Tesis doctoral de Paula Andrea Cohen Venier
Recent investigations show that new forms of corporate structures are being adopted by firms. Changes in the firm¿s organizational structure and the adoption of flatter organizational forms confirm the increasing relevance of the human capital versus the physical assets (rajan and zingales, 2000). In fact, these changes lead us to think that one possible explanation for these new forms of corporate structures could lie in the need of promoting more cooperation among the participants, both inside and outside the firm. When we refer to the terms inside and outside the firm, we are thinking, on the one hand to the relationships between shareholders and workers. In fact, we are thinking on firms like google, where its organizational structure and its internal rules were determined by the shareholders in such a way that cooperation among workers is one of the most important elements of google¿s corporative structure. Furthermore, the organizational structure has been built with the purpose of allowing employees to interact among them and, in this way, facilitate the creation of new outputs in a cooperative environment were the residual rights of the physical assets may partially belong to the workers. On the other hand, we also refer to the cooperation outside the firm. That is, the relationships among different firms, like upstream-downstream relationships or other forms of intermediate organizations. For example, salas and rialp (2000) analyze different forms of interfirm collaboration from the property right and transaction cost theory point of view. They mention that now firms do not exchange in an anonymous market and they do not merge in a single entity. As a result, the cooperative action is seen as a hybrid that lies in between the market and the vertically integrated firm. They even defined as interfirm collaboration, any non transitory relation among independent companies which involves exchange and/or sharing of resources and capabilities to obtain mutually beneficial outcomes. We will also have this type of collaboration in mind. looking at these new changes inside the firm, where the human capital has an increasing importance and, as a consequence, firms are adopting flatter corporate structures, we wonder if the cooperation among shareholders and workers could help to explain the existence of some firms like google. We are making reference to firms, where even though the employees do not earn the highest salaries they decide, nevertheless, to remain and not reveal the organizational secrets of the firms. Moreover, we want to analyze if the empowerment of workers, as a form of participation in the future benefits of the firm, could motivate workers to not leaving the firm. We think it is both interesting and relevant, to study if the combination of cooperation and empowerment can be used to motivate workers to invest in an optimal way and to remain in the firm. the other important concern in our investigation is the presence of cooperation among firms. Two are the cooperation contexts that motivate our analysis. .On the one hand, we wonder if the cooperation among firms can be used as an alternative solution to the vertical integration where a complete contract cannot be written and specific investments are present. On the other hand, and for a context of advertising, we want to analyze if the cooperation among upstream and downstream firms can achieve cooperative advertising through the application of a biform game model under the same framework. in summary, due to new changes in corporations and their organizational structures, we want to study the cooperation phenomena both, inside and outside the firms. In both cases cooperation will be carried out in different contexts but the presence of specific investment and the contract incompleteness will be assumed in all contexts. In each example, we will revisit the ownership of the physical assets, the boundaries of the firm, the transaction costs and the right to take decisions. we develop three papers in this thesis. Each paper does attempt to make a contribution to the theory of firm, and it proposes cooperation as a key element of our analysis. To carry out the analysis we develop three different models within different organizational structure contexts which are independently motivated. Nevertheless, we apply game theory to model these three contexts. Next, we proceed to explain briefly the main features of the three papers. in the first paper we present a non cooperative game model where cooperation is introduced through an investment in social capital. This social capital allows the interaction among workers and creates social networks where trust, obligations, expectations, knowledgement, information and sanctions could be exchanged (coleman, 1988). In particular, we analyze if the inclusion of an investment in social capital and empowerment will be helpful as mechanisms to motivate workers to invest in an optimal way. We conclude that the inclusion of social capital implies that not only the worker with specific human capital has to be empowered, but also the worker with a general human capital. The reason behind this result is that motivating this worker to invest in social capital also generates a higher investment in human capital. We consider that this result is an important element to take into account by shareholders at the time of taking decisions concerning the corporate structure of the firm. In this way, we show that allowing workers to cooperate through this social capital would increase the total value created in the firm and would motivate workers to invest in human capital in an optimal way. in contrast, in the second paper we develop a game following the cooperative game theory developed by von neumann and morgenstern (1944). In such model we analyze if the cooperation among firms can be used as a different concept of solution from the one provided by vertical integration, when specific investments are present. Furthermore, we present upstream-downstream relationships in an organizational production structure. We explain how cooperation can lead to organizational forms that generate more value. We find that, under cooperation, the total value generated is pareto optimal if they cooperate and distribute the benefits through the shapley value solution. The result of our model is that the bargaining power of the upstream firm is determined by the specificity of the investments and this makes the cooperation among the firms possible, and the upstream-downstream relationship enforceable. In particular, the first best, that maximizes the total welfare, can be achieved. As a result, we propose a different way of treating the upstream-downstream relationship under incomplete contracts and a cooperative framework. The presence of this cooperation should provide an alternative to vertical integration and, therefore, cooperation among different firms could be used, under some circumstances, as an alternative solution to integration. finally, in the third paper, we develop a biform game model. Once again, we analyze upstream-downstream relationships but this time in an organizational distribution structure. We ask ourselves if cooperative advertising can be achieved in this context and, also, if transactions cost will be decreased due to the presence of such cooperation among firms. Once more, we assume a framework of incomplete contracts and specific investments. We show that the combination of the cooperative and non cooperative scenarios in a context of cooperative advertising theory implies that the supplier will share the advertising costs, achieve a pareto optimum solution and generate higher benefits for the whole upstream-downstream chain. We show that if a biform game model with three agents is used to analyze cooperative advertising, the downstream firms will invest in advertising and the upstream (supplier) will share the cost of it. So, although the supplier has more bargaining power, our result is the same as the fully cooperative case in the cooperative advertising theory. We show that the combination of both the cooperative and the non cooperative scenarios in the cooperative advertising implies that the supplier will share the advertising costs despite his bigger bargaining power, achieving a pareto optimum and higher benefits for the whole upstream-downstream chain. as a matter of summary, in this thesis we have shown that promoting cooperation in both, inside and outside the firm can work as a good solution concept when firms are under incomplete contracts and specific investment frameworks. We propose a different way of analyzing the relationships among firms. Moreover, we use the observed cooperation among workers and shareholders to explain the success of some firms like google or others present in the silicon valley. We think the results obtained in this thesis are relevant and robust. However, we are also conscious of some of the limitations our work presents.
Datos académicos de la tesis doctoral «An analysis of cooperation inside and outside firms under incomplete contracts and specific investments«
- Título de la tesis: An analysis of cooperation inside and outside firms under incomplete contracts and specific investments
- Autor: Paula Andrea Cohen Venier
- Universidad: Autónoma de barcelona
- Fecha de lectura de la tesis: 16/10/2009
Dirección y tribunal
- Director de la tesis
- Miguel Angel Garcia Cestona
- Tribunal
- Presidente del tribunal: rafel Crespí cladera
- carmen Galve górriz (vocal)
- (vocal)
- (vocal)