ABSTRACT
Social scientists have produced a massive literature about governance transformations—changes in the institutional arrangement of economic activity. In this paper we first identify five general theoretical traditions in this literature that try to specify the key determinants of governance transformations. We then derive from these traditions a new evolutionary model of the governance transformation process and assess this model in light of evidence from case studies of transformations in the U.S. steel, automobile, commercial nuclear energy, telecommunications, dairy, meatpacking, hospital, and railroad sectors. 1 We argue that these transformations begin with the development of pressures for change that cause actors to search within certain limits for alternative governance regimes, by which we mean combinations of specific organizational forms of economic activity. These organizational forms, or governance mechanisms, include markets, corporate hierarchies, associations, and several types of networks (such as long-term subcontracting, research consortia, joint ventures, interlocking corporate directorates, and so on). 2 Finally, we explore the implications of this analysis for debates about the long-term institutional development of advanced capitalism.
