Economic Approaches to Organizations

Why do organizations exist?

What is the relationship between markets and organizations?

When does one perform better than the other?

Find the answers in Economic Approaches to Organizations!

Now in its sixth edition, this text emphasizes the importance of economic perspectives and theories in the study of organisations and management.

It explains in a non-technical way different economic approaches such as behavioural theory of the firm, game theory, agency theory, transaction cost economics, economics of strategy and evolutionary approaches.

This fully updated edition is packed with practical examples from real-world companies, helping you to understand how the concepts relate to economic and organisational problems happening in the world today.

New to this edition:

   Introduction of digital platforms as coordination mechanism and platform organizations as new organizational type. Economic explanation of the business models of Airbnb, Amazon, Google, Uber and similar platform organizations.

   A separate chapter on behavioural economics covering bounds on rationality and self-interest as well as prospect theory.

   An update of the exciting new field of complexity economics focusing on learning and adaptation.

   Three application chapters on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and hybrid forms (for example: joint ventures, business groups and franchising) offered electronically in addition to the material in the book.

This is the ideal textbook for courses on Organisation and Management from an economic perspective. The text can also be used as a supplement to a larger text on Organisation and Management or Strategic Management. Economics students will benefit from a concise introduction to a field that is related, but all too often unexplored.

Sytse Douma is honorary professor of Business Administration at Tilburg University. 

Hein Schreuder was Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Acquisitions at Royal DSM N.V. until 2012. He is a honorary professor of Business Economics at Maastricht University and Board member of the Vlerick Business School in Belgium. He is also chairman of Ecorys, a leading research-based economic consultancy firm in Europe.