This survey characterizes an emerging research area, sometimes called coordination theory, that focuses on the interdisciplinary study of coordination. Research in this area uses and extends ideas about coordination from disciplines such as computer science, organization theory, operations research, economics, linguistics, and psychology. A key insight of the framework presented here is that coordination can be seen as the process of managing dependencies among activities. Further progress, therefore, should be possible by characterizing different kinds of dependencies and identifying the coordination processes that can be used to manage them. A variety of processes are analyzed from this perspective, and commonalities across disciplines are identified. Processes analyzed include those for managing shared resources, producer/consumer relationships, simultaneity constraints, and tank/subtask dependencies. Section 3 summarizes ways of applying a coordination perspective in three different domains: (1) understanding the effects of information technology on human organizations and markets, (2) designing cooperative work tools, and (3) designing distributed and parallel computer systems. In the final section, elements of a research

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Organizations enter alliances with each other to access critical resources, but they rely on information from the network of prior alliances to determine with whom to cooperate. These new alliances modify the existing network, prompting an endogenous dynamic between organizational action and network structure that drives the emergence of interorganizational networks. Testing these ideas on alliances formed in three industries over nine years, the authors show that the probability of a new alliance between specific organizations increases with their interdependence, but also with their prior mutual alliances, common third parties, and joint centrality in the alliance network. The differentiation of the emerging network structure, however, mitigates the effect of interdependence and enhances the effect of joint centrality on new alliance formation. 3

ABSTRACT: This paper aims to predict consumer acceptance of e-commerce by proposing a set of key drivers for engaging consumers in on-line transactions. The primary constructs for capturing consumer acceptance of e-commerce are intention to transact and on-line transaction behavior. Following the theory of reasoned action (TRA) as applied to a technology-driven environment, technology acceptance model (TAM) variables (perceived usefulness and ease of use) are posited as key drivers of e-commerce acceptance. The practical utility of TAM stems from the fact that e-commerce is technology-driven. The proposed model integrates trust and perceived risk, which are incorporated given the implicit uncertainty of the e-commerce environment. The proposed integration of the hypothesized independent variables is justified by placing all the variables under the nomological TRA structure and proposing their interrelationships. The resulting research model is tested using data from two empirical studies. The first, exploratory study comprises three experiential scenarios with 103 students. The second, confirmatory study uses a sample of 155 on-line consumers. Both studies strongly support the e-commerce acceptance model by validating the proposed hypotheses. The paper discusses the implications for e-commerce theory, research, and practice, and makes several suggestions for future research.

This paper evaluates the importance of “property rights institutions”, which protect citizens against expropriation by the government and powerful elites, and “contracting institutions”, which enable private contracts between citizens. We exploit exogenous variation in both types of institutions driven by colonial history, and document strong firststage relationships between property rights institutions and the determinants of European colonization strategy (settler mortality and population density before colonization), and between contracting institutions and the identity of the colonizing power. Using this instrumental variables approach, we find that property rights institutions have a first-order effect on long-run economic growth, investment, and financial development. Contracting institutions appear to matter only for the form of financial intermediation. A possible explanation for this pattern is that individuals often find ways of altering the terms of their formal and informal contracts to avoid the adverse effects of contracting institutions, but are unable to do so against the risk of expropriation.

Using data from a popular online social network site, this paper explores the relationship between profile structure (namely, which fields are completed) and number of friends, giving designers insight into the importance of the profile and how it works to encourage connections and articulated relationships between users. We describe a theoretical framework that draws on aspects of signaling theory, common ground theory, and transaction costs theory to generate an understanding of why certain profile fields may be more predictive of friendship articulation on the site. Using a dataset consisting of 30,773 Facebook profiles, we determine which profile elements are most likely to predict friendship links and discuss the theoretical and design implications of our findings. Author Keywords social network sites, profile elements, signaling theory,

their helpful suggestions. This paper develops the empirical and theoretical case that differences in economic institutions are the fundamental cause of differences in economic development. We first document the empirical importance of institutions by focusing on two “quasi-natural experiments” in history, the division of Korea into two parts with very different economic institutions and the colonization of much of the world by European powers starting in the fifteenth century. We then develop the basic outline of a framework for thinking about why economic institutions differ across countries. Economic institutions determine the incentives of and the constraints on economic actors, and shape economic outcomes. As such, they are social decisions, chosen for their consequences. Because different groups and individuals typically benefit fromdifferent economic institutions, there is generally aconflict over these social choices, ultimately resolved in favor of groups with greater political power. The distribution of political power in society is in turn determined by political institutions and the distribution of resources. Political institutions allocate de

... of the leaders in the formalist branch of the New Institutional Economics, made the following observation. ”The incentive based transaction costs theory has been made to carry too much of the weight of explanation in the theory of organizations. We expect competing and complementary theories to emerge- theories that are founded on economizing on bounded rationality and that pay more attention to changing technology and to evolutionary considerations. ” This paper argues that such theories are now emerging. We survey and synthesize a developing perspective that we label the ”capabilities ” view. We argue that this view complements incentive-based theory (1) by considering the problems of imperfect knowledge in production as well as in governance and (2) by considering issues not only of incentive alignment but also of qualitative coordination among holders of specialized, distributed, and often tacit knowledge. Also, focusing on capabilities brings to the fore the idea that routines and similar rule-based forms of institutionalized knowledge may be important building blocks of economic organization. As a result, the capabilities approach arguably connects more fully with the New Institutional

Price Premiums and Buyer Behavior Despite the wide use of reputational mechanisms such as eBay’s Feedback Forum to promote trust, empirical evidence has shown conflicting results on whether online feedback mechanisms really induce trust and lead to higher auction prices. This study examines the extent to which trust can be induced by proper feedback mechanisms in electronic markets, and how some risk factors play a role in trust formation. Drawing from economic, sociological, and marketing theories and using data from both an online experiment and an online auction market, we demonstrate that appropriate feedback mechanisms can induce calculus-based credibility trust without repeated interactions between two transacting parties. Trust can mitigate information asymmetry by reducing transaction-specific risks, therefore generating price premiums for reputable sellers. In addition, the research also examines the role that trust plays in mitigating the risks in transactions that involve very expensive products or experience products.

Despite the inherent risk arising from separating buyers and sellers, networked online marketplaces are proliferating. We describe how online auction marketplaces take advantage of institutional structures to build buyer trust in auction sellers, mitigate risk, increase satisfaction, and promote transaction intentions. It is hypothesized, based on institutional trust (Zucker 1986), that buyer trust in auction sellers can be increased, beyond past experience with sellers, through structural assurances, such as buyer-driven certification, auction house escrows, and credit card guarantees. We examined buyer transaction intentions, mediated by trusting beliefs, risk reduction, and satisfaction. The model is tested with 274 buyers in Amazon’s online auction marketplace. The results support the hypotheses, highlighting the importance of institution-based trust in online networks. Implications are discussed. Keywords: Institution-based trust, online auctions, institutional structures, certification, escrows, third-party guarantees