The New Behaviorism: A Critique of Economics and Organization

1 September 1993

journal article
Published by SAGE Publications in Human Relations

Vol. 46 (9) , 1085-1101
https://doi.org/10.1177/001872679304600905

Abstract

This paper examines the "new institutional economics" approach to organizational analysis. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of the approach, especially in micro analysis, the paper discusses five areas of difficulty: the fundamental concepts of transaction and bounded rationality; the inadequate treatment of power relations; the over-simplified treatment of norms and values; the ahistorical treatment of organizational context; and the problematic status of functional explanations. The paper argues instead for an interest-interdependence approach, building upon the work of Blau and more recently Coleman.

Keywords

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:

Bargaining Power
Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,1992
The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis
Published by University of Chicago Press ,1991
Frameworks of Power
Published by SAGE Publications ,1989
Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness
American Journal of Sociology, 1985
Power: A Radical View
Published by Springer Nature ,1974