Organizations, Regulation, and Economic Behavior: Regulatory Dynamics and Forms from the Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century

TLDR

Current scholarship shows that globalization and neoliberalism often coincide with expanding regulatory rules and agents, yet systematic analyses of how new regulatory forms translate into practice and influence organizational behavior remain scarce. The authors survey existing efforts to reconcile the paradox between globalization and regulation and propose strategies for future research on these fronts. They conduct a survey of studies addressing this paradox. The literature has produced new, multilevel conceptions of globalization, international interdependence, and their effects on regulation.

Abstract

Current scholarship suggests that instead of fueling deregulation and a race to the bottom, globalization and neoliberalism often go hand in hand with the expansion of regulatory rules and agents. We survey efforts to address this paradox. Building on analyses of nineteenth- and twentieth-century regulation, research on the current period has produced two critical analytical advances. It has developed new, multilevel conceptions of globalization, international interdependence, and their effects on regulation. Moreover, in grappling with new regulatory experiments, research has moved beyond command and control to reconceptualize regulation as an institutional form. Yet in its haste to understand the new century, this research has barely begun to produce systematic analyses of whether and how new forms are translated into practice and shape organizational behavior. It also assumes discontinuity between new forms and their bureaucratic predecessors, leaving unexplored how concepts developed for the new century can shed new light on pre-twenty-first-century forms. We propose strategies for future research on both these fronts.