See also S. N. S. Cheung : “In the broadest sense, all production and exchange activities not guided by the invisible hand of the market are organized activities. Thus, any arrangement that requires the use of a manager, a director, a superviser, a clerk, an enforcer, a lawyer, a judge, an agent, or even a middleman implies the presence of an organization. These professions would not exist in the Crusoe economy, and payments for their employment are transaction costs. When transaction costs are defined to include all costs not found in a Crusoe economy, and economic organizations are defined equally broadly to include any arrangement requiring the service of a visible hand, a corollary appears : all organization costs are transaction costs, and vice versa.’, The New Palgrave, A Dictionary of Economics, 1987, p. 56.

Note that “and vice versa” is very important !!!

A must read is Cheung’s paper ‘The contractual nature of the firm’, 1983. One of the best ever, with Coase’s of course. The master and the great pupil. Still alive…