For economic historians, such as North, institutions operate at the level
of the wider environment: whether in the relatively uncodified and informal
assumptions and understandings underlying some economic markets or
through the more direct intervention of governmental regulatory structures.
But for a newer generation of institutional economists; including Williamson
and others, these wider institutions are viewed as "background conditions"
whereas in the foreground are the more specific institutional forms that serve
as "governance structures" to manage economic transactions, in particular,
organizations (hierarchies) (Williamson, 1994).