We study task allocation in multi-agent systems. Task allocation has become a major research topic over the past years [3]. Here, we are particularly interested in allocation of tasks among firms on industrial, interfirm markets. These are traditionally studied using transaction cost economics (TCE). However, as has been widely acknowledged, TCE does not include dynamics of learning, trust and ...

Sixty-five years ago, Ronald Coase (1937) asked what determines whether production will be organized in a firm or through the market, later coined the "make-or-buy" decision. This question was put center stage by Oliver Williamson (1975, 1985) who further developed transaction-costs economics (TCE), arguing that incomplete contracts and specific relationships overshadowed by opportunism, asymme...

make or buy decision is one of the main areas of decision making for managers. transaction cost economics (tce), as an influential economic approach to the theory of the firm, tries to put forward a theoretical framework for this important decision. from tce perspective, the greater the asset specificity, the more the behavioral uncertainty and the more the transaction frequency, the more will ...

According to New Institutional Economics, transactional activities, governance structures, institutions and beliefs and values are related hierarchally. Williamson (2000) formalizes this framework to show that each governing level must be aligned with the adjacent level for transaction costs to be minimized. This framework is applied to the question of balancing costs and access in health care....

This paper presents the results of research conducted to identify factors that influence decisions company management outsource accounting services. A transaction cost economics (TCE) model was used analyse high levels outsourcing tasks in case Montenegro, where, based on our sample, 75.4% companies enter arrangements with bookkeeping agencies or external accountants. With an adaptation Interna...