The Future of the Commons – Beyond Market Failure and Government Regulation

Abstract

is Lead Economic Analyst at CAFOD and is responsible for their work programme on economic and financial issues. CAFOD is the official development agency of the Catholic Church in England and Wales and works with partners in 40 countries around the world, responding to immediate needs and deeper causes of poverty. She was previously Policy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Leveraging Management Research on Grand Challenges

“…William Forster Lloyd, a British economist, introduced the term tragedy of the commons in an 1833 essay, but the term reached management and organization scholars via the work of economic ecologist Garret Hardin (1968), and Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom (E. Ostrom, 1990) in collaboration with her colleagues at the Indiana University's Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (V. Ostrom, 1999;V. Ostrom et al, 2012).…”

“…Subsequent research in collaboration with her husband Vincent Ostrom and colleagues from Indiana University (Dietz et al, 2003) brought about a redefinition of the commons problem dissociated from the neoliberal economic theories that had influenced Hardin's thinking. This work situates the commons problem within the interdisciplinary research on collective action (Olson, 1965), connecting our understanding of governance obstacles with the iterative, nonlinear social dynamics defining how communities think about and organize to share resources (V. Ostrom, 1999), receive services (E. Ostrom, 1996), and tackle problems associated with common-pool resources, including climate change (E. Ostrom et al, 2012). Thus, the framing of governance offered by these authors is not narrowly associated with the concepts of corporate governance that draw on agency theory (Jensen & Meckling, 1976).…”

“…Finally, the complex adaptive systems ontology is most closely linked to the metaproblems concept, and emphasizes the dynamic interrelatedness of multilevel systems that tend toward self-replication and homeostasis (Ackoff, 1974). However, more recent work by Ostrom and colleagues also links it with tragedy of the commons (E. Ostrom et al, 2012). This ontological stance draws from pragmatism's iterative link between ideation, action, and outcome which is not surprising considering the connection with pragmatism via James' "radical empiricism" (Heft, 2001).…”

“…For example, Reid and Toffel (2009) have discussed the role of businesses in tackling climate change exploring the role of shareholder resolutions and targeted state regulations. Scholars have also considered obstacles deriving from the social norms and institutional structures that hinder collaborative arrangements (Kanter, 1994(Kanter, , 2010, including the polycentric structures advocated by Ostrom and colleagues (Dietz et al, 2003;E. Ostrom et al, 2012).…”

“…Ostrom, 1990) in collaboration with her colleagues at the Indiana University’s Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (V. Ostrom, 1999; V. Ostrom et al, 2012).…”