هزینه معامله کارآفرینی

When offering a novel product, the entrepreneur desires the customer to choose to “buy” (from the entrepreneur) rather than to “make.” Transaction cost economics provides guidance to firms considering a make-versus-buy decision. In this paper we extend transaction cost economics to examine the novel transactions proposed by the entrepreneur. Application of the theory identifies three crucial considerations for the transaction: the cost of quality measurement, the risk of overconfidence by the entrepreneur (here termed identity risk), and the required cost of necessary transaction specific assets. By extending transaction cost analysis to cover novel transactions across customers, entrepreneurship can be analyzed using established theories and measures to generate novel propositions.

At the heart of many definitions of entrepreneurship is innovation. Innovation can be defined as the introduction of a new product, process, technology, system, technique, resource, or capability to the firm or its customers (Covin and Miles, 1999). The entrepreneur introduces innovation into the circular flow of the economic system, and receives a return commensurate with monopoly profits for a time (Schumpeter, 1950 and Schumpeter, 1969). When innovation takes place, the entrepreneur brings the innovation to the customer, functioning as the agent of change (Nelson, 1984). The entrepreneur innovates to offer a novel product that the customer considers buying. Much attention has rightly been focused on the entrepreneur as the agent of innovation, but the customer of the entrepreneur has been much less examined. From the standpoint of the customer of the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur proposes a transaction that causes the customer to change from providing a product or service for himself to buying it from an outsider. In short, the entrepreneur causes the customer to choose to “buy” rather than to “make,” for vertical de-integration. Considerable theory exists regarding vertical integration, principally transaction cost economics. The core principle of transactions cost economics is that governance arrangements are chosen to minimize the sum of production costs and transaction costs between economic agents ( Coase, 1937, Klein et al., 1978, Williamson, 1985 and Williamson, 2000). The “paradigmatic problem” of transactions cost economics has been vertical integration ( Barney and Hesterly, 1996, Mahoney, 1992 and Williamson, 1985). Transaction cost economics has been primarily applied to large firms in mature industries facing routine (not novel) production decisions ( Barney and Hesterly, 1996). Notable applications include autos ( Monteverde and Teece, 1982), shipbuilding ( Masten et al., 1991), soft drinks ( Muris et al., 1992), and distribution ( Anderson and Schmittlein, 1984). A few studies have examined the incentives of firms to engage in innovation ( Krickx, 1995, Monteverde, 1995 and Williamson, 1985). Existing transaction cost research has not, however, examined the entrepreneurial transaction. The purpose of this paper is to apply the logic of transaction cost economics to the entrepreneurial transaction, the make or buy decision by the customer of the entrepreneur, to examine how the entrepreneur can induce the customer to choose to “buy” rather than to “make.” Such transactions differ in fundamental ways from transactions with existing organizations; in particular, the transaction is novel. For truly novel products, the utility of this definition is obvious. However, the transaction or elements of it need not be “new-to-the-world” but simply new to the customer in order for this definition to yield useful insights. Application of the theory identifies the crucial role of uncertainty for the entrepreneurial firm, and suggests a previously under-pursued research agenda. The main analytical tool is transaction cost economics, broadly defined, so the ideas developed here are termed Transaction Cost Entrepreneurship. A few assumptions are necessary. In order to focus attention on the transaction, for the purpose of this paper we assume that all customers are alike, even though differences regarding how customers respond to innovations are well-documented (e.g., Rogers, 1995). Similarly, all customers are assumed risk-neutral. Although this might be true for large corporations (in some cases), it is surely not true for individual consumers. However, as Williamson (1985: 390) notes, risk aversion becomes the dominant feature of any model to which it is added. Therefore, to simplify the analysis, we assume that all parties are risk neutral. Finally, we assume that all customers are, at present, “making” a solution to their need for which the entrepreneur proposes “buying” a solution. Such making may be a relatively sophisticated internal process, a crude adaptation of an existing product, or even just “making do” without a product.

In this paper, we extended transaction cost economics to cover the case of novel transactions proposed by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are successful when customers find it cheaper to buy rather than to make. More formally, when the transaction cost of buying a solution to a need becomes lower than that of engaging in customer production, customers choose to buy the novel product of the entrepreneur. Transaction cost entrepreneurship has identified three crucial transaction costs : quality measurement, identity risk, and transaction specific assets. It is important to note the limitations of the theory. Transaction cost entrepreneurship applies only to entrepreneurs introducing novel products and services. Novelty is more common than intuition might suggest, considering the augmented product, the role of the customer’s time, and the identity of the entrepreneur. If there is no novelty, however, there is no risk. Not all entrepreneurs offer novel products, or seek to be an agent of change for customers. Many entrepreneurs seek simply the autonomy and personal fulfillment of business ownership ( Birley and Westhead, 1994; Woo et al., 1991 ). Innovation is not a part of their product offering. The application of the theory is limited to novel products. The theory has implications for practitioners. Aspiring entrepreneurs need to examine how to signal quality of the entrepreneurial product, how to manage identity risk, and how to reduce the risk of the customer in purchasing transaction-specific assets. Managerial prescriptions are likely to vary from venture to venture, depending upon industry context, but every entrepreneur must be able to answer these three questions. The theory provides practical questions to guide practical entrepreneurs and their instructors. Moreover, the theory describes the seller of a new product as an entrepreneur, without distinguishing whether that is a new firm or an existing firm, so the analysis is valid for individual or corporate entrepreneurship. Further research can be both empirical and theoretical. Scholars should look to examine how entrepreneurs reduce transaction costs of customers. More detailed examinations of case histories could complement statistical work. Examining industries could reveal when and how changes in quality measurement make possible new markets. However, studies of transaction costs require a deep level of observation of the phenomenon. The main variables of interest in transaction cost economics are difficult or impossible to measure across industries ( Shelanski and Klein, 1995 ). Our theory is no exception. The key constructs for the entrepreneur to consider are quality measurement, identity risk, and transaction specificity. As noted above, quality is defined in different ways by different customers ( Garvin, 1987 ), and asset specificity comes in six different forms ( Barney and Hesterly, 1996 ). Measurement of research constructs requires industry context. It is natural to ask how requiring a TSA of customers will affect performance and profitability of the entrepreneurial firm. The TSA requires an adaptation and creates a switching cost for the customer. Such a switching cost improves the likelihood that the entrepreneur will sell again to the customer. Thus, the TSA can affect competitive advantage, as a possible vehicle for first mover advantage ( Lieberman and Montgomery, 1988 ). Note, however, that the firm may have a TSA which serves as the basis of its own competitive advantage that does not require any comparable investment by the customer. For example, the entrepreneur may have a skill in programming that allows his software to do things other products cannot, yet the software produced by the entrepreneur does not require any specialized adaptation by the customer. There need not be any relationship between a competitive advantage of the entrepreneur (grounded in a hard to trade asset) and the requirement that the customer invest in a transaction specific asset. One dimension of possible investigation is to see how customers react to novel products. Such a direction might involve a focus on customers or on novel products and their interaction, and might involve marketing and psychology, as well as economics and management. For example, extensive research has examined the diffusion of innovation, and identified characteristics of customers likely to be early adopters (e.g., Rogers, 1995 ). A second direction would be to examine how customers react to really novel products, and how they form judgments about such products (e.g., Veryzer, 1998 ). This study has deliberately avoided discussing characteristics of the customer in order to focus on the transaction. However, a promising direction for future research would be to examine how customer characteristics facilitate novel transactions. Regardless of the approach, the importance of the novel transaction is clear: a novel transaction is the emergence of a market. A market is a place where two or more economic agents exchange resources; a buyer pays a price to a seller in return for the transfer of ownership to a good or the outcome of a personal service. In short, a market is a place where transactions occur. The first transaction, then, represents the emergence of the market. Research has recently turned to examine the question of how markets emerge ( Schoonhoven and Romanelli, 2001 ). Neoclassical economics, and much of management research building on neoclassical economics, assumes that markets simply exist. By contrast, transaction cost entrepreneurship explains how the first product is sold and why. Markets emerge when entrepreneurs make transactions costs lower for customers to buy rather than to make. When customers can be assured that a new product can meet their needs, they buy, and a new market is created. Theoretically, transaction cost entrepreneurship has application to transactions with other resource suppliers of the entrepreneurial firm. Entrepreneurs must engage in transactions with suppliers of raw materials, with prospective employees, and with financiers such as banks and venture capitalists. Further study is warranted to explain how transactions with those resource suppliers can be facilitated by entrepreneurs. Facing similar uncertainties, it is likely that the role of quality measurement, identity, and transaction specificity will be central to the analysis. By extending transaction cost analysis to cover novel transactions across customers, financiers, and employees, a general theory of entrepreneurship can be constructed using well-understood theories and well- established measures from the transaction cost economics literature. This can only improve our understanding of entrepreneurship.