The paper begins by providing a brief overview and discussion of the modern economics of organization, concentrating in particular on the work of incomplete contract theorists. I then turn to a discussion of Loasby’s view of the firm and incomplete contracts. The point here is that while...

This paper develops a property rights-based view of strategy (the “PRV”). A property right (or economic right) is an individual’s net valuation, in expected terms, of the ability to directly consume the services of an asset (including, e.g., a monopoly position) or consume it indirectly...

The notion of full asset ownership is important in economics, for example, in recent work on the boundaries of the firm, which has been taken up with the issue why it matters who owns an asset. However, recognizing that assets have multiple attributes, and that these may be subject to capture in...

We discuss and empirically examine a firm-level equivalent of the ancient problem of "tying the King<92>s hands", namely how to maximize managerial intervention for "good cause", while avoiding intervention for "bad cause". Managers may opportunistically intervene when such intervention produces...</92>

The arguably dominant approaches to the study of interfirm relations are the capabilities and organizational economics perspectives. This paper discusses their merits and weaknesses, concentrating on the capabilities perspective, which is argued to rest on rather weak foundations, particularly...

We address the closely related phenomena of corporate venturing and spin-offs in the context of organizational economics, for example, agency perspectives and the evolutionary perspective on firms. These perspectives allow us to say something about both the amount and nature of variety creation...

Ever since its emergence in the 1970s the modern economic or Coasian theory of the firm has been discussed and challenged by sociologists, heterodox economists, management scholars, and other critics. This chapter reviews and assesses these critiques, focusing on behavioral issues (bounded...

We discuss the notion of ownership in economics, taking our point of departure in the Grossman-Hart-Moore property rights approach. We criticize the exclusive identification of ownership with residual rights to control in this approach, and argue that economic organization may be rendered...

We describe and discuss Ronald Coase's approach to managerial authority, placing it in the broader context of recent economics and management research on intrafirm coordination. To do so, we make use of work by Coase that is relatively little known, namely his writings on opportunity cost...

Since its emergence in the 1970s the modern economic or Coasian theory of the firm has been discussed and challenged by sociologists, heterodox economists, management scholars, and other critics. This chapter reviews and assesses these critiques, focusing on behavioral issues (bounded...