1st Edition

Epistemic Economics and Organization Forms of Rationality and Governance for a Wiser Economy

By Anna Grandori Copyright 2013
    168 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    168 Pages 4 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book proposes a new approach to economics, management and organization that should help in making economic organization ‘wise’, ‘innovative’ and ‘robust’ in an uncertain and risky world. Although the modern economy and society is ‘knowledge intensive’, Anna Grandori argues that the dominant economic, organizational and behavioural models neglect to a large extent the problem of valid knowledge construction and effective knowledge governance.

    The book integrates inputs from economics and behavioural science with insights from the philosophy of knowledge to define new micro-foundations: neither a calculative, deductive and omniscient ‘rational actor’; nor an experiential, adaptive and biased ‘behavioural actor’; but a knowledgeable and imaginative ‘epistemic actor’.

    The implications for contracts and organizations, sustained also by insights from law, are shown to be far reaching, including a new view of the nature of the firm as an entity-establishing agreement under which to discover uses of resources under uncertainty, and as a democratic institution.

    INDEX Part I. Micro foundations: from bounded to epistemic rationality 1. ‘Models of man’ and the ‘rationality divide’ 2. Savage and Simon revisited: how both ‘maximizing’ and ‘satisficing’ simplify problems 3. Endogeneizing assumptions: contingent rationality 4. The ‘psychology’ versus the ‘logic’ of judgment and discovery 5. The logic of economic discovery: An epistemic decision model Part II. Contracts and the firm beyond transactions: the governance of knowledge and association 1. Contract incompleteness and the rationality divide 2. How both relational contracting and authority relations have limited capacity of governing uncertainty 3. Contracting without knowing 4. Ten theses on the nature of the firm 5. Relations with extant theories of the firm PART III. Organization design beyond comparative assessment: the discovery of forms, and forms for discovery 1. Organization forms and forms of rationality 2. How both markets and hierarchies decompose problems 3. Missing alternatives: non decomposable systems and panarchic governance 4. From ‘discrete institutional alternatives’ to discrete coordination mechanisms 5. Instrumentally and epistemically rational coordination mechanisms 6. Combining mechanisms: complementarity and the design of structural heterogeneity 7. The negotiated discovery of organizational arrangements 8. Properties of robust economic organization in uncertain worlds Conclusion

    Biography

    Anna Grandori is Professor of Business Organization at Bocconi University, Italy.

    'In this thought-provoking book, Anna Grandori takes on fundamental questions regarding our understanding of economic rationality and the governance of institutions in society. In much needed fashion, her inspiring analysis succeeds in providing profound criticism of received wisdom, as well as devising constructive theoretical alternatives. A book little in format, big in conception!'Fredrik Tell, Professor in Management, Linköping University, Sweden