Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Knowledge, coordination and the firm: Historical perspectives

Contents:

Author Info

  • Brian Loasby

Abstract

This paper illustrates the problems and processes of developing economic knowledge by a selective historical treatment of ideas about the firm. Coase thought it necessary to explain firms as organizations, but not as distinctive productive units; neither did he explain why markets exist. Chamberlin's attempt to introduce product differentiation and selling costs is compared with Allyn Young's process theory and Marshall's treatment of the firm, and inter-firm relations, as means of organizing the growth of knowledge. The firm is a decision-making system in a context of Knightian uncertainty, and Simon's concept of quasi-decomposability applies to human brains and human organizations.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560903201227
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

Volume (Year): 16 (2009)
Issue (Month): 4 ()
Pages: 539-558

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:16:y:2009:i:4:p:539-558

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/link.asp?target=journal&id=104706

Order Information:
Web: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.asp

Related research

Keywords: Firms; organization; knowledge; decisions; uncertainty;

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

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

Cited by:
  1. Argandoña, Antonio, 2010. "From action theory to the theory of the firm," IESE Research Papers D/855, IESE Business School.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:16:y:2009:i:4:p:539-558

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael McNulty).

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.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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