Download The Firm Ebook PDF

Contemporary discussions of the corporation tend to divide into one of two camps: On one side are scholars who treat the firm as a purely economic and contractual entity, while another set of scholars look at corporations in purely political terms. Therefore, the corporation is not merely aneconomic endeavor; it is a political institution and must therefore serve social ends and not merely profit. In The Form of the Firm, Abraham Singer contends that both of these approaches overstate their cases dramatically, resulting in two wrongheaded, influential accounts of the corporation. He offers a third way that sees the corporation as being both economic and political. First, it is true thatcorporations exist primarily to increase economic efficiency. However, they do this in ways that distinguish them from the markets in which they operate. Corporations are not natural outgrowths of the free market, but institutions that we have developed to correct market inefficiencies throughmechanisms normally associated with politics. Corporations use social power, norms, and state-sanctioned authority to establish economic cooperation in ways that markets cannot. But, Singer argues that they also have an obligation to uphold the norms of liberal democracy that enable their existenceand smooth-running in the first place. A profound rethinking of what a corporation actually is and how power within it ought to be structured and exercised, The Form of the Firm will reshape our understanding of corporate governance, corporate law, and business ethics.

Mitch McDeere, a Harvard Law graduate, becomes suspicious of his Memphis tax firm when mysterious deaths, obsessive office security, and the Chicago mob figure into its operations.

Mitch McDeere, a Harvard Law graduate, becomes suspicious of his Memphis tax firm when mysterious deaths, obsessive office security, and the Chicago mob figure into its operations.

This 'goldmine of concepts for understanding business and industrial organization' was originally published in 1959 but has been an influence in business schools ever since. The author combines rigorous theory with close observation of the real business world, and writes simply but with anoriginal approach. Her focus on teams and organizational knowledge underlines contemporary discussion of 'organizational competences' and she has written a new introduction which assesses the book's impact and describes the subsequent development of her own ideas.

A behind-the-scenes, revelatory history of the controversial consulting firm traces its decades-long influence in both business and political arenas, citing its role in the establishment of mainstream practices and modern understandings about capitalism while evaluating the failures that have compromised its reputation. 60,000 first printing.

A Harvard law graduate finds that the tax firm he's employed by is not what it seems when the FBI approaches him to become an informant.

This volume features a series of essays which arose from a conference on economics, addressing the question: what is the nature of the firm in economic analysis? This paperback edition includes the Nobel Lecture of R.N. Case.

Includes over 60 classic papers, these volumes collect together contributions on the theory of the firm, beginning with Ronald Coase's classic work of 1937 and ending with important papers published as late as 1998.

This book brings together selections from the most influential writings on the internal economic organisation of business firms.

This book explores a new theory of the firm produced through an exchange between management theory and economics. In the process economics is seen to provide a foundational element for strategy research whilst developing a more realistic theory of the firm with a greater emphasis on its internal features. The success of competence theories of the firm also reflects their ability to explain significant trends in the business world, notably the declining importance of conglomerates and critical features in the success of Asian and Japanese business.

In this book, a well known theorist of the multinational firm extends his major contributions to encompass the scope of the firm in general. Casson presents a model showing how the different activities of the firm - R & D, production, marketing, and distribution, for example - are linked in a way that is just as important in determining the scope of the firm as are the traditional factors of market share or product type. Casson infers from an extensive consideration of the history, development, and organization of the multinational that the scope of any firm is determined by the way it resolves the problem of coordinating these production activities; the possibility of its becoming a multinational, in fact, depends on the strategic problems encountered in these operations. After chapters in which he critically reviews the literature and sets forth his own theoretical insights, the author looks at case studies of topical concern in the shipping, construction, and motor vehicle industries in order to explain contemporary rationalization and restructuring in manufacturing. Mark Casson is Professor of Economics at the University of Reading and author of Economics of Unemployment: An Historical Perspective (MIT Press 1984).

Based on previously classified documents and on interviews with former secret police officers and ordinary citizens, The Firm is the first comprehensive history of East Germany's secret police, the Stasi, at the grassroots level. Focusing on Gransee and Perleberg, two East German districts located north of Berlin, Gary Bruce reveals how the Stasi monitored small-town East Germany. He paints an eminently human portrait of those involved with this repressive arm of the government, featuring interviews with former officers that uncover a wide array of personalities, from devoted ideologues to reluctant opportunists, most of whom talked frankly about East Germany's obsession with surveillance. Their paths after the collapse of Communism are gripping stories of resurrection and despair, of renewal and demise, of remorse and continued adherence to the movement. The book also sheds much light on the role of the informant, the Stasi's most important tool in these out-of-the-way areas. Providing on-the-ground empirical evidence of how the Stasi operated on a day-to-day basis with ordinary people, this remarkable volume offers an unparalleled picture of life in a totalitarian state.

Table of contents

Edith Penrose's contribution to the theory of the firm reinvented the classical tradition in economics. This volume builds on an issue of "Contributions to Political Economy" that celebrated 40 years since Penrose's publication, "The Theory of the Growth of the Firm".

These papers by Teece cover the theory of the firm and its implications for economic performance, as they concern managers and policy-makers. Key topics addressed include: the nature of the firm and dynamic capabilities; diversification and vertical integration; and joint ventures.

This volume of Progress in International Business Research includes a selection of 13 papers from the 35th European International Business Academy Annual Conference, which was held in Valencia (Spain) from the 13th to the 15th of December 2009.