Discusses the economic contributions of George Barclay Richardson. Detailing the Austrian and Marshallian aspects of his work, argues that all his contributions – on industrial organization, welfare economics, history of thought, etc. – are united in their concern with the co-ordination...

This Introduction discusses the contrast between, on the one hand, the current popularity of addressing MNC organization in knowledge terms and, on the other, the lack of adequate understanding of many of the causal mechanisms and contextual factors in relations between knowledge processes and...

Recent work on multinational enterprises (MNEs) argues that diversity in terms of the markets they serve and the environments they acquire inputs from provides strategic opportunity unavailable to purely domestic firms. However, MNEs are also exposed to higher levels of complexity and...

The article compares alternative approaches to the theory of the firm. The two main approaches confronted are the contractual (Coasian) perspective and the competence (evolutionary) perspective. Whereas, the firma as a repository of tacit knowledge is neglected in the contractual perspectives,...

We discuss contract theory from a combined Austrian/new institutional view. In the latter view, the world is seen as shot through with ignorance and transaction costs, but, as a tendency, entrepreneurial activity responds to the problems caused by these. All modelling must critically reflect...

This paper discusses the reasons for the success of the new growth theory. Given that the NGT does not appear to say much new about empirical reality, that its essential ideas have been known for a long time, and that it does not really make contact with a large literature on institutions and...