intangibles, innovation, and answering Coase’s questions

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

2. EDEN Workshop

3. clarification increasing objectivity increasing subjectivity • individual - collective • construct a discourse able to embrace phenomena of interest • theory - practice • determinism - agency • physical - intellectual EDEN Workshop

4. historical context • disappearance of monopoly • value-creation • Bohm-Bawerk - ‘roundabout methods’ • ownership / control • financialization EDEN Workshop

5. intuitions behind ‘intangibles’ • investor, tax - intangible = accountancy failure - firm not properly valued (q, Stéfano) • resource - intangible = identify, locate, apply - under-utilized - not properly managed (Skandia) should these solutions converge ? EDEN Workshop

6. 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 EDEN Workshop

7. 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 EDEN Workshop

8. IC might be: • firm driven • market driven • EIF • but what is the firm ? EDEN Workshop

9. 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 EDEN Workshop

10. practice • data • meaning • practice indexical EDEN Workshop

11. 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) EDEN Workshop

12. 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 EDEN Workshop

13. 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 ? EDEN Workshop

14. intangibles as metaphor of ? • unpriced asset ? • unpriceable ‘asset’ • tacit knowledge • practice • knowledge-absence • indexicality - goal & situation EDEN Workshop

15. knowledge-absences & constraint types • ignorance • indeterminacy • incommensurability • a-historical making this way of thinking work EDEN Workshop

16. synthesizing theorizing with practice constraints / darts opportunity • regulations • technology • norms • competition EDEN Workshop

17. constraints • judgment • constructivist • post-practice knowledge • what we can imagine but cannot do EDEN Workshop

18. 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 EDEN Workshop

19. harnessing others’ judgment • imagination • constraints • judgment • division of judging labor • persuasion versus instruction EDEN Workshop

20. language • persuasion / rhetoric • logos, pathos, ethos • leveraging other’s judgment into firm’s value-creating process • TMF as set of judgments EDEN Workshop

21. history of the modern firm • division of labor, skill • 1580s labor migration, wages, farming, gibbing • mode of subordination • Reformation/Enlightenment • secular • literacy • rhetoric / social clubs EDEN Workshop

22. EDEN Workshop

23. innovation • Knightian uncertainty • opportunity space • exercise of judgment • exploratory practice • guiding not determining practice • indexicality EDEN Workshop

24. markets and money prices and values EDEN Workshop

25. knowledge • self-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 EDEN Workshop

26. empirical research topics • language • business model, practice • ethics • time, history • markets - generalize the particular • integrated reporting • Schumpeter, Austrian economics • democratic capitalism, Precariat • business education EDEN Workshop

27. EDEN Workshop