Monday, April 6, 2026
Aseem Kaul
University of Minnesota

Competition and cooperation between different organizational forms
Abstract
Scholarship in organizational economics and strategy has long examined the comparative governance of transactions--under what conditions are different organizational forms (for-profits, non-profits, community organizations, government agencies, etc.) comparatively efficient--with growing interest in applying these ideas to the solution of societal problems. However, societal problems by definition occur at the system level, and therefore require system-level solutions, meaning that we need to think about the joint effects of multiple organizational forms working together, rather than the effect of a single organizational form. In this workshop, I will discuss new work (both mine and by others) that explores the interactions between multiple different governance forms, both how they work with each other to produce joint outcomes, and how they compete against each other and what that may mean for social welfare.
