Suchergebnisse

Distribution research, both in Europe and in the United States, is fragmented into two seemingly disparate disciplinary orientations: aneconomicapproach and anorganisationalapproach. The former attempts to apply micro‐economic theory and industrial organisation analysis to the study of distribution systems, focusing on horizontal as well as vertical markets. The latter attempts to apply behavioural and organisational concepts and theories to vertical distribution channel phenomena. Typically, economic and organisational studies have made only occasional references to each other, and very little integration has been achieved. Sometimes the two approaches have been in rivalry, economic researchers ignoring organisational variables, and organisational researchers ignoring economic variables.

This paper proposes a contract model of employment relations that integrates insights from economic and sociological perspectives on labor market transactions. The utility of the contract model is illustrated empirically using a large data set on organizations and their employees in U.S. and Japanese manufacturing industries. The results are consistent with many transaction cost and agency theory predictions, though they also indicate the need to supplement these economic theories with sociological explanations based on political, cultural, and other institutional differences.