<p>The reform of the European Commission has been on the EU agenda for more than three decades. The attempts to introduce an overhaul of the Commission’s institutional structure has been motivated predominantly by the fact that the efficiency of the functioning of the European Commission has been in decline. Despite the striking need to restore the Commission's efficiency, which has become even more urgent in the last decade, the attempts to improve its modus operandi have been marked by many obstacles, difficulties and delays.</p><p>This thesis aims to analyze and explain why the process of reforming the European Commission has been so problematic. In order to achieve this goal, the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism has been utilized. More precisely, we mainly build on the work of Paul Pierson, whose concepts help us understand the reasons behind the failure of a number of reform plans regarding the Commission and clarify why the institutional structure of the European Commission is characterized by a high degree of stability.</p>

The reform of the European Commission has been on the EU agenda for more than three decades. The attempts to introduce an overhaul of the Commission’s institutional structure has been motivated predominantly by the fact that the efficiency of the functioning of the European Commission has been in decline. Despite the striking need to restore the Commission's efficiency, which has become even more urgent in the last decade, the attempts to improve its modus operandi have been marked by many obstacles, difficulties and delays. This thesis aims to analyze and explain why the process of reforming the European Commission has been so problematic. In order to achieve this goal, the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism has been utilized. More precisely, we mainly build on the work of Paul Pierson, whose concepts help us understand the reasons behind the failure of a number of reform plans regarding the Commission and clarify why the institutional structure of the European Commission is characterized by a high degree of stability.

In 2002, the euro as a common currency did replace the national currencies in the EU member-states that did choose to take part in the EMU. It was then viewed as one of the greatest accomplishments ever to be made by the EU. However, during the latest years, the economic situation has deteriorated in several EMU member-states. This affected the whole euro-area and the current situation is referred upon as the euro-crisis. In 2011, at the time of the euro-crisis, the Heads of State or Government of the euro-area did reaffirm their full commitment to strengthen EMU. This essay seeks to answer why the EMU is maintained despite severe economical difficulties. The purpose of this essay is to reveal that path dependence is seen in the EU decision-making about the EMU. To fulfill the purpose the method used is process-tracing. To study the EU decision-making this essay applies the theoretical framework provided by Allison and Zelikow. This theoretical framework studies decision-making from three different vantage points. The findings of this essay reveal that in each vantage point an institution can be found that shape behavior and results in path dependence.

The 21st century is the time for network economic with hyper-competition. The well-developed information technology makes information flow smoothly among suppliers, retailers, competitors, and entrants. Thus, that lowers the barrier for entry, imitation, and then increases the difficulty in long-term competitive advantage. Under such circumstances, Teece et al. (1994) published the Dynamic Capabilities Theory, DCT, for the incomplete description of former competitive strategies such as Competitive Forces, Strategic Conflict, and Resource-Based Theory (RBT). DCT is referred to a firm¡¦s capabilities to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly changing environments. The purpose of this study is to apply the absorptive capabilities to investigate the affecting factors of organizations¡¦ dynamic capabilities from the knowledge management perspective. In addition, the path-dependence of absorptive capabilities is discussed and verified in this study as well. The empirical results show that absorptive capabilities have strong influence on organizations¡¦ dynamic capabilities and the path-dependence of absorptive capabilities is supported in this study. From the academic application, the results of this study provide the research model of absorptive capabilities and dynamic capabilities to the following researchers who are interested in these topics. And, from the practice implication, firms can adopt this results and suggestion of this study to build dynamic capabilities throuth knowledge absorption.

Abstract This study concludes the position feedback from discussing about the trend of the evolution of flat panel display ¡]FPD¡^technology by using the path dependence theory. Based on this theory, the research on the valuation curve of application forms the model of valuable development. Therefore, the position feedback of FPD technology is established according to the system dynamic theory. The key factors of position feedback are defined as below: ¡]1¡^The ages of digital TV, ¡]2¡^Light¡Bthin¡Bshort¡Bsmall¡Brapid ¡]3¡^ Good quality of CRT¡]4¡^Low cost¡]5¡^Market scale¡K etc.. It explains the character of every key factor of path dependence for FPD. In accordance with the application of valuation curve, FPD is classified into six types¡GLCD¡BPDP¡BLCOS¡BDLP¡BFED and OLED. The classification is also based on JPRI(Japan picture research institute) standard¡G ¡]1¡^the way of luminescence¡]2¡^ the size of screen¡]3¡^ the outward appearance¡]4¡^ weight¡]5¡^ Brightness¡]6¡^ Contrast Ratio¡]7¡^ View Angle¡]8¡^ Resolution¡]9¡^ response time¡]10¡^ consume power¡]11¡^ life time¡]12¡^ flexibility¡]13¡^ product application scope etc. Use the weighted index method to calculate the sum of valuation for six types of FPD technology. Drawing a valuation curve by weighted index¡]Y axis¡^ and time table(X axis). The conclusions of this study are as follows: 1. FPD technology has the obvious tendency of the path dependence. 2. By the path dependence theory, the technology of FED and OLED have potential for replacing the LCD-TFT technology. The conclusions above are significant to the management in the following prospects. 1.The mode of position feedback of high technology industry will have many references for the developmental path of industry. 2.Based on Taiwan¡¦s photo-electric industry, it is necessary to penetrate the tendency of Japan¡¦s research in order to promote the FPD industry in Taiwan. Key word¡Gpath dependence¡Bsystem dynamic theory¡Bflat panel display

How do legislatures develop or institutionalize? Our knowledge about legislative development is mostly based on studies of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. state legislatures. However, we know next to nothing about legislative development in the emerging democracies of Latin America. Given the need to develop effective democratic institutions in that region, it is critical to understand how institutions change and how legislatures in particular develop. In this study, I develop a model of legislative development that complements rational choice and path dependent explanations of change. In particular, this model provides an answer to the question: how does a legislative organization change into a legislative institution?In particular, I hypothesize that legislative development varies depending on the extent to which electoral and constitutional reforms balance executive-legislative power asymmetries. To test this hypothesis, I compare legislative development in Nicaragua (1979-2005) and Costa Rica (1871-2005). Central to the process of legislative development are: (1) power asymmetries between presidents and assemblies, (2) the rules and organizations that are established to balance these asymmetries, (3) how rules and organizations affect the development of the legislatures from simple, subordinate organizations into complex and autonomous institutions, and (4) how the broader social, political, and economic environment contributes to legislative development.I find that political actors do not act or function within an historical or contextual vacuum, nor does history and context alone determine political choices and outcomes. Instead, political actors function within rational, institutional, and historical boundaries, so an approach that incorporates aspects of both rational choice and path dependent explanations is preferable to existing models of legislative change. Therefore, part of my contribution is (1) to clarify the conceptual confusion surrounding institutions, organizations, and rules, and reduce ambiguity relating to their incorrect use in current scholarship; (2) to conceptualize legislative development as a process - not an outcome - that unfolds in a causally related sequence; and (3) to develop a Bounded Rationality Model that complements rational choice with path dependent explanations of legislative development to explain how organizations become institutions.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:35:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-04-15Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:24:55Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 lopes_al_dr_arafcl.pdf: 735527 bytes, checksum: 7abbf5aff44c84f06e921ddc6a20f181 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo do trabalho é analisar como o governo de Hugo Chávez se propôs a refundação do Estado venezuelano, através de um processo de elaboração de uma nova constituição e com base numa retórica nacionalista e bolivariana, que pretendia transformar radicalmente a estrutura econômica, mas acabou sendo limitado pela força da permanência do legado institucional do país construído sobre a dependência do petróleo e a lógica rentista. Para tanto, nos utilizamos de autores que trabalham com a dimensão institucional do desenvolvimento econômico e se preocupam em explicar porque diante de condições materiais parecidas ocorrem resultados bastante diferenciados no que se refere ao nível de desenvolvimento econômico alcançado. A resposta estaria nas trajetórias distintas de construção institucional, já que há arranjos que incentivam os atores a produzir e inovar, enquanto outros estimulam ações improdutivas e parasitárias. Nesse sentido procuramos mostrar que as instituições construídas ao longo do tempo na Venezuela, essencialmente, incentivaram a lógica rentista entre os atores sociais, dos empresários aos sindicatos. Para isso nos utilizamos dos conceitos de lock in e, principalmente, de path dependence que nos permitem qualificar a dimensão histórica do problema, mostrando como ao longo do tempo os atores adotaram estratégias e ações que se reforçaram e bloquearam qualquer mudança, já que os setores com maior poder de barganha dificultaram qualquer alteração nos arranjos existentes na medida em que foram favorecidos por eles. Inclusive, a principal fonte de path dependence são os rendimentos crescentes dos arranjos existentes, o que, no caso da Venezuela, torna muito difícil qualquer alteração no modelo rentista. O trabalho procura mostrar que, mesmo com Chávez que propõe um socialismo sob base rentista, ou seja, mantém o modelo ainda... / The purpose of this work is to analyze how the government of Hugo Chávez has proposed to overhaul the Venezuelan State, through a process of drafting a new constitution and based upon a nationalistic and Bolivarian rhetoric, which sought to radically transform the economic structure, but was limited by the strength of the permanence of the institutional legacy of the country which, in turn, was built up on the oil dependence and on a rentier logic basis. For this, we recur to authors that work with the institutional dimension of economic development and care in explaining why in the face of similar material conditions, distinct results regarding the level of accomplished economic development are achieved. The answer would lie in different paths of institutional construction, as there are arrangements that encourage the actors to produce and innovate, while others stimulate unproductive and predatory actions. We try to show that the institutions built over time in Venezuela, basically encouraged the rentier logic among the social actors, from the entrepreneurs to the work unions. For this we use the concept of lock-in, and especially the concept of path dependence. Both allow us to classify the historical dimension of the problem, showing how actors have continuously adopted strategies and actions which reinforced and blocked any possibility of changes, since the sectors with greater bargaining power hampered any modification in existing arrangements as they were benefited by them. Also the main source of path dependence are increasing returns of existing arrangements, which in the case of Venezuela, make any change in the rentier model rather difficult. This work shows that, even taking into account that Chávez proposes a rentier-based socialism, what means the model is kept even though nationalized, it still repeats what was done in previous decades, albeit with a social... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-11-27Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:31:26Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 bezerra_cm_me_arafcl.pdf: 411923 bytes, checksum: 3d944238095336e490c57b13d9229122 (MD5) / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar como o processo de inovações tecnológicas é tratado pela Teoria dos Sistemas Complexos. A abordagem neoclássica tradicional, ao partir de pressupostos bastante restritivos sobre os agentes e os mercados, não é capaz de fornecer explicações plausíveis aos vários problemas econômicos da vida real. Ao desconsiderar a dinâmica dos fenômenos econômicos, essa abordagem foi incapaz de incorporar os aspectos do processo de inovação e mudança tecnológica. A abordagem evolucionária, nesse sentido, ao considerar a racionalidade limitada, incerteza e heterogeneidade presente em ambientes que exibem inovação, foi capaz de fornecer um tratamento mais próximo da realidade. A inovação é, então, entendida como uma mudança descontínua que altera as condições estruturais gerando desenvolvimento, progresso e evolução no sistema. Já abordagem dos sistemas complexos, ao apresentar um arcabouço não reducionista e que se fundamenta sobre uma perspectiva evolucionária e sistêmica, concebe a economia como um sistema composto por agentes heterogêneos que interagem entre si. Apesar do ambiente de incerteza nas decisões tomadas, os agentes procuram se adaptar às informações recebidas do meio e se auto-organizarem gerando com isso novos padrões de auto-ordenamento e estruturas emergentes. A modelagem, nesse sentido, tem por principal objetivo descobrir as propriedades emergentes resultantes da interação entre os agentes no sistema. Por fim chega-se a conclusão de que as inovações tecnológicas apresentaram resultados mais satisfatórios e mais condizentes quando analisadas dentro dessa perspectiva agent-based. / The purpose of this dissertation is to discuss how processes of technological innovation are analyzed by Complex Systems Theory. Traditional neoclassical approach is unable to provide plausible explanations of a number of real world economic issues, as it starts from very restrictive assumptions on agents and markets. By neglecting economic phenomena dynamics, it has been unable of comprehend some aspects of innovation and technical change processes under its purview. Evolutionary economics, by taking issues such as bounded rationality, uncertainty and heterogeneity in environments with innovation, has been better positioned to afford a closer-to-reality treatment. In this approach, innovation is seen as a disruptive change that alters the system’s structural conditions, generating development, progress, and evolution. Accordingly, the complex systems approach, by furnishing a non-reductionist framework and in being supported on an evolutionary and systemic perspective, conceives the economy as a system composed by interactions among heterogeneous agents. Nevertheless uncertainty in the decision-making process, yet the agents endeavors to adapt to information coming from the environment and to self-organize. In doing so, they generate new patterns of self-ordained emerging structures. Modeling techniques, in this sense, aim primarily to uncover emerging properties resulting from agents’ interaction in the system. The main conclusion is that technological innovations are more successfully and more cogently described when analyzed from this agent-based perspective.

This dissertation deals with the rise of new industries through entrepreneurial activities. The aim is to investigate how differences in contexts might encourage or discourage entrepreneurial activities. This contextualization of entrepreneurship enhanced our understanding of when, how and why entrepreneurial activities happen. Entrepreneurship is recognized to be a spatially uneven process and, in addition to previous research that has examined the actions of individual entrepreneurs, we also need to understand the context in which entrepreneurship occurs. We have a good understanding of how structural conditions like industry structure, organization structure and agglomeration effects influence the context, but we know little about how the social dimension of the context is the transmitting medium between structural conditions for entrepreneurship and the decision to act upon identified entrepreneurial opportunities. Following this line of argument, this dissertation is built on the assumption that entrepreneurship is a social phenomenon which gives strong arguments for including local culture in entrepreneurship research. The temporal persistence and the pronounced differences of culture and structural conditions between places reflect path-dependent processes. I therefore use regional path dependence as an interpretative lens to study the contextualization of entrepreneurship in two Swedish cities. Although each context is unique, some generalizations can be drawn from the four individual papers in this dissertation. The first is that industrial legacy leads to the formation of a distinct local culture and that the persistency of this culture influences the subsequent entrepreneurial activities in new local industries. The second is that this persistency of culture suggests that entrepreneurs who are outsiders, geographically or socially, are the driving forces for the emergence of new local industries. Finally, new industry emergence is a result of a combination of exogenous forces and initial local conditions, but it is the entrepreneurial individuals who translate these forces and conditions into entrepreneurial activities.

O núcleo desta dissertação é desenvolver um conceito de path dependence mais parcimonioso, coerente e útil, seja teoricamente ou em estudos empíricos. Neste sentido, o insight fundamental é que se partimos de uma conceitualização mais dinâmica, baseada mais em externalidades negativas do que em rendimentos crescentes, o conceito de path dependence pode ser inerentemente mais operacionalizável, robusto e ressoar melhor com a literatura e os estudos Institucionalistas Históricos. O conceito de path dependence pode também ser mais compatível com várias elaborações realizadas dentro do próprio Institucionalismo Histórico sobre questões como mudança institucional, mecanismos explicativos, complementaridade, idéias e agência, e, portanto, enriquecer-se graças aos mesmos. / The objective of this dissertation is to develop a more parsimonious, coherent and useful concept of path dependence, both theoretically and empirically. Its fundamental insight is that with a more dynamic conceptualization, based more in negative externalities than in increasing returns, the concept of path dependence can be inherently more robust and resonate better with the literature and Historical Institutionalist studies. The concept of path dependence can also be more compatible with several theoretical developments which have arisen within Historical Institutionalism regarding questions such as institutional change, social mechanisms, complementarities, ideas, agency and, therefore, to be enriched by them.