Cambridge, Judge Institute of Management Studies Working Paper 1993–1994 No. 14.

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Authors
  1. Geoffrey M. Hodgson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, GRASP / Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    John Groenewegen

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© 1996 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Hodgson, G.M. (1996). Corporate Culture and the Nature of the Firm. In: Groenewegen, J. (eds) Transaction Cost Economics and Beyond. Recent Economic Thought Series, vol 48. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1800-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1800-9_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

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