IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jinsec/v5y2009i01p25-46_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From fictions and aggregates to real entities in the theory of the firm

Author

Listed:
  • GINDIS, DAVID

Abstract

According to the dominant ‘nexus of contracts’ and ‘collection of assets’ views of the firm, the firm is a either a fiction or an aggregate. Although legal personality is important in both accounts, everything is said to be achieved by private contract alone and the law's role in creating legal entity status is dismissed. The paper challenges both these aspects by reconsidering an alternative ‘real entity theory’ that dominated debates at the turn of the twentieth century. This forgotten view holds that the firm is neither a fiction nor an aggregate but a real entity, and underlines the creation of legal entity status as a fundamental role of the law. The paper discusses this view's ontological and legal insights, clarifies the proposition that the firm is a real entity, and proposes it as a starting point for a theory of the firm.

Suggested Citation

  • Gindis, David, 2009. "From fictions and aggregates to real entities in the theory of the firm," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 25-46, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:5:y:2009:i:01:p:25-46_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1744137408001203/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simon Deakin, 2017. "Tony Lawson’s Theory of the Corporation: Towards a Social Ontology of Law," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(5), pages 1505-1523.
    2. Gindis, David & Hodgson, Geoffrey M. & Huang, Kainan & Pistor, Katharina, 2017. "Legal institutionalism: Capitalism and the constitutive role of lawAuthor-Name: Deakin, Simon," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 188-200.
    3. Inga Hardeck & J. William Harden & David R. Upton, 2021. "Consumer Reactions to Tax Avoidance: Evidence from the United States and Germany," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 75-96, April.
    4. Chassagnon, Virgile, 2012. "Une analyse historique de la nature juridique de la firme," Revue de la Régulation - Capitalisme, institutions, pouvoirs, Association Recherche et Régulation, vol. 12.
    5. Stephanie Blankenburg, 2012. "Limited liability," Chapters, in: Jan Toporowski & Jo Michell (ed.), Handbook of Critical Issues in Finance, chapter 27, pages i-ii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Lenore Palladino, 2022. "Economic Policies for Innovative Enterprises: Implementing Multi-Stakeholder Corporate Governance," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 5-25, March.
    7. Richard Adelstein, 2010. "Firms as Social Actors," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2013-003, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    8. Simon Deakin, 2017. "Tony Lawson's Theory of the Corporation: Towards a Social Ontology of Law," Working Papers wp491, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    9. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2012. "Veblen, Commons and the Theory of the Firm," Chapters, in: Michael Dietrich & Jackie Krafft (ed.), Handbook on the Economics and Theory of the Firm, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Fabian Grabicki & Jens Weghake, 2016. "Why the QWERTY phenomenon is not just in the theorists’ minds yet not pose a problem in reality," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0016, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    11. Simon Deakin & David Gindis & Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Kainan Huang & Katharina Pistor, 2015. "Legal Institutionalism: Capitalism & the Constitutive Role of Law," Working Papers wp468, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    12. Hodgson, Geoffrey M., 2013. "Observations on the legal theory of finance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 331-337.
    13. Richard Adelstein, 2013. "Firms as Persons," Wesleyan Economics Working Papers 2013-003, Wesleyan University, Department of Economics.
    14. John Buchanan & Dominic Heesang Chai & Simon Deakin, 2013. "Empirical Analysis of Legal Institutions and Institutional Change: Multiple-Methods Approaches and their Application to Corporate Governance Research," Working Papers wp445, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    15. Scherer Anna-Lena & Schmiel Ute, 2021. "Ethical and Legal Responsibility of Multinational Corporate Groups for a Fair Share of Taxes," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2021(1), pages 32-46, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:5:y:2009:i:01:p:25-46_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.