Markets and Hierarchies in a Cultural Perspective

Abstract

The scope given to cultural phenomena in organizational analysis has been growing but little conceptual integration has taken place. In this paper, a cultural analysis of organizational phenomena is developed using a conceptual framework that throws new light on the Markets and Hierarchies debate. In particular, it is shown that a choice between markets and hierarchies does not reduce to a choice between external and internal transactions. The framework is introduced and developed in sections one and two for the general case and is applied to the modern corporation in section three. The implications of the analysis are discussed in section four.