When Iron Fist, Visible Hand, and Invisible Hand Meet: Firm-Level Effects of Varying Institutional Environments in China

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Tan ◽  
Shaomin Li ◽  
Jun Xia
Keyword(s):  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Institutional Environments ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Visible Hand

Social Contract versus Invisible Hand

2019 ◽  
pp. 734-763
Author(s):  
Viktor J. Vanberg
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Spontaneous Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
Visible Hand ◽  
The Invisible

The purpose of this chapter is to take a closer look at the relation between the invisible hand paradigm that is at the heart of economists’ theoretical outlook at markets and its “visible hand” counterpart, the social contract paradigm as a theory of government. It is argued that in its generalized interpretation as an individualistic model of organized collective action the social contract paradigm consistently complements the invisible hand paradigm as an individualistic theory of spontaneous social order. What Hayek has referred to as “the two kinds of order,” spontaneous order and corporate order, can thus be accounted for within one coherent individualistic theoretical framework.

The Limits to Specialization: Problem Solving and Coordination in ‘Modular Networks’

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1885-1907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Brusoni
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Distributed Learning ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Modular Products ◽  
Modular Networks ◽  
Visible Hand ◽  
Design Activities

This paper builds upon current research into the organizational implications of ‘modularity’. Advocates of modularity argue that the ‘invisible hand’ of markets is reaching activities previously controlled through the visible hand of hierarchies. This paper argues that there are cognitive limits to the extent of division of labour: what kinds of problems firms solve, and how they solve them, set limits to the extent of division of labour, irrespective of the extent of the market. This paper analyses the cognitive limits to the division of labour, relying on an in-depth case study of engineering design activities. On this basis, it explains why coordinating increasingly specialized bodies of knowledge, and increasingly distributed learning processes, requires the presence of knowledge-integrating firms even in the presence of modular products. Such firms, relying on their wide in-house scientific and technological capabilities, have the ‘authority’ to identify, propose and implement solutions to complex problems. In so doing, they coordinate networks of suppliers of both components and specialized competencies.

scholarly journals Undercomprehension

1989 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Sartori
Keyword(s):  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Good Society ◽  
The World ◽  
Visible Hand ◽  
The Invisible

MY SENSE OF OUR TIME IS OF A GROWING GAP BETWEEN THE good society that we seek and the ways and means of achieving it. As I have put it,Knowledge becomes more and more the problem as politics becomes more and more complicated. The growing complexity of the world of politics . . . results not only from increasing and global interdependencies, but from the very expansion of the sphere of politics. The more the visible hand and political engineering displace the invisible hand of automatic adjustments (and maladjustments), and the more politics enters everywhere, the less we are in control of what we are doing.And my conclusion repeats: ‘We are . . . living above and beyond our intelligence, above our grasp of what we are doing. The more we engage in remaking the body politic, the more I am struck by the uneasy feeling that we are apprentice sorcerers’.

Visible hand or invisible fist?: the new market and choice in the English NHS

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
CALUM PATON
Keyword(s):  
Health Policy ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
New Labour ◽  
Internal Market ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Visible Hand ◽  
The Government ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Pro Choice

Abstract:As England (unlike the rest of the UK) retreads the market route in health policy, it is worth asking two questions. Firstly, is the government right that the ‘new market’ (as it refuses to call it, except in private seminars) is fundamentally different from the 1990s’ internal market which New Labour allegedly abolished in 1997? Secondly, given that the new market is clearly not characterized by the invisible hand, should we characterize it as steered ‘economically’ by a visible (facilitating) hand, on the one hand, or managed ‘politically’ by a fist which would like to remain invisible in order to maintain its power? This article goes on to examine choice in the new NHS with reference to Hirschman (1970), arguing that genuflections to the latter by pro-choice advocates such as Le Grand (2003) are just that – genuflections. Hirschman is used as a taxi by which to reach a desired destination rather than a stimulus to critical reflection, Hirschman-style, upon how ‘exit’, ‘voice’, and particular combinations of ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ may produce perverse outcomes.

scholarly journals Firm-level trust in emerging markets: the moderating effect on the institutional strength- corruption relationship in Mexico and Peru

2018 ◽  
pp. 127-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol M. Sánchez ◽  
Kevin Lehnert
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Linear Regression ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analysis ◽  
Emerging Markets ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Institutional Environments ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Weak Institutions ◽  
Confirmatory Factor

Emerging market firms often face corruption and institutional weakness in their environments. Firm-level trust may help with these challenges. In these countries, firm-level trust may engage employees and reduce pressure on firms from weak institutions and corruption. This is a study of employees of firms in Mexico and Peru, and it measures perceptions of corruption, trust, and institutional strength. Using confirmatory factor analysis and linear regression, the study tests hypotheses that trust moderates the weak institution - perceived corruption relationship. Findings suggest that trust may help employees be productive despite these challenges. Firms that build trust among employees may be better able to confront the challenges of corrupt and uncertain institutional environments.

The Emergence of the Russian Mobile Telecom Market

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valery Yakubovich ◽  
Stanislav Shekshnia
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Cellular Phone ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
Communist State ◽  
Market Formation ◽  
Visible Hand ◽  
Mobile Telecom

This chapter features a case study of the emergence of the cellular phone industry in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These are local stories about how fragments of the old Communist state—in particular traditional telecoms and a military research lab, both of which had highly qualified engineers—mostly successfully reached out to foreign partners to jointly found six new cellular companies. These are the types of stories that Gorbachev promised but too rarely delivered. This chapter confirms the basic message of the previous chapter that “market formation” in post-Communist Russia was not the spontaneous invisible hand of Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek but instead was the visible-hand emergence of business alliances and groups.

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