As emphasized by Barney (1986), any explanation of superior profitability must account for why the resources supporting such profitability could have been acquired for a price below their rent generating capacity. Building upon the literature in economics on coordination failures and incomplete...

The capability-based view of the firm is based on the assumption that firms know how to do things. Assuming the existence of a thing called `organizational knowledge', in the first part of the paper we identify its main building blocks and we provide a description of its inner structure. This...

This paper builds upon a view of economic system and individual economic organization as problem-solving arrangements and presents a simple model of adaptive problem-solving driven by trial-and-error and collective selection. The institutional structure, and in particular its degree of...

This paper offers a sketch of what an economic theory of the firm would look like if it were founded on the thought of Joseph Schumpeter, particularly on Chapters 1-2 of his Theory of Economic Development. Schumpeterian analysis requires an intuitively appealing and realistic conceptualization...

Contents: Part I: An alternative theory of the firm -- 1. Why we need an alternative theory of the firm and its environment -- Part II: The firm and its environment -- 2. What is a firm? -- 3. What is an environment? -- 4. Modification and matching -- Part III: Explaining adaptation -- 5. The...

It is now widely acknowledged that institutions are a crucial factor in economic performance. Major developments have been made in our understanding of the nature and evolution of economic institutions in the last few years. This book brings together some key contributions in this area by...

The ideal firm has been studied over several centuries, yet little is known about what makes one successful and another fail. This pioneering book brings together leading researchers investigating the concept of the firm from a neuroscientific perspective