Suchergebnisse

The problem of sense making is particularly acute when established organizations face a sudden set of changes in their fields. This article offers some conceptual clarification of this issue in several ways in the context of profit-making firms. In these circumstances, managers need to worry about not just competitors but also governments, suppliers, and workers. Because of these complex interdependencies, the process of sense making is accompanied by a search process that may lead managers in directions that are a priori unpredictable. New sets of understandings about how to survive in a market often reflect political compromises between actors that create new cultural conceptions of action. Managers have to sometimes take what systems give in order instead of what they might prefer. The author illustrates these principles in the case of the reorganization of the European defense industry.

Résumé Beaucoup prétendent que l'efficacité des marchés dépend de l'absence d'intervention étatique. Deux exemples fameux de transformation des marchés sont ici considérés dans le cadre des États-Unis : l'émergence de la « valeur actionnaire » comme conception du contrôle des entreprises et la création de la Silicon Valley . Il sera démontré qu'aucun de ces deux phénomènes ne peut être appréhendé hors du contexte socio-politique qui les a fait naître. Le gouvernement américain facilita le mouvement de fusions des années 1980, qui mena au développement de la « valeur actionnaire » comme conception de contrôle, en suspendant les lois antitrust et en réduisant substantiellement l'impôt sur les sociétés. Pour ce qui est de la Silicon Valley , l'État finança la recherche et la formation des ingénieurs, et se fit le principal acheteur de nombreuses innovations technologiques à l'époque de leur mise sur le marché. Il participa également à la création d'Internet et finança la recherche universitaire qui permit le développement de nombreux programmes informatiques nécessaires au fonctionnement d'Internet. Ainsi, l'État et les marchés sont intimement liés. Les entrepreneurs jouent un rôle, bien sûr, mais ils dépendent de l'État qui crée les conditions par lesquelles l'exploitation profitable d'un produit donné devient possible.

Myths of the Market.

It is often argued that markets produce efficient outcomes only if governments and regulators stay out of trying to affect market outcomes. I consider two paradigmatic cases of supposed market innovations in the US : the rise of the shareholder value conception of the firm and the creation of Silicon Valley. I show that neither of these market phenomena can be understood outside of the social and political context that generated them. The US government aided the 1980s merger movement that produced the « shareholder value » conception of firm by suspending the antitrust laws and providing a large tax cut to firms that allowed them to engage in mergers. In the case of Silicon Valley, the government underwrote research, the training of engineers, and was the main consumer for many innovative products at their origin. The government helped create the internet and funded the research of engineers that led to many of the programming breakthroughs that made the internet possible. States and markets are inextricably linked. Entrepreneurs are important, but they rely heavily on states to create the conditions whereby the profitable exploitation of a product is possible.

At the core of the European Union, has been the gradual creation of the "single market" across western Europe. The European Union began as the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and expanded to become the European Economic Community (EEC). The original intent of the ECSC was to stabilize the production of steel across Europe in order to prevent ruinous competition. The EEC formed to expand the activities of the alliance to cooperation in agricultural policies and various industrial policies. The Treaty of Rome which produced the EEC, had the goal of reducing tariffs and other trade barriers, thereby promoting free trade and economic growth. Both Schumann and Monet, the principal intellectual architects of the EEC felt that if the European societies had economies that were more integrated, governments would be less tempted to engage in military activities that would end up in war.

The problem of the role of actors in institutional theory can be addressed in considering a model of institutional entrepreneurship. A sociological posing of this question defines institutional entrepreneurs as actors who have social skills, that is, the ability to motivate cooperation of other actors by providing them with common meanings and identities. The author argues that skill is applied differently across organizational fields that are forming, become stable, and are being transformed. To illustrate some of these principles, the author considers the example of the role of Jacques Delors in the framing of the Single Market Program of the European Union.