This paper develops a new theory of agency in which agents make use of hierarchies of plans which they successively select and refine until they have plans of action that can be implemented. Each hierarchy of plans has the structure of a semilattice. This analytical decision making framework is...

This paper develops microeconomic foundations for a theory of entrepreneurship and growth, focusing on innovation and opportunity as intermediate linkages between the two. Expanding upon points of tangency between Schumpeter and Coase, the paper argues that transactions costs are the glue that...

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- I Corporate Governance and the Market for Corporate Control -- 1 U.S. Corporate Governance: Lessons from the 1980s -- 2 The Modern Industrial Revolution, Exit, and the Failure of Internal Control Systems -- 3 Active Investors, LBOs, and the...

We analyze the role of implicit contracts' (that is, informal agreements supported by" reputation rather than law) both within firms, for example in employment relationships between them, for example as hand-in-glove supplier relationships. We find that the optimal" organizational form is...

Previous developments in the opportunism-independent theory of the firm are either restricted to special cases or are derived from the capabilities or resource-based perspective. However, a more general opportunism-independent approach can be developed, based on the work of Demsetz and Coase,...

A computer-generated 3D quantitative fold is presented called Knowledge Valley and this virtual fold is used to model an Innovation-Based View of the evolution and development of SMEs by means of the growth of their knowledge assets. By using concrete values of employee number and annual...