Transactionalizing technologies versus performing contracts: from ERP to credit default swaps at AIG
Year: 2009
Type: book
Abstract: The commodified transaction is a key element of Transaction Cost Economics and has become one of the building blocks for management information systems, enabling increased scale, scope, and speed for business operations. The logic of simplification and closure underpinning this model of organizational activity is exemplified by Enterprise Resource Planning. As the popularity and expansion of ERP shows, there is a push to encapsulate yet more areas of organizational activity such as supply chain and contract management cumulating into smart networks. We present empirical material to highlight the complexities associated with this expansion with a particular focus on the consequences of the move toward commodified transactions as a model of contract. Our contribution lies in theorizing functional simplification and closure as it applies to contract, in the course of which we develop the concept of transactionalizing technologies and apply it to describe the processes of economization and marketization revealed by the breakdown of contract innovations during the financial crisis.
Authors: Susan Scott, Carolyn Paris
Language: English
Subfield: Management Information Systems
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2239647598