nep-cbe New Economics Papers
on Cognitive and Behavioural Economics
Issue of 2006‒08‒19
four papers chosen by
Marco Novarese
Universita del Piemonte Orientale
  1. Original and Derived Judgment: An Entrepreneurial Theory of Economic Organization By Kirsten Foss; Nicolai J. Foss; Peter G. Klein
  2. The Emerging Knowledge Governance Approach: Challenges and Characteristics By Nicolai J. Foss
  3. Simulating Knowledge-Generation and -Distribution Processes in Innovation Collaborations and Networks By Andreas Pyka; Nigel Gilbert; Petra Ahrweiler
  4. Asymmetric Information about Rivals’ Types in Standard Auctions: An Experiment By James Andreoni; Yeon-Koo Che; Jinwoo Kim
  1. By: Kirsten Foss; Nicolai J. Foss; Peter G. Klein
    Abstract: Recent work links entrepreneurship to the economic theory of firm using the Knightian concept of entrepreneurship as judgment. When judgment is complementary to other assets, and these assets or their services are traded in well-functioning markets, it makes sense for entrepreneurs to hire labor and own assets. The entrepreneur’s role, then, is to arrange or organize the human and capital assets under his control. We extend this Knightian concept of the firm by developing a theory of delegation under Knightian uncertainty. What we call original judgment belongs exclusively to owners, but owners may delegate a wide range of decision rights to subordinates, who exercise derived judgment. We call these employees “proxy-entrepreneurs,” and ask how the firm’s organizational structure — its formal and informal systems of rewards and punishments, rules for settling disputes and renegotiating agreements, means of evaluating performance, and so on — can be designed to encourage forms of proxy-entrepreneurship that increase firm value while discouraging actions that destroy value. Building on key ideas from the entrepreneurship literature, Austrian economics, and the economic theory of the firm we develop a framework for analyzing the tradeoff between productive and destructive proxy-entrepreneurship. We link this analysis to the employment relation and ownership structure, providing new insights into these and related issues in the economic theory of the firm.
    Keywords: Judgment; entrepreneur; delegation; employment relation; ownership
    JEL: B53 D23 L2
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:06-09&r=cbe
  2. By: Nicolai J. Foss
    Abstract: The “knowledge governance approach” is characterized as a distinctive, emerging approach that cuts across the fields of knowledge management, organisation studies, strategy, and human resource management. Knowledge governance is taken up with how the deployment of governance mechanisms influences knowledge processes, such as sharing, retaining and creating knowledge. It insists on clear micro (behavioural) foundations, adopts an economizing perspective, and examines the links between knowledge-based units of analysis with diverse characteristics and governance mechanisms with diverse capabilities of handling these transactions. Research issues that the knowledge governance approach illuminates are sketched.
    Keywords: Governance; knowledge management; organizational economics
    JEL: L1 L2 M1
    Date: 2006
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aal:abbswp:06-10&r=cbe
  3. By: Andreas Pyka (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics); Nigel Gilbert (School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, United Kingdom); Petra Ahrweiler (Research Center Media and Politics, Institute for Political Science, University of Hamburg, Germany)
    Abstract: An agent-based simulation model representing a theory of the dynamic processes involved in innovation in modern knowledge-based industries is described. The agent-based approach al-lows the representation of heterogeneous agents that have individual and varying stocks of knowledge. The simulation is able to model uncertainty, historical change, effect of failure on the agent population, and agent learning from experience, from individual research and from partners and collaborators. The aim of the simulation exercises is to show that the artificial innovation networks show certain characteristics they share with innovation networks in knowledge intensive industries and which are difficult to be integrated in traditional models of industrial economics.
    Keywords: innovation networks, agent-based modelling, scale free networks
    JEL: O31 O32 L22
    Date: 2006–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0287&r=cbe
  4. By: James Andreoni; Yeon-Koo Che; Jinwoo Kim
    Date: 2006–08–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:321307000000000293&r=cbe
This nep-cbe issue is ©2006 by Marco Novarese. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
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NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.
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