Oliver E. Williamson quotes

Oliver E. Williamson was an American economist renowned for his pioneering work in transaction cost economics. His research transformed the understanding of how organizations and markets function. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to the field. Here are 8 of his quotes:

Because internal organization experiences added bureaucratic costs, the firm is usefully thought as the organization of last resort: try markets, try hybrids (long term contractual relations into which security features have been crafted), and resort to firms when all else fails.

Oliver E. Williamson

For those who, like myself, are inclined to be eclectic, no comprehensive commitment to one approach rather than another needs to be made. What is involved, rather, is the selection of the approach best suited to deal with the problems at hand.

Oliver E. Williamson

Managerial discretion can take many forms, some very subtle. Individual managers may run slack operations; they may pursue subgoals that are at variance with corporate purposes; they can engage in self-dealing.

Oliver E. Williamson

The transaction cost approach maintains that some projects are easy to finance by debt and ought to be financed by debt. These are projects for which physical-asset specificity is low to moderate.

Oliver E. Williamson

Vertical intergration is an organizational response to the contracting difficulties that attend intermediate product markets where trades that are supported by transaction-specific assets are exposed to hazard.

Oliver E. Williamson

The hypothesis that economic organization is the resultant of a series of historic accidents is intructive in that many organizational innovations appear to be the result of trial and error.

Oliver E. Williamson

Teaching can be learning, especially if student curiosity with the question 'What's going on here?' can be elicited.

Oliver E. Williamson