Present at the Beginning: The Origins and Evolution of “Opportunism” in Management Thought

Abstract

Williamson’s theory of opportunism within his transaction cost economics framework is one of the most controversial concepts within management. Considered bad for practice, a self-fulfilling prophecy, scholars over the years have challenged this notion citing that the managers who focus on opportunism ignore other concepts such as effectiveness and innovation. We argue that opportunism is something very central to management thought. We trace the writings of Taylor, Mayo, Fayol, Barnard, Follett, and Simon and demonstrate that early attention to opportunism have in fact considered work effectiveness and innovation as other implications of opportunism. We also argue that the critics’ attempts to replace opportunism have their elements in some of the previous work namely the use of incentives to encourage individuals to work collectively in pursuit of the organizational objectives. By tracing the roots of opportunism in early management thought, this work helps answer some of the criticisms of opportunism in recent studies.