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Author: Sachi

  • What is Agency Problem in businesses?

    In the last blog, we looked at some of the issues that happen within the organization, but are not explained by the TCT. In today’s blog we build on this drawback and begin our discussion on “Agency Theory”. 
    Agency Theory has its origin from the property rights literature and to a very small portion on the TCT. Just like TCT, Agency theory also assumes that humans have bounded rationality, are self interested and are prone to opportunism. Both theories emphasize on information asymmetry problems in contracting and on efficiency as the engine that drives the transaction governance. The two differ in that; Agency theory emphasizes the risk attitude of principals and agents.
    When Agency theory originated, the emphasis was on the relation between managers and stockholders. It analyzed the corporate governance issues including – the role of directors, role of top management compensation. This has been extended to explain a numerous intra-organizational conflicts.
    For the sake of clarity – an agency relationship occurs when one partner (the principal) in a transaction delegates authority to another (The agent) and the welfare of the principal is affected by what choices the agent makes. The most common example we see is the relationship of investors in a firm and the mangers of the firm. 
    In the case explained above, the investor delegates the management authority to managers who may or may not have any equity ownership in the firm. The problems that could arise are:

    1. The interest of the two parties diverge
    2. Agent actions cannot be seamlessly and costlessly be monitored
    3. Information available to the principal is not the same as the information available to the agent

    These three together form the agency problem

  • Does TCT really look at what happens within the organization


    In the last blog we looked at the criticism on the Transaction Cost Theory. In today’s blog we focus on a specific drawback in the TCT which has enabled the evolution of different line of thought.

    If we carefully look at TCT we realize that underlying all the discussion is that the organization under consideration is always thought to have a single objective towards which it functions. In reality this is really not the situation, in organizations there is always a possibility of conflicts arising. These goals are generally due to conflicting goals of those associated with the firm. The TCT believes that maximizing profit is the goal, however in reality – these goals within a firm are emerging and change over time and also shifts among organization members.

    TCT though explains why organizations exist, fails when it comes to explaining how those associated with the firm agree on the goals set out to achieve. Just because, the economic exchange partners find it in their mutual self-interest to form an organization doesn’t mean that the differences in interests, tastes, and performances cease.

    This sort of indicated the early departure from the neo-classical firm theories of which TCT was the primary one. Continuing from this blog we look at some theories which tackle this specific challenge of to the theory.

  • Criticism to the Transaction Cost Theory

    In the last blog we looked at TCT being applied to hybrid organizations. In today’s blog we discuss about the criticism to the Theory.
    All is not perfect with any theory, and TCT is no exception. There are 3 major criticisms to the theory
    1. It focuses on Cost Minimization 
    2. It understates the cost of organizing
    3. It neglects the role of social relationship in economic transactions

    There are a set of theories classified under – Resource based theories, which emphasize that organizations would have to make and exploit transaction specific investment under conditions of uncertainty to gain long term competitive advantage. Minimization of transaction cost would have little advantage if transaction specific assets aren’t valued in the market. Hence, it is important to move beyond the perspective that “economy is the best strategy” for an organization.
    When we attempt to do a certain transaction in house, there is no guarantee that this would reduce the negotiations and haggling associated with the transaction. In reality, there is a higher possibility of costly bargaining and influential behavior. Even the authority to resolve such issued could behave opportunistically. Given this situation, TCT underestimates the costs associated with the organizing the transaction within the firm.
    In real life, many transactions are influenced by the expectations that are formed by the history of the relationship between the parties. This indicated that transactions are embedded in the networks of social relationship. It is these relationships that explain the situations like trade between close friends without the presence of any contracts, commitments etc. The TCT neglects the role of social relationships in transactions. 
    TCT is still an evolving field and it is important to note that the criticisms are definitely been evaluated for improvements.

  • Understanding Hybrid Organizations using TCT

    In the last blog we looked at TCT being applied to Multi-National Organization. In the current blog we focus our discussion on a class of organizations which are not completely market based or nor hierarchy based.
    When we look at business environment, we find quite a few organizations which operate on the basis of long term contracts, some which are joint-ventures, a large number of franchisees and some interesting cases of network organization (for example the Japanese auto industry). These organizations are not completely based on markets for their transactions nor are they completely based on an internal hierarchy to handle transactions. These are called – hybrid organizations for the sake of analysis in TCT.
    If we look at the reason for their very existence – it could be pointed to the stronger incentives and adaptive capabilities comparative to the hierarchies while simultaneously offering a greater administrative control comparative to the markets. If the stability of these organizations is considered it wouldn’t be very difficult to realize that the success of these models indicates that they are relatively stable for a considerable period of time. These sorts of hybrid organizations come in with their own set of pros and cons with respect to the issues of opportunism, information asymmetry, knowledge transfer etc. This is a separate subject of discussion not within the purview of today’s blog. 
    With this article, we conclude the discussion on application of TCT; however it would be interesting to just make a mention of some of the other applications which we haven’t discussed. These include the application of TCT to understand 
    • How firms are financed
    • Role of Corporate Governance
    • Influence of Trust on exchanges in a transaction 

    are some of these.

  • Applying TCT to Multinational Enterprises

    In the last blog we looked at an extension of TCT model by Ouchi, in today’s blog we look at the application of TCT to Multinational Enterprises (MNEs).
    The essential search by theorists studying this topic could be reframed – “why do MNE’s exist?” Just like we began discussion on why does an organization exist; TCT was applied on MNEs to figure out which of the transactions would be internalized and which transaction would be driven by market exchange. It is in market imperfections that we find the answers. Markets for different assets and more so for knowledge are subject to imperfections. Research by Organization Theorists – Buckley and Casson as early as 1976 has concluded that markets are more efficient when there are large number of buyers and sellers. When the transaction has high uncertainty, is complex and is heterogeneous, and is catering to a small number of buyers and traders – internationalization is seen to be more effective.
    Continuing on this initial work, Teece (in 1986) attempted to determine the boundaries of an organization. When trading of knowledge becomes difficult – generally due to the following reasons 
    • It would mean giving away the knowledge
    • lack of necessary infrastructure capabilities, communication codes or even culture.

    In such situations, firms tend to internalize the activities.
    In many ways, when we look the application of TCT to MNEs it seems to be a special case of application of TCT to vertical integration.

  • Extension of the Transactional Cost Theory – Clan Control

    In the last blog we looked at how TCT is applicable in the case of Multidimensional Organization. In today’s blog we look at an extension of the TCT – Ouchi’s work on Transaction Cost Framework.
    Ouchi classified organizational mechanisms of control into 3 classes:

    • Market based
    • Bureaucracies
    • Clans

    Markets coordinate through prices, Bureaucracies through authority and rules, while Clans through a combination of authority with shares belief and values.
    Ouchi relies on goal incongruence and performance ambiguity as the crucial dimensions affecting an exchange. If we analyze the 3 classifications on these dimensions, we will find that markets would be an effective mechanism when the goal incongruence of the parties involved is high and performance ambiguity is low. If we move further to a scenario where the ambiguity associated with performance would increase and market based mechanism would not suffice, the need for congruent goal would be felt higher – this is when the bureaucratic governance would be seen as efficient. When the performance ambiguity is extreme, clan governance begins to find its holding – This mechanism requires extreme people processing (ouchi 1979) or socialization (ouchi 1980) to be the means of control.
    In many ways the work by Ouchi has had significant bearing on the interest shown by researchers in organizational culture. We would discuss organizational culture as part of organizational behaviour elsewhere.

  • Entrepreneur’s Interview – Flower Aura

    Sachi: Welcome, Today we have with us Shrey, founder – Flower Aura. 

    Could you please tell us your background and something about flower aura?Shrey: I began the business of Flower Aura in Jan 2010, after working at Quetzal. The intent was always to have something of my own and that’s how I started this business. I and my cofounder always felt we wanted to operate in the e-commerce space. Both of us were from IT background so we felt online business is what we wanted to get into given our IT background, and also the financial restrictions, but we were not clear about which domain we would operate in. Gifting struck to me as an option since I had difficulty with the poor quality of service that I had personally experience – this let to us starting off with Flower Aura.

    We made a search of around 40-50 websites, even at that time – but they were not an e-commerce site really. They were florists who built websites for additional sales rather than having online business model..  We were confident we could do a better job than them.

    When we entered the market, our expertise was IT, but this is just a part of the business. Operations is critical in the whole game, and we are still learning, and this would be very important for our growth across cities.

    Sachi: Currently in which cities do you operate?

    Shrey: We have a reach in over 100 cities – These are through the affiliate networks of existing florists, which we built by visiting different cities over the last couple of years. We have handpicked these florists, and provide them with a checklist of things before they go and deliver.
    Not everything has been smooth sailing; there have been bad experiences in the past. We have sort of stabilized this now.

    One big challenge in the current mode is that – on Valentine’s Day typically 10% of the year’s transactions happens. When you do not have your own warehouse, and you are dependent on so many people who are not under your direct control. There are absolutely no issues through the year but on that specific day something goes wrong – we would have to show a sorry figure. This strains our relationship with the customers.

    Sachi: Feedback is critical for your business, how do you handle get this?
    Shrey: We encourage the recipients to send us a picture with the flowers they have received, along with some write up. These could be testimonials as well as some negative feedback.
    Flowers are agriculture based, extremely delicate – so we have to factor in the losses that might affect due to these. Our florists too have been very understanding of the fact and have supported us this far.

    Sachi: Your business requires you to negotiate with florists across the country – how was the experience been?

    Shrey: It has been pretty difficult – in all the major cities are able to do it, because we are in a position to provide them volumes. We can have strong terms with these partners. They were florists who built websites for additional sales rather than having online business model.

    In the Indian Context, As we have also started our workshop in Gurgaon, we can relate to their challenges and work more closely with them. Both founders work on this aspect. We have divided the cities amongst ourselves and closely work with the florists.

    In addition to this, there is the forecasting of such a perishable entity that getting as precise with the forecasting is important.

    Sachi:  Do you support your florist’s network in different cities with forecasting? 
    Shrey:  We provide our florist network with a forecast of how many orders we can provide on Valentine day before hand.
    We provide for only 5%-10% of our partner’s business so they do not heavily rely on us, hence there is no great dependence on our forecast. But we see this could be extremely crucial in the future as we grow larger.

    Sachi: Could you tell us a bit about your partner in business?
    Shrey: My partner is Himanshu, who was my batch mate from in my engineering days at NSIT Delhi. The cities we hail from were along the same route and that helped bond better during those days.
    Post engineering, while I worked at Quetzal in Mumbai, he was my roommate and used to work at TCS there. We used to discuss numerous ideas every day at that point of time and finally started off.
    At the point of starting off Flower Aura, we had almost similar skills, but over the last 2 years we have focused on developing complementary skills. He focuses on technology, while I take care about marketing. For the operations, both of us pitch in.

    Sachi:    How did working at a start up help you?
    Shrey:  I worked at Quetzal in the online and offline education space – I gained tremendous confidence from this experience. This helped me work on projects from scratch to scaling up. I started around 7-8 different products, and this experience of starting new things and meeting different people to make it possible etc was very valuable.  I realized that in a start up you need to extremely generalist to begin with and be pretty open to get moving quickly.

    Sachi: How was the experience of moving from online education to running an e-commerce industry?
    Shrey: Definitely the two industries are definitely different from each other. When we entered into the e-commerce business, we entered it with the assumption that the major component would IT based. We realize, getting orders is only one part, there are aspects like how to buy, purchase, manage inventory, forecast etc.

    The Marketing skills I developed while working in the educational space is what I carried over to this business. The other skills required today are the ones which we have acquired over the last 2 years.

    Sachi: Did you choose to get into the e-commerce business based on the trend in the industry?
    Shrey: We got into the e-commerce business when the industry was just emerging. We operate in a very niche segment of the business, not many people operate in this segment given the kind of challenges I have discussed earlier.  There are some funded companies which have a lot of money to spare for the business promotion unlike us. We have started off in a boot strapping model using the investment of the founder.

    Given that we have bootstrapped ourselves, and had a lot of learning by taking care of the operations ourselves, we are in many ways a head of the companies that we currently see.

    Sachi: Are you looking for funding now?

    Shrey: Yeah, I guess the time is pretty apt now. I guess this is the right time to grow and we will grow irrespective of the fact that funding comes in, but funding can definitely speed up the growth.

    Sachi: What would be your major learning other than the operations that forms the basis of your business?

    Shrey: I would say the major learning we have learnt is on the business front is the human resource management. Questions like, how to get the right people, hire them, retain them etc. Nearly 40% of my time is spent on managing people and handling issues related to them. From my experience I realize that, if you take care of people who are working with you, most of the operation and marketing things will be taken care of automatically.

    Sachi: What is your message to aspiring entrepreneurs? 
    Shrey: My message is follow your heart and be smart.

    When people come to me with the take that being an entrepreneur is extremely risky, I simply say – It’s not very hard to earn what you are getting now, so where is the Risk?”
    Yes it will require some of your patience The entrepreneurial experience one has would be extremely valued and cherished.

    Sachi: Thank you Shrey for the interview. Thanks.

  • How TCT applies to Multidimensional form organization

    In the last blog, we looked at the application of TCT to understand vertical integration. In today’s blog we look at the application of TCT in understanding the Multidimensional (M) -Form of organizations.
    When functionally organized organizations expand their operations, size and diversity increases. The top management at such a juncture would find it extremely hard to deal with such operations; the interdependence of the various functional units makes it difficult to assign responsibilities for the outcomes of the business. 
    The M form of organization resolves these difficulties by organizing the firms into product or geographical divisions where operational decisions and performance accountability are assigned to the divisional manager. The top management retains only the strategic decision making. This way the source of such a problem – bounded rationality of the top managers at the corporate office is resolved.
    Another side-effect of this structuring is – the firm could function like a miniature stock market. The highest revenue generating unit would get a larger budget in the next cycle. The top management is also free to look out at diversification, acquisition and other activities of that nature. 

  • Analyzing Vertical Integration using Transaction Cost Theory

    In the last blog we looked how Hierarchy mitigates the risks of transaction specific investment. In this blow we begin the discussion on the application of transaction cost theory and briefly understand one of the applications.
    Transaction cost theory could be used to understand numerous the following types of organizations better

    • Vertical Integration
    • Multi-divisional form or organization
    • Markets, Bureaucracies and Clans
    • The Multinational Enterprise
    • Hybrid form of organization

    Now we look at the first of these – Vertical Integration. 
    Vertical Integration is a process by which companies expand their business in the same production path, along the supply chain. Reliance’s expansion from polyester to petroleum refining is an example of this vertical integration. It could be forward or backward. We shall discuss this and more elsewhere when we talk about strategy.
    Vertical Integration is one of the most researched applications of TCT. TCT scholars typically use transaction as their level of analysis instead of viewing it as an aggregate measure of value adds for the entire firm. Simply put it deals with the “make or buy” decisions.
    Research has found that a high transaction specific investment would yield the decision to internalize the operation; independent of the type of transaction (which could be capital, human resource, specific skills, and location. Uncertainty is found to be less consistent in when compared to the transaction specific investment in the decision making of firms.

  • Use of Hierarchy to mitigate-possible abuse of transaction specific investment


    In the last blog we looked at how bounded rationality is addressed in the 2 governance mechanism and what are the problems associated there in. In today’s blog we look at how transaction specific investment influences the 2 governance mechanisms.

    In many transactions, it could be realized that one of the parties involved in the transaction would have to make an investments in the specific transaction to facilitate its completion. This investment could in a physical modification of the technology or, modification in policies, or learning a new thing. While some of these have value only in the specific transaction, for some others it could be transferred to some other party transaction too. Transaction specific investments in general are much more valuable in the first scenario than any other use.

    The existence of transaction specific investment raises the threat of opportunism. In fact, greater the transaction specific investment – greater the threat of opportunism. In such a scenario, the market governance mechanism would find itself short of satisfaction, despite the additional cost hierarchical form of governance would be chosen. The two activities done by the parties would be brought in together under a “manager” who mediates the relationship between the parties. Thus the issue of opportunism when a transactions specific investment is made would be mitigated.

    Thus – hierarchy arises to resolve the problems in market governance when transaction specific investments are made and under conditions of uncertainty