organization

An organization is a derivate >actor emerging from the group level. In an organization, some processes of decision-making are transferred to a special group of actors who exert leadership. These positions are contingent in the configuration of the network, that is the network defines a set of positions which can be assigned to an arbitrary actor.

Organizations show informal and formal structures within their boundary and across their boundaries. This means that leadership can never control the entire organization, which gives rise to costs of control and communication. In EE, the latter argument is not fully extended to a >transaction cost theory of the >firm as special kind of organization, because the opportunism problem of leadership is not regarded as the primordial one of organization. Instead, EE emphasizes the problem of knowledge coordination and the role of the organization as carrier of knowledge, as in the firm of technological knowledge, referential as well as non-referential. The >firm as a special kind of organization is viewed as a network to organize production and to coordinate transactions across the boundary of the firm. Hence, firms cannot be reduced to the transaction dimension exclusively.

EE develops hypotheses on the interaction between forms of organization, technological knowledge and market structures. This approach is closely related to the so-called "organizational ecology", which adopts a >population approach in the analysis of organizational evolution. Of particular interest is the relation between individual >life cycles and population structure.

A special kind of organization are political organizations like government. EE holds that similar principles of analysis can be applied here as in the economic context, with a special focus on structures of power.

Basic References

The evolutionary view of organizations is well developed in:
Howard Aldrich, Organizations Evolving, London: Sage, 1999.

For a careful distinction between evolutionary theories of the firm and others see
Nicolai J. Foss, Theories of the Firm: Contractual and Competence Theories, in: Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Vol. 3, S. 127-144, 1993

Semantic Field
networks
technology   organization   group
transaction cost   firm