A Theory of Organizational Form Based on Similarity in Knowledge Capital
2010/11/09
研討會日期 : 2010-11-09
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Shi-Shu Peng
地點 : Conference Room B110
演講者簡介 : Shi-Shu Peng got his Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Berkeley in 2009. He is currently serving as Assistant Research Fellow of the Institute of Economics at Academia Sinica. His research field is in international economics and industrial organization.
演講摘要 : This paper constructs an incomplete contract model to study how the similarity of firms’ knowledge capital affects the choice of organizational forms. Knowledge capital is a broad term including human capital, patents, blueprints, and proprietary knowledge, and marketing assets like trademarks, brand names. My model yields three main results. (1) If two firms are complimentary in two types of knowledge capital (so that one has a higher level in one type of knowledge capital and the other has a higher level in the other), joint venture is the optimal organizational form. This is because giving both firms partial ownership provides sufficient incentives for each of them to maintain the knowledge capital that they have comparative advantage in. (2) If one firm dominates the other, the optimal organization is for the dominant firm to wholly own the integrated company. This creates the highest incentive for the most productive firm to invest on both margins. (3) If two firms are sufficiently similar in both types of knowledge capital, separation is optimal as the benefits of integration are small. Empirical results using data on the integration strategies of Taiwanese multinational firms provide suggestive evidence which is consistent with these predictions.
