Theory of the Growth of the Firm

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Foreword by Edith Penrose (1995) -- Preface -- Chapter -- I: Introduction -- The purpose of the study and the nature of the argument -- II: The Firm in Theory -- Different ways of looking at firms -- The firm in the theory of price and production -- Limits to size -- The 'firm' is not a firm -- The firm as an administrative organization -- The function and nature of an industrial firm -- Size and administrative coordination -- Industrial firms and investment trusts -- Continuity in the 'history' of a firm -- The firm as a collection of physical and human resources -- The motivation of the firm -- The profit motive -- Long-run profits and growth -- III: The Productive Opportunity of the firm and the 'Entrepreneur' -- Growth limited by a firm's 'productive opportunity' -- The role of enterprise and the competence of management -- Entrepreneurial versus managerial competence -- The quality of entrepreneurial services -- Entrepreneurial versatility -- Fund-raising ingenuity -- Entrepreneurial ambition -- Entrepreneurial judgment -- The role of expectations in the productive opportunity of the firm -- IV: Expansion Without Merger: The Receding Managerial Limit -- Two basic assumptions -- The nature of the managerial limit on expansion -- The management team -- Release of managerial services -- Growth of managerial services -- The receding limit and the 'static' approach -- The effect of uncertainty and risk -- Uncertainty and information -- Risk and unavoidable uncertainty -- V: 'Inherited' Resources and the Direction of Expansion -- Types of inducement to expand -- The continuing availability of unused productive services -- Indivisibility and the 'balance of processes' -- The specialized use of resources -- Heterogeneity of resources -- Interaction between material and human resources.