REVISANDO LA TEORIA DE LA FIRMA

This article reviews the main theories of the firm from the strategic management perspective. A theory of the firm intents to explain the nature and scope of a firm. We conclude that the different theories of the firm can be classified following the Coase guidelines, that explain the existence of a firm, and its degree of integration as a trade off between the transaction costs of buying in the market and the coordination costs of producing inside the firm. An important conclusion arising from the analysis is the key role of the complementarity among assets, processes and activities, in the determination of the scope and limits of a firm. According to this result, an important challenge for the strategic management of a company is to determine which one is the combination of activities that maximizes the company´s value.