“What I have done is to show the importance for the working of the economic system of what may be termed the institutional structure of production.”

—  Ronald H. Coase

1990s and later, "The Institutional Structure of Production" (1992)

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Ronald H. Coase 19
British economist and author 1910–2013

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“In definitional terms, a process is simply a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action.
Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology, 1993

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“Traditionally, economic analysis treats the economic system as one of the givens. The term "design" in the title is meant to stress that the structure of the economic system is to be regarded as an unknown. An unknown in what problem? Typically that of finding a system that would be, in a sense to be specified, superior to the existing one. The idea of searching for a better system is at least as ancient as Plato’s Republic, but it is only recently that tools have become available for a systematic, analytical approach to such search procedures. This new approach refuses to accept the institutional status quo of a particular time and place as the only legitimate object of interest and yet recognizes constraints that disqualify naive Utopias.”

Leonid Hurwicz (1917–2008) Russian-American economist and mathematician

Leonid Hurwicz, " The design of mechanisms for resource allocation http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/UCSBpf/readings/hurwiczaer.pdf," The American Economic Review, (1973): 1-30.

“In definitional terms, a process is simply a structured, measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action.”

Thomas H. Davenport (1954) American academic

Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology, 1993

Harry Schwarz photo

“It is important that in the process of change, existing institutions of value and means of production are not destroyed. The fabric of society, however critical one may be of its present structures, should be adopted and modified where required, but not destroyed.”

Harry Schwarz (1924–2010) South African activist

Lecture at University of British Columbia (12 October 1976).
Parliament (1974-1991)

“Nor are the general laws of economics "institutional." They work in an institutional setting, and upon institutional material; institutions supply much of their content and furnish the machinery by which they work themselves out, more or less quickly and completely, in different actual situations. Institutions may determine the alternatives of choice and fix the limits of freedom of choice, but the general laws of choice among competing motives or goods are not institutional unless rational thinking and an objective world are institutions, an interpretation which would make the term meaningless. Economic activity consists in the use of certain resources by certain processes, to produce "wealth." The content of the concept wealth is largely institutional, and the resources available and processes known and used at any place and time for producing wealth are in a sense historical products; but there are general laws of production and consumption which hold good whatever specific things are thought of as wealth and whatever productive factors and processes in use.”

Frank Knight (1885–1972) American economist

Source: "The limitations of scientific method in economics", 1924, p. 129 (2009 edition)

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“I have done this to show what an Englishman can do.”

Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) Royal Navy officer and explorer

Note found on his corpse; quoted in Bruce Chatwin, What am I Doing Here?

“Social, political and economic institutions have become larger, considerably more complex and resourceful, and prima facie more important to collective life. Many of the major actors in modern economic and political systems are formal organizations, and the institutions of law and bureaucracy occupy a dominant role in contemporary life.”

James G. March (1928–2018) American sociologist

Source: Rediscovering institutions, 1989, p. 1-2

“Social, political and economic institutions have become larger, considerably more complex and resourceful, and prima facie more important to collective life. Many of the major actors in modern economic and political systems are formal organizations, and the institutions of law and bureaucracy occupy a dominant role in contemporary life.”

Johan Olsen (1939) Norwegian political scientist

James G. March and Johan Olsen, (1989) Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. p. 1-2

“The time component of economic production became vital in Hayek’s work in economic theory. Essentially, his economic work could be said to rest on the idea that the price system is a method for coordinating economic activity through time.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Richard A. Posner photo

“The importance to economics of the study of institutions is no longer a controversial proposition, thanks in part to the scholarly literature generated by the new institutional economics movement. Institutions are more than organizations – property is an institution, but not an organization – but organizations are an important form of institution and will be the focus of my paper, as it is, to a considerable extent, of the new institutional economics.”

Richard A. Posner (1939) United States federal judge

"From the new institutional economics to organization economics: with applications to corporate governance, government agencies, and legal institutions" (2010).

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