Big Storage: Make or Buy?

Make , Buy , or Cooperate ?

In 1937, Ronald Coase argued that firms will exist only in environments in which firms perform better than markets could. To create space for firms, Coase suggested that some environments might be plagued by “transaction costs” that cause markets to perform poorly. Coase’s paper was to become the cornerstone of the economic theory of the firm (i.e., the “make or buy” decision: which activities ...

Buy Music, Make Money

We describe a digital music distribution system which fixes current problems in prevailing economic models for selling digital music. Our system aims to address the perverse incentives in the current digital music market, in which music buyers and music creators have incompatible goals and desired outcomes. The model gives users an added buying incentive: when a user buys a song, that user has ...

Bewertungsmodell zur Unterstützung der 'Make, Buy or Rent'-Entscheidung

Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit Anforderungen an und der Gestaltung für ein Bewertungsmodell für „Make, Buy or Rent“-Entscheidungen. Die Effizienz des Einsatzes von Informationssystemen zur Unterstützung betrieblicher Prozesse hängen u.a. von der Bereitstellung dieser Informationssysteme ab. Bislang existieren nur wenige Modelle, die die Entscheidung über die Bereitstellungsart von...

17. The Make-or-Buy Decision: Lessons from Empirical Studies

The “transaction cost” theory of the firm introduced by Coase (1937) has become a standard framework for the study of institutional arrangements. The Coasian framework helps explain not only the existence of the firm, but also its size and scope. Why, in Coase’s (1937, pp. 393–94) words, “does the entrepreneur not organize one less transaction or one more?” Some firms are highly integrated: IBM...

Make-or-Buy Decisions in Patent Related Services