Search Results

This explores the influence IO economics has exerted on the theoretical and methodological frameworks of strategic management research, highlighting the significance of Porter's work in furthering its development. Applying the structure-conduct-performance framework of IO economics, Porter built a foundation for research on competitive dynamics: a description of the forces that determine the nature and level of competition in an industry, as well as suggestions for how to use this information to develop competitive advantage. The chapter shows that strategic management has evolved into a firmly established field in the study of business and organizations, advancing from its ‘humble’ beginnings as the limited content of a capstone general management course in the business school curriculum.

This chapter focuses on structuralist economics that developed in the Harvard school of economic thought. It looks into the works of Joe Bain, Carl Kaysen, Don Turner, and Phil Areeda. It examines the Structure-Conduct-Performance paradigm that dominated antitrust policy in the early decades of the post war era. It also describes the factors that led to the paradigm's collapse under the weight of the rising Chicago school. It investigates the continuing influence of the Harvard school, particularly on merger analysis and the questioning of the capacities of generalist judges and juries to decide complex antitrust matters.

This chapter explains why economics has had such a limited impact on business, and what should be done about it. The economics relevant to business is principally that which deals with markets and the interactions of firms, not the economics that deals with macroeconomic forecasting. Advances in the former have not been well documented, and most people are not aware of their existence. This chapter outlines their scope.

This chapter discusses Lacy's singular and later collaborative efforts with Leslie Labowitz in addressing the politics of rape in the urban stage. The latter was the larger context of Lacy's travels between two of her large-scale projects on making rape visible—Three Weeks in May and In Mourning and in Rage. Media sensationalism, Lacy felt, had obscured the pertinent issues rape. Much of her 1977 artistic dialogues sought to portray rape as that which must be accorded with due respect rather than exploitation. Lacy's efforts had coincided with the rising wave of feminism during the 1970s; and during this period she had begun to “scale up” her artistic works—by first creating “performance structures” where people could listen to each other, then by making these conversations as visible as possible, and finally, by keeping these dialogues focused on action.

The chapter begins by considering various alternative views of competition: Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, who emphasize the antagonistic nature of capitalism and the turbulent character of competitive outcomes; Schumpeter and the Austrians, who treat competition as a process but retain some key neoclassical features; Marxian Monopoly Capital, Imperfect Competition, Kaleckian, and post-Keynesian schools, all of which rely on some version of imperfect competition; and modern Sraffian and classical traditions, which turn back to competition. The second section summarizes the contrasting patterns expected by various schools and compares them to the empirical evidence on pricing behavior, concentration, monopoly power, the ‘structure-performance’ findings from Bain, and the empirical results from Mann, Stigler, Brozen, Demsetz, and Semmler, among others. The evidence is shown to be quite consistent with the notion of real competition.