What Are Microfoundations?

In the extant organizational, management, and strategy literatures there are now frequent calls for microfoundations. However, there is little consensus on what microfoundations are and what they are not. In this paper we first (briefly) review the history of the microfoundations discussion and then discuss what microfoundations are and are not. We highlight four misconceptions or “half-truths” about microfoundations: (1) that microfoundations are psychology, human resources, or micro-organizational behavior, (2) that borrowed concepts constitute microfoundations, (3) that microfoundations lead to an infinite regress, and (4) that microfoundations deny the role of structure and institutions. We discuss both…