Joseph T. Mahoney

• Ph.D. Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
• Chair at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

This article considers the complex process of economic value creation in joint production in which a corporation is viewed as more than a nexus of contracts for four reasons related to the interdependent functions of the corporate personhood concept of the corporation as a separate legal entity. Corporate personhood facilitates stewardship and stak...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

This book is aimed at guiding current and future designers of organizations to approach questions of design and governance from the perspective of efficiency. The ultimate goal is efficiency of the sustainable kind: eliminating the excess, not the essential; nurturing cooperation, not jeopardizing it; mutual value creation, not unmitigated self-int...

Ostensibly, the evolving science of strategic management is geared towards addressing vexing managerial problems. In practice, however, scholars in the field have a marked tendency to formulate problems to fit existing theoretical and methodological frameworks, even at the expense of committing type III errors. While the tendency to do so is often...

Joseph Campbell describes a narrative pattern for a hero's journey. ‘A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from the mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man’ (2008: 30). This paper...

We provide a comprehensive review of the growth of multinational enterprises (MNEs) based on a quarter-century (25 years) of scholarly international business publications. We synthesize research insights on the determinants of the growth of MNEs through the lens of Penrose’s theory of firm growth, which is the most influential theoretical perspecti...

This study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and scientific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn’s (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts fo...

Transaction cost economics (TCE) is one of the most widely referenced organization theories in operations and supply chain management research. Even though TCE is a broadly applicable theory of governance, one of its specific topics of interest—the make‐or‐buy decision—readily aligns with some of the central research questions on how firms manage s...

Purpose Enterprise systems are commonly implemented by firms through outsourcing arrangements with software vendors. However, deriving benefits from these implementations has proved to be a challenge, and a great deal of variation has been observed in the extent of value generated for client and vendor firms. This research examines the role of co-s...

In recent years, strategy scholarship expanded its scope beyond the realm of private firms. Despite notable advances, the field still lacks theoretical and empirical frameworks for fully understanding how public and non‐profit organizations interact with private firms to create and appropriate value. By recognizing the inherent complexity of intera...

Research Summary Shocks, whether they derive from shifts in demand, supply, regulation, or innovation, can create the need for competitive repositioning by industry participants when they disrupt established sources of competitive advantage. Such situations can therefore create a canonical strategic problem: whether, where, and how to (re‐)position...

This paper reviews the state of the art in Productions and Operations Management (POM) academic research regarding outsourcing in supply chain contexts. We first acknowledge the “Theory of the Firm” [ToF], the venerable and vast body of thought regarding where the firm draws the boundary between what it performs in-house and what it outsources. Des...

This article examines the sequencing and timing of firms’ strategic responses after significant industry disruption. We show that it is not the single strategic choice or response per se, but the sequencing and patterns of consecutive strategic responses that drive a firm’s adaptation and survival in the aftermath of a shift in the industry. We fin...

Which components should a manufacturing firm make in-house, which should it co- produce, and which should it outsource? Who should sit on the firm’s board of directors? What is the right balance between debt and equity financing? --- These questions may appear different on the surface, but they are all variations on the same theme: how should a com...

Governance gives life to an organization by establishing the rules that shape organizational action. Structures of governance rest on stakeholder engagement, particularly on how stakeholders assess the prospects for earning a return by committing their specialized resources to the organization. Once formalized, governance structures and processes c...

Research summary We investigate how board directors’ expertise influences post-entry performance of start-ups and diversifying entrants in an emerging market. Empirical analysis based on firms in the U.S. wireless communications service industry from 1983 to 1998 reveals that post-entry growth increases with directors’ post-entry firm-specific boar...

Opportunism is self-interest-seeking with guile and is a troublesome source of behavioural uncertainty (e.g. economic hold-up, adverse selection and moral hazard problems). An important lesson for the purpose of studying economic organization is that transactions, which are subject to ex post opportunism, will benefit if appropriate economic safegu...

Edith Penrose's (1959) classic book, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, made a substantial impact on strategic management research, especially in the context of the resource-based view of the firm, and the ripple effects of her impact continue to unfold today in various disciplines. The book serves as a remarkably rich source of inspiration for...

Edith Penrose's (1959) classic book, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, made a substantial impact on strategic management research, especially in the context of the resource-based view of the firm, and the ripple effects of her impact continue to unfold today in various disciplines. The book serves as a remarkably rich source of inspiration for...

In this Introduction to the Special Topic Forum on Management Theory and Social Welfare, we first provide an overview of the motivation behind the special issue. We then highlight the contributions of the six articles that make up this forum and identify some common themes. We also suggest some reasons why social welfare issues are so difficult to...

We submit that the central managerial messages of transaction cost economics (TCE) have been lost or misconstrued in academic debates that miss the underpinning logic of the theory. Critiques of TCE are often based on narrow and selective interpretations, indeed caricatures. Our goal is to set the record straight by examining TCE's fundamentally co...

This paper elaborates on how the human capital perspective on value creation can be advanced by joining the capabilities and governance approaches. Investments in firmspecific human capital can be an important pathway to building and enhancing a firm's core competencies. Thus, it is vital to build mechanisms and systems that encourage the developme...

Drawing on the Penrosean theory of the growth of the firm, this paper develops a balancing-process approach to explain the motivations and location choices of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). In this approach, FDI is viewed as a means to balance a firm's portfolio of resources and capabilities through utilising resources and capabilities available...

Although some discussions about the interplay between public and private organizations have been presented in the managerial literature in the past few decades, more effective dialogue can spread governance insights cross- disciplinary. The proposed symposium aims to tackle the main questions that concern scholars focused on the intersection betwee...

Each panellist intends to evaluate the power and limitations of words for governance systems from a different point of view and line of argumentation. Ruth Aguilera proposes an examination of the words in corporate governance research, which is rooted predominantly in the context of shareholder-value principles and challenges researchers to explore...

The purpose of this panel symposium is to show why and how context matters, and to draw attention to the benefits of integrating causal mechanisms and context to explain complex organizational phenomena. Our goal is to initiate a new dialogue among various constituents of the Academy of Management by bringing forward new questions and perspectives...

This paper provides three contributions to the extant research literature on collective action problems. First, we join the institutional environment (North, 1990) and governance levels (Williamson, 1996) for explaining collective action problems for both common-pool resources (Gordon, 1954), and club goods (Buchanan, 1965). Second, we develop a ty...

The year 2013 marks the 75th anniversary of the publication of Chester I. Barnard's classic, The Functions of the Executive, a groundbreaking contribution to management theory. We maintain that Barnard's work provides a valuable perspective on the causes and potential solutions to challenges facing capitalism, business, and management consequent to...

This paper examines emergent information systems and technologies and explains under what supply and demand conditions inter-firm modularisation of information-based products and services and subsequent vertical de-integration of organisations is more likely. Research in organisational economics identifies transactional attributes such as coordinat...

“Bad management theories are destroying good management practices” was the title of a seminal paper by Sumantra Ghoshal in 2005, which questioned the way we theorize. After a series of recent crises, the call for good management practice is of even greater relevance. Consequently, theories are needed that stimulate positive narratives for value cre...

This paper shows that market frictions are fundamental building blocks for an organizational economics approach to strategic management. Various organizational economic approaches (transaction costs, property rights, real options, and resource-based) have distinctive focal problems and emphasize different combinations of market frictions. A wider r...

Public organizations are relatively understudied in the strategic entrepreneurship literature. In this article, we submit that public organizations are usefully analyzed as entities that create and capture value in both the private and public sectors and that a capabilities lens sheds important new insights on their behavior. As they try to create...

This paper introduces an attention-based view of idea integration that underscores the importance of information system (IS) user interface design. Presenting ideas via an IS user interface can play an important role in enabling and motivating idea integration in electronic brainstorming systems (EBS), and thus can improve productivity. Building on...

I n the extant vertical integration literature, the question of how a firm's portfolio of outsourced work is managed across suppliers has been relatively understudied. We seek to advance this area of research by examining factors that influence how concentrated the firm's outsourcing is among its set of suppliers. Using data on the outsourcing of p...

Debates on "shareholder" and "stakeholder" approaches to corporate governance often get bogged down in competing normative claims about economic rent streams, entitlements of different group members, fairness, and similar distributional issues. These concerns are important, but core economic issues in shareholder-stakeholder debates revolve around...

This paper addresses modularity as a basis for organizing economic activity. We first define the key concepts of architecture and of modularity as a special form of architecture. We then suggest how modular systems of all types may exhibit several properties of fundamental importance to the organization of economic activities, including greater ada...

An emerging problem-finding and problem-solving approach suggests that management's ability to discover problems to solve, opportunities to seize, and challenges to respond to is vital to organizations. This paper explores the extent to which the problem-finding and problem-solving approach can provide a foundation for joining the capabilities, dyn...

We extend real options research by introducing the concept of collective real options and model how collective real options provide strategic alliances a mechanism to manage social uncertainty. Collective real options manage social uncertainty by producing relational small wins that develop trust. The amount of trust developed by acquiring a collec...

In the extant vertical integration literature, the question of how the firm’s portfolio of outsourced work is managed across suppliers has been relatively understudied. We seek to advance this area of research by examining factors that influence how concentrated the firm’s outsourcing is among its set of suppliers. Using data on the outsourcing of...

An emerging problem−finding and problem−solving approach suggests that management's discovering problems to solve, opportunities to seize, and challenges to respond to, are vital to organizations. This paper explores the extent to which the problem−finding and problem−solving approach can provide a foundation for joining the capabilities, dynamic c...

Despite its intuitive appeal, evidence−based management (EBMgt) faces unique challenges in "macro" areas such as Organization Theory and Strategy Management, which emphasize actions by organizations, and business and corporate leaders. The inherent focus on complex, multi−level and unique problems present serious challenges. EBMgt will nurture the...

This paper examines the impact of location-bound advantage on the internationalization strategy of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The extant research literature suggests that an advantage's location boundedness may be driven by: the nature of the firm advantage; organizational embeddedness, and environmental embeddedness. We posit that these dif...

Discourse is a pervasive tool of management; one might even say that discourse is what managers do. A widespread assumption among managers is that discourse is not only a pervasive tool, but an effective one for precise communication of information, for making decisions, and for enlisting action, essentially a transmission tool. This paper maintain...

This paper examines how public market information relates to the initiation of venture capital projects. Analysis of venture capital investments in the U.S. between 1980 and 2007 indicates that venture capitalists tend to defer new investment projects in target industries with substantial market volatility. This delay effect of market volatility is...

Alfred Chandler's recent passing is cause to review and celebrate his many contributions to business history. It also presents an opportunity to highlight links between his rich historical analyses concerning organizational and industrial innovation and contemporary management studies of the firm and industrial organization. We illustrate this poin...

This paper explores innovation, experimentation, and creativity in the public domain and in the public interest. Researchers in various disciplines have studied public entrepreneur-ship, but there is little work in management and economics on the nature, incentives, constraints, and boundaries of entrepreneurship directed to public ends. We identif...

The vertical integration literature has examined outsourcing decisions mainly to understand the extent to which a firm engages in outsourcing. The question of how the firm's portfolio of outsourced work is managed across suppliers has been relatively understudied. This paper examines factors that influence how outsourced knowledge-based service wor...

States, state agencies, multilateral agencies, and other non-market actors are relatively under-studied in strategic management and organization science. While important contributions to the study of public actors have been made within the agency-theoretic and transaction-cost traditions, there is little research in political economy that builds on...

Chester Barnard was best known as the author of The Functions of the Executive, perhaps the 20thcentury's most influential book on management and leadership. Barnard offers a systems approach to the study of organization, which contains a psychological theory of motivation and behavior, a sociological theory of cooperation and complex inter−depende...

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this paper develops a balancing-process approach to explain the motivations and location choices of foreign direct investment (FDI). In this approach, FDI is viewed as a means to balance a firm's portfolio of resources and capabilities through utilizing foreign strategic factor markets with the ultima...

Knowledge governance joins knowledge management, strategic management, and theories of the firm, and considers how governance mechanisms influence knowledge processes, such as sharing, retaining and creating knowledge. We survey the papers in this volume of the special issue, and discuss future research challenges.