intangibles, innovation, and answering Coase’s questions JC Spender

24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop1

clarification 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop2 increasing objectivity individual - collective construct a discourse able to embrace phenomena of interest theory - practice determinism - agency physical - intellectual increasing subjectivity

historical context disappearance of monopoly value-creation Bohm-Bawerk - ‘roundabout methods’ ownership / control financialization 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop3

intuitions behind ‘intangibles’ ①investor, tax - intangible = accountancy failure - firm not properly valued (q, Stéfano) ② resource - intangible = identify, locate, apply - under- utilized - not properly managed (Skandia) should these solutions converge ? 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop4

intangible asset - possibility 1 collapse intangible into classical notion of asset - make available to conventional accounting and resource allocation decision-making capital human, structural, relational capital - Edvinsson/Malone, Svieby proper accounting and proper management converge saving the mainstream theory deny divergence of interest principal-agent theory managers & employees idiosyncrasy & comparability new theory 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop5

intangibles possibility 2- something not asset-like that is ‘added’ to assets - ‘conceptual company’ Penrose - asset values to the firm are not general intangibles = what cannot be priced until value realized TC + IC TC*IC 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop6

IC might be: firm driven market driven EIF but what is the firm ? 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop7

what is the firm? seller & buyer employer & employee differences bringing together to create economic value that did not exist previously not a rationally designed apparatus of interacting assets process of capturing new economic value by resolving uncertainties about the relationship of TC and IC in practice 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop8

practice data meaning practice 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop9 indexical

indexicality uncertainty innovation - something produced through uncertainty-resolving practice ‘appropriation’ = valuation how to judge result value ex-ante estimate cost - or market valuation management’s judgments - Kozminski matrix (management narrative) 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop10

Coase’s questions why are there firms ? why are their boundaries where they are ? why are their internal arrangements as they are ? why is their performance so varied ? indexical intangibles of tacit knowledge and entrepreneurial judgment and answers to Coase’s questions 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop11

theories of the firm ? OT: bureaucracy, political theory, culture, systems theory, emergent, org routines, etc. micro economic ToFs: bundle of resources, competences, TCE, PAT, property rights, nexus of contracts, etc. Knight’s intuition, uncertainty, judgment value-creation, ethics, humanizing managing as firm-making how does this work ? 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop12 of 11

intangibles as metaphor of ? unpriced asset ? unpriceable ‘asset’ tacit knowledge practice knowledge-absence indexicality - goal & situation 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop13

knowledge-absences & constraint types ignorance indeterminacy incommensurability a-historical 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop14 of 11 making this way of thinking work

synthesizing theorizing with practice opportunity constraints / darts regulations technology norms competition 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop15

constraints judgment constructivist post-practice knowledge what we can imagine but cannot do 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop16 of 11

where are we ? innovation, imagination & practice are indexical what can be said? constraints can be generalized ? place of theory opportunity is unique occupy with practice - that generates innovation the firm as an apparatus for doing this 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop17

harnessing others’ judgment imagination constraints judgment division of judging labor persuasion versus instruction 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop18

language persuasion / rhetoric logos, pathos, ethos leveraging other’s judgment into firm’s value-creating process TMF as set of judgments 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop19 of 11

history of the modern firm division of labor, skill 1580s labor migration, wages, farming, gibbing mode of subordination Reformation/Enlightenm ent secular literacy rhetoric / social clubs 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop20 of 11

24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop21

innovation Knightian uncertainty opportunity space exercise of judgment exploratory practice guiding not determining practice indexicality 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop22

markets and money prices and values 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop23

knowledge s elf-referencing term knowing something presumes not-knowing knowledge-absence impeding your agency action under uncertainty new theory about the firm TMF - theory of the managed firm 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop24

empirical research topics language business model, practice ethics time, history markets - generalize the particular integrated reporting Schumpeter, Austrian economics democratic capitalism, Precariat business education 24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop11 of 11

24-Sept-2013EDEN Workshop26