Michael A. Witt, Luiz Ricardo Kabbach de Castro, Kenneth Amaeshi, Sami Mahroum, Dorothee Bohle, Lawrence Saez
Efforts to build a universal theory of the world's business systems require empirical grounding in an understanding of the variety that need explaining. To support such theorizing, we analyzed the institutional structures of 61 major economies, accounting for 93.5% of 2013 world GDP at purchasing power parity. We found nine main types of business systems: Highly Coordinated, Coordinated Market, Liberal Market, European Peripheral, Advanced Emerging, Advanced City, Arab Oil-Based, Emerging, and Socialist Economies. Our findings illustrate the need to go beyond the Varieties of Capitalism and Business Systems frameworks; provide empirical support for the CME versus LME dichotomy for part of the OECD; identify some of the business systems proposed recently as sub-types of larger clusters; indicate that institutional diversity may increase with development level; and cast doubt on the notions of state-led and family-led capitalism as types of business systems. Our discussion further suggests numerous avenues for theory development and empirical research. © The Author 2018. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. All rights reserved.
INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore, 138676, Singapore; EESC - Universidade de São Paulo, 400, Trabalhador Sao Carlense Av, 13566-590 - Centro, São Carlos/SP, Brazil; University of Edinburgh Business School, 29 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9JS, United Kingdom; INSEAD, 4th Street - Muroor Road, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; European University Institute, Badia Fiesolana, Via dei Roccettini 9, San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), 50014, Italy; School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom
