The Organizational Effect of the Economic System
A peculiar mix of firms of different type and size and characteristic configurations of economic actors are distinctive attributes of the organizational structure of modern economies. One important reason for such diversity lies in the variety of such environmental features1 as topography, international geo-political situation, endowment with natural resources, level of development, and demography that distinguish the countries of the world. Yet, organizational variety is a remarkable feature even in economies that are similar from many perspectives-such as the level of development, endowment with technology, or demand features-that may even show converging economic performance (e.g., in terms of growth rates) that cooperate and are integrated in many ways. This observation holds even in the case of countries that are progressively integrating their economies, such as those of the European Union.2 If economies at comparable levels of development3 are competitive and open-as is increasingly true in developed market economies in a time of globalization-there should be no significant interfirm differences in factors remuneration and access to factors pools, including technology. If we suppose that costs, technology, or segmentation explain the organizational structure of comparable economies, we should observe increasing uniformity. Yet we can observe that intercountry differences persist and do not decrease appreciably in importance, although they evolve.