This book provides a comprehensive economic approach for the analysis of organizational structure. It considers the parallels of coordination within firms, coordination between firms and market coordination and offers an economic analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of various instruments of coordination. Looking at examples in the practical world, it provides individual concepts and insights on an economic approach to organization.

The book first presents an overall framework of economic organization and its architecture. It then analyzes non-hierarchical coordination mechanisms, and the structure of hierarchical coordination before addressing the choice of a suitable organizational structure.

The book will be useful for students of economic and social sciences, with an emphasis on organization and personnel, as well as practitioners in organization and management.

Contents: Preface Part I: Organizations and the Role of Coordination 1. Economic Organizations and their Architecture 2. The Analysis of the Coordination Problem Part II: Coordinating Economic Activities: From Markets to Hierarchies 3. The Efficiency of Markets 4. The Analysis of Transactions Part III: Hierarchies as a Coordination Mechanism 5. Basic Forms of Hierarchical Coordination 6. Organizational Structures Bibliography Index