War for profit: English corsairs,institutions and decentralised strategy |
| |
Authors: | Nicholas Kyriazis Theodore Metaxas |
| |
Affiliation: | Department of Economics, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece |
| |
Abstract: | In this study, we propose that in states with relatively weak central authorities, decision-makers had to develop market-oriented organisation solutions to successfully face a grave external threat, and these solutions proved to be efficient. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines institutional theory, history and strategy, we analyse a case study, the use of corsairs (privateers) by England in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. We have found that the development of partnership companies went hand in hand for commercial and military purposes. English privateers proved to be economically efficient and superior to the centrally planned war operations of the Spanish empire. |
| |
Keywords: | Institutions Partnership companies Privateers Coordination and cooperation mechanisms Sixteenth–seventeenth-century England |
|
|