This study gives guidance on the transaction cost factors triggering the organizational choice among alternative governance forms and aims to identify areas for future research. Providing an introductory discussion on the role of transaction cost theory in the tradition of new institutional economics the study here treats the explanation capacity on governance issue of the conceptual models based on transaction cost theory from a critical perspective. Ongoing empirical research on governance choice provides findings supported by the arguments of resource-based view and relational view of governance in addition to the transaction cost theory. Accordingly, this study concludes by providing some insights on possible areas of future research.

Keywords:Transaction cost theory, governance choice, governance problems, empirical literature