A study of price and the organization of firms using game theory and neoclassical economics.

This book brings together classic writings on the economic nature and organization of firms, including works by Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, and Michael Jensen and William Meckling, as well as more recent contributions by Paul Milgrom, Bengt Holmstrom, John Roberts, Oliver Hart, Luigi Zingales, and others. Part I explores the general theme of the firm's nature and place in the market economy; Part II addresses the question of which transactions are integrated under a firm's roof and what limits the growth of firms; Part III examines employer-employee relations and the motivation of labor; and Part IV studies the firm's organization from the standpoint of financing and the relationship between owners and managers. The volume also includes a consolidated bibliography of sources cited by these authors and an introductory essay by the editors that surveys the new institutional economics of the firm and issues raised in the anthology.

The Form of the Firm attempts to unveil the nature of the corporation as it exists in modern liberal societies. The author contends that economic theories understate the importance and danger of corporate power, and should be supplemented with a political analysis that foregrounds the sorts of political and moral values at stake in corporate activity.

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.

This book brings together selections from the most influential writings on the internal economic organisation of business firms.

Firm-to-firm relationships, along with the overall structure of industry, have changed markedly over the past decades. Replacing the model of vertical integration with one of global business, firms have started to outsource more by using a wider global network. At the same time, they have begun to increase their control and coordination along the value chain to remain competitive, blurring the boundaries between companies. Understanding the nature of the firm and its role in coordinating the supply chain will help firms to better define global competitive strategies.. The challenges that lie ahead for global business render obsolete the traditional model of procuring each service without long-term supply chain management. Current trends suggest that in the future there will be even deeper supply chain integration in most industries. The Nature of the Firm in the Oil Industry aims to facilitate the understanding of ‘the firm’ via the analysis of the specific relationship between international oil companies, which are among the world’s biggest firms and which act as ‘core system integrators’, and the oil services companies, which help to find, extract, produce and distribute oil along the petroleum industry supply chain. This relationship serves as an example of deep integration by core system integrators and provides insights into the change in the nature of the firm in the era of modern globalization. Aimed at researchers and academics, The Nature of the Firm in the Oil Industry offers a thorough examination of this relationship in an effort to shed light on the nature of the firm, both in the oil industry and in global business today. It is a humble attempt to better understand the firm in a crucial industry.

Introduction to Business covers the scope and sequence of most introductory business courses. The book provides detailed explanations in the context of core themes such as customer satisfaction, ethics, entrepreneurship, global business, and managing change. Introduction to Business includes hundreds of current business examples from a range of industries and geographic locations, which feature a variety of individuals. The outcome is a balanced approach to the theory and application of business concepts, with attention to the knowledge and skills necessary for student success in this course and beyond. This is an adaptation of Introduction to Business by OpenStax. You can access the textbook as pdf for free at openstax.org. Minor editorial changes were made to ensure a better ebook reading experience. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This book uses economic theory to argue that worker-controlled firms are rare due to market failures rather than inherent organizational defects. The book will be of interest to scholarly researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in economics, especially in industrial organization, labor economics, comparative economics, organizational economics, and finance.

What are we to make of the power that corporations wield over people in modern society? Is such power legitimate? Many think so. To many businessmen and economists, as well as the general public, firms are purely private and economic entities, justified in using all legal means to maximize profit. In The Form of the Firm, Abraham Singer contends that such a view rests on a theoretical foundation that, while quite subtle, is deeply flawed. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, corporations are not natural outgrowths of the free market. Instead, Singer invites us to see corporations as political institutions that correct market inefficiencies through mechanisms normally associated with government -hierarchy, power, and state-sanctioned authority. Corporations exist primarily to increase economic efficiency, but they do this in ways that distinguish them from the markets in which they operate. Corporations serve economic ends, but through political means. Because of this, Singer argues that they also must be structured and obliged to uphold the social and political values that enable their existence and smooth-running in the first place: individual autonomy, moral and social equality, and democratic norms and institutions. A profound and timely rethinking of what a corporation actually is and how power within it ought to be structured and exercised, The Form of the Firm will reshape our understanding of political theory, corporate governance, corporate law, and business ethics.