For empirical work in the resource-based view of the firm, characterizing the resources that are responsible for firm growth is difficult because valuable resources are often tacit, ambiguous, or difficult to identify. This is a particular problem for empirical assessments that rely upon the...

David J. Teece discusses with Sidney G. Winter some of the major contributions of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. Topics discussed include path dependence and the organizational embeddedness of competences and capabilities, the recent financial crisis, and the electronic century in terms of Chandler's...

This paper argues that economists have been schizophrenic regarding the theory of the firm in a competitive industry. In much (but not all) of their formal mathematical modeling, maximization and equilibrium are taken literally. Ordinarily, however, both maximization and equilibrium are...

Stochastic theories of the firm size distribution explain observed size differences among firms as the consequence of random growth rate differences, accumulated over time. Little attention has thus far been paid, however, to economic interpretation of the abstract stochastic processes involved....

This paper reviews the case for an evolutionary approach to problems of economic analysis, ranging from the details of individual firm behavior in the short run through industrial dynamics to the historical evolution of institutions and technologies. We draw upon a substantial body of recent...