The Evolution Of The Theory Of The Firm

"This innovative collection of readings analyses how the theory of the firm evolved from several core concepts and building blocks that underpin this important area of economics. The first volume presents a variety of perspectives from leading scholars in the field before introducing the basic elements of: risk and uncertainty; information and knowledge; bounded rationality and decision making; motives and incentives; resources and capabilities; and transactions. The second volume looks at how the various elements are integrated into the modern Theory of the Firm with the notion of organization coming increasingly to the fore. It focuses on norms; rules and routines; the entrepreneur; governance; hierarchies; co-operation, teams and networks; innovation and appropriability. Together with an introduction by the editors, this collection is an invaluable reference tool for all researchers and students with an interest in the modern theory of the firm, highlighting how it needs to evolve further to address the important management and policy issues of our time"--

Firms are a ubiquitous feature of the economic landscape, with much of the activity undertaken within an economy taking place within their boundaries. Given the size of the contribution made by firms to economic activity, employment and growth, having a theoretical understanding of the nature and structure of firms is crucial for understanding how an economy functions. The Theory of the Firm firstly offers a brief overview of the past, consisting of a concise discussion of the classical view of production, followed by an outline of the development of the neoclassical - or ‘textbook’ - approach to firm level production. Secondly, the ‘present’ of the theory of the firm is discussed in three sections. The first section considers the post-1970 theory of the firm literature per se, while the second section scrutinises the relationship between the three most prominent of the modern sets of theories: the reference point, property rights and transaction cost approaches. The third section looks at the theory of privatisation. The unique aspects of this book includes its discussions of the post-1970 contributions to the theory of the firm; the integration of the theory of the entrepreneur with the theory of the firm; and the theory of privatisation. This volume offers an intuitive introduction to the theories of the firm as well as simple formal models of the most important contributions to the literature. It also outlines the historical evolution of the traditional and modern theories of the firm. This book is of great interest to those who study history of economic thought, industrial economics and organizational studies.

Resource-Based and Evolutionary Theories of the Firm: Towards a Synthesis explores the intersection of evolutionary theories of the firm with an emergent body of research in the field of strategic management that has been broadly referred to as the `resource-based view of the firm'. The volume approaches strategic questions from several vantage points, thereby fostering a useful cross-fertilization of ideas. The views presented spring from a variety of sources, namely the principles of strategic management, organisation economics, and population ecology.

This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

Firm growth. This concept has interested researchers for generations. Economists have sought to predict and measure firm growth using a host of different variables, while strategic management scholars depict growth as the result of clever analyses and rational resource exploitation. Entrepreneurship scholars - ever engrossed by successful start-ups - have pondered why growth sometimes comes fast and sometimes never at all, while the field of business history has given countless examples of growing firms in a range of different settings. Yet despite research across fields, our knowledge of how growth in a firm actually comes about is limited and we still know little about the process. This book offers a new reading of economist Edith Penrose’s The Theory of the Growth of the Firm. The bold statement is that although Penrose’s work - across fields and generations - is amongst the most quoted on firm growth, the basic points of her work have yet to be realized and explored empirically. Essentially, growth is created by a dynamic interrelation between the firm’s self-conception and its image of context. Based on these two subjective categories, the firm makes decisions and its actions lead it to develop along a particular path. To Penrose this is the basic engine that drives the growth and development of firms. This book discusses how the engine of firm growth can be captured in empirical analysis using interpretative theory and narrative methods inspired by recent streams of research in business history.

The firms and markets of today's complex socio-economic system developed in a spontaneous process termed evolution, in just the same way as the universe, the solar system, the Earth and all that lives upon it. Darwin's theory of evolution clearly demonstrated that evolution involved increasing organization. As we began to explore the molecular basis of life and its evolution, it became equally clear that it depended on the processing and communication of information. This book develops a consistent theory of evolution in its wider sense, examining the information based laws and forces that drive it. Exploring subjects as diverse as economics and the theories of thermodynamics, the author revisits the paradox of the apparent conflict between the laws of thermodynamics and evolution to arrive at a systems theory, tracing a continuous line of evolving information sets that connect the Big-Bang to the firms and markets of our current socio-economic system.

This volume features a series of essays which arose from a conference on economics, addressing the question: what is the nature of the firm in economic analysis? This paperback edition includes the Nobel Lecture of R.N. Case.