The multinational firm (MNF) is introduced as the intersection between trade theory and the theory of the firm. I show that economies of scale associated with various knowledge inputs have made it possible for firms to grow large through internationalization and, once large, staying competitive...

This paper introduces an experimental economy with boundedly rational agents that compete with local, and largely incommunicable industrial knowledge, in an international market environment with more or less unbounded, commercial opportunities. Predictability of outcomes at the micro level is...

Swedish Manufacturing Industry is said to be technologically and commercially in good shape. While Swedish wage levels were higher than in all industrial countries in the mid-70s, wages - expressed in international currencies - have now dropped to a mid-position, and real rates of return are...

Results from empirical studies of firm behavior are synthesized into, a theory of the firm as a competent team. I demonstrate the existence of a tacit organizational competence exercising a leverage on the productivities of all other factors through selecting and allocating competent people,...

Over the course of the last 10 or 15 years there appears to be taking place a fundamental shift in the 'industrial paradigm' governing the nature of competition in advanced industrial markets. Among the characteristics of this shift are a transition from mass production to flexible manufacturing...

This paper presents statistical evidence on (1) the importance of 'soft' capital spending items like marketing and R&D investments, and (2) the dominant service content of production in the modern manufacturing firm. It pictures the firm as a dominantly information processing entity that has...