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The nature of the firm and peculiarities of the corporation

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  • Tony Lawson

Abstract

Insights from social ontology are utilised to provide a novel, or at least clarified, conception of the firm. The latter is shown to be a particular form of social entity that is both of an economic and legal nature. The limited company or ‘corporation’ is shown to be a specific form of firm. A central distinguishing feature of the argument is that positioning matters in social identity constitution and different sorts of phenomena are positioned in different ways. The company/corporation is constituted in a manner that is a hybrid of other forms of positioning. Notions such as legal fiction and legal personality that abound in the related literature, often in confused ways, are also clarified. Various consequences are drawn for further analyses at the levels of method, theory and policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Tony Lawson, 2015. "The nature of the firm and peculiarities of the corporation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 39(1), pages 1-32.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:39:y:2015:i:1:p:1-32.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/beu046
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    Cited by:

    1. Phil Faulkner & Stephen Pratten & Jochen Runde, 2017. "Cambridge Social Ontology: Clarification, Development and Deployment," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 41(5), pages 1265-1277.
    2. Nuno Ornelas Martins, 2018. "Justice and the Social Ontology of the Corporation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 17-28, November.
    3. Tony Lawson, 2015. "Comparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1514, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Imko Meyenburg, 2022. "A possibilist justification of the ontology of counterfactuals and forecasted states of economies in economic modelling," Working Papers hal-03751205, HAL.
    5. Plamen D. Tchipev, 2018. "Firm versus Market – Coase Revisited," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 79-85.

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