Session 1: The Economic Theory of the Firm: Background.

This lecture shows how the emergence of the economic theory of the firm reflects a general change in economics towards more realistic assumptions, a greater concern with small numbers interaction, and an expansion of the set of phenomena that economists think they can legitimately deal with it (Kreps). A survey is provided of the main theories of economic organization (Foss), and agency theory is offered as an example of how economists of organization explain (Hendrikse).

• David Kreps. 1997. “Economics: The Current Position,” Daedalus 126: 59-86.

• Nicolai J. Foss. “The Theory of the Firm: an Introduction to Themes and Contributions,” in idem. The Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives in Economic Organization, London: Routledge, 2000.

• Georg Hendrikse. 2003. Economics and Management of Organizations. London: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 5. Chapter 6.

Session 2:  Inside the Firm: The Behavioral and Agency Theory

Joseph Mahoney. 2005. Economic Foundations of Strategy. London: Sage.                   Chapter 1. Chapter 4.

Session 3:  The Boundaries of The Firm: Transaction Cost Economics and the Firm

• Oliver E. Williamson. 2002. “The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 16, No. 3: 171-95.

• Steven Tadelis. 2002. “Complexity, Flexibility and the Make-or-Buy Decision,” American Economic Review, Vol. 92, No. 2: 433-37.

• Robert Gibbons, “Four Formal(izable) Theories of the Firm?” Working Paper, MIT, September 2004.

Session 4: Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the Firm

• Yasemin Kor, Joseph Mahoney and Steven Michael, “Resources, Capabilities, and Entrepreneurial Perceptions,” Journal of Management Studies (forthcoming)

• Kirsten Foss, Nicolai Foss, Peter Klein and Sandra Klein, ”The Entrepreneurial Organization of Heterogeneous Assets,” Journal of Management Studies (forthcoming)

Session 5: Empirical Research in the Theory of the Firm


• Peter G. Klein. 2005.  “The Make-or-Buy Decision: Lessons from Empirical Studies,” in Claude Ménard and Mary Shirley, eds. Handbook of New Institutional Economics, pp. 435-64. Springer.

• Robert J. David and Shin-Kap Han. 2004. “A Systematic Assessment of the Empirical Support for Transaction Cost Economics,” Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 25, No. 1: 39-58.

• Richard Carter and Geoffrey M. Hodgson, “The Impact of Empirical Tests of Transaction Cost Economics on the Debate on the Nature of the Firm, Strategic Management Journal 27, no. 5 (May 2006): 461-76.
 

Session 6: The Firm in Strategic Management: The Resource-based and Capabilities View

Joseph Mahoney. 2005. Economic Foundations of Strategy. London: Sage.                   Chapter 5. Chapter 6.

Session 7: Finance, Governance, and Innovation

• Mitchell Berlin. 1998. “That Thing Venture Capitalists Do,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Economic Review

• Andrade, Gregor, Mark Mitchell, and Erik Stafford, “New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers,” Journal of Economic Perspectives (Spring 2001): 103-120.

• Bhide, Amar. “Reversing Corporate Diversification,” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 3 (Summer 1990): 70–81.

• Peter G. Klein, “Are Internal Capital Markets Good for Innovation?” working paper, University of Missouri, September 2005.

 

Session 8: Roundtable discussion: The Theory of the Firm in Business Administration: Challenges and Opportunities

• Nicolai Foss and Peter G Klein. “The Theory of the Firm and Its Critics: a Stocktaking and an Assessment” Eric Brousseau and Jean-Michel Glachant, eds. Handbook of New Institutional Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming)

Session 9: Towards a Stakeholder Theory of the Firm in Strategic Management (Joint seminar with the Center for Strategic Management and Globalization)

• Joseph Mahoney. 2005. Economic Foundations of Strategy. London: Sage.                   Chapter 3.

• Joseph Mahoney: “Towards a Stakeholder Theory of Strategic Management"