We analyze a key problem in organization theory and design, namely the potential tension between authority (i.e., the power to make decisions which guide the decisions of another person) and the discretion of employees (i.e., the ability of an agent to control resources including his own human...

Austrian economics allows us to identify a number of weak spots in the modern economics of organization that all relate to the treatment of knowledge. Specifically, this body of theory is open to the same kind of objections that HAYEK [1937, 1945] raised against economics, namely that it does...

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 address the issue of promoting synergies in divisionalized, diversified firms from the perspectives of the resource-based view and recent work on corporate headquarters, thus connecting the analysis of sustained competitive advantage with organizational issues. We begin by clarifying the...

It has recently been argued by a number of writers that the evolutionary theory of the firm is a genuine theoretical rival to the contractual theory of the firm. This paper presents a reconstruction of the evolutionary theory of the firm. A taxonomy developed by the Polish philosopher Krajewski...