| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,400,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Fiscal Year 1997: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The research goal for the final year was to classify types of exchange schemes both inside and outside the firm, and to propose models of contracts functioning in each type, thereby providing a comprehensive view of a system of division of labor. The basic idea underlying the models is the view that the environmental knowledge provided by the organization of the firm functioned as a complement to an incomplete contract, thus making it less incomplete. From this view point, I had inquired into problems concerning contract and organization that involved e-commerce. What optimizes the efficiency of the flow of things, money, people and information in the information society is the form of order adequate for an institution of division of labor in such a society. A realistic form of such an order is the network symbolized by the internet, a network that espouses e-commerce. In this context, because the transaction costs are dramatically decreased, the opportunities for rational exchange increase exponentially compared to such exchange that presupposes normal face-to-face communication. Theorists of "new economy" claim that through this is that the division of roles into the consumer and producer erodes away in this environment ; the consumer is enabled to participate in the planning of new merchandise utilizing the internet so that their feedback may be accumulated at little cost, hence contributing to the idealization of the allocation of resources. This phenomenon answers not only some of the questions invoked by the efficiency thesis, but also the alienation thesis, as outlined in the research report of last year. As announced in the research schedule, I have discussed this and other findings of the research project at the World congress of IVR held in June 1999 in New York in a presentation entitled "Law and the Division of Labor".
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