Pushing the Boundaries of Williamson’s ‘science of Economic Organization’ - Knowledge and Pluralism Challenges
Abstract: This contribution welcomes Williamson’s invitation to continue to ‘push the boundaries’ of his ‘science of economic organization’, integrating economics, organization and law. The essay reviews the boundary expanding revisions of Williamson’s model (by himself and others) highlighting the issues and areas where the integration with organizational and juridical theories has been more successfully performed, and areas calling for future research. A substantive proposition resulting from this analysis is that if the notion of contract is extended (using law more intensively), and if the notion of the firm is disentangled by that of hierarchy (using organization theory more intensively), the contractarian approach developed by Williamson becomes more robust in explaining and designing also knowledge intensive and pluralist forms of economic organization, and less specific to the vertically integrated and hierarchical industrial enterprises that stimulated its birth.
