The Choice of Organizational Governance Form and Performance: Predictions from Transaction Cost, Resource-based, and Real Options Theories

This paper develops an approach to organizational governance decisions that recognizes how the choice of organizational governance form affects both the creation and appropriation of economic value. The paper begins with a detailed survey of three theoretical approaches—transaction cost economics (TCE), the resource-based view (RBV), and Real Options analysis (RoA) to the study of organizational governance. This review serves to provide background material on each theory as well as to identify the similarities and differences in the assumptions underlying these perspectives. A concluding section provides a series of propositions for future empirical research that may help to integrate these theories by incorporating notions of both value creation and value appropriation.