IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ebg/iesewp/d-0855.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From action theory to the theory of the firm

Author

Listed:
  • Argandoña, Antonio

    (IESE Business School)

Abstract

Since Coase's (1937) pioneering article, the theory of the firm, especially in its neoclassical form, has developed tremendously. The criticisms leveled against it confirm its interest and usefulness - which is not to say that it cannot be improved upon or corrected in many respects. This chapter is intended to contribute to a broadening of the theory of the firm, starting from a theory of human action that encompasses a wide range of motivations. It also suggests specific ways in which the conception of the firm can be improved.

Suggested Citation

  • Argandoña, Antonio, 2010. "From action theory to the theory of the firm," IESE Research Papers D/855, IESE Business School.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebg:iesewp:d-0855
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/DI-0855-E.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    2. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    3. Josep Rosanas, 2008. "Beyond Economic Criteria: A Humanistic Approach to Organizational Survival," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(3), pages 447-462, March.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    5. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1992. "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 383-397, August.
    6. Foss, Nicolai Juul, 1994. "The Theory of the Firm: The Austrians as Precursors and Critics of Contemporary Theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 31-65.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Foss, Nicolai & Mahnke, Volker (ed.), 2000. "Competence, Governance, and Entrepreneurship: Advances in Economic Strategy Research," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198297178, Decembrie.
    9. Elias L. Khalil, 1998. "The Janus Hypothesis," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 315-342, December.
    10. Matthias Benz & Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "Corporate Governance: What can we Learn from Public Governance?," IEW - Working Papers 166, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Stavros Ioannides, 1999. "Towards an Austrian Perspective on the Firm," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 11(1), pages 77-97, January.
    12. Dulbecco, Philippe & Garrouste, Pierre, 1999. "Towards an Austrian Theory of the Firm," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 12(1), pages 43-64.
    13. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    14. Brian Loasby, 2009. "Knowledge, coordination and the firm: Historical perspectives," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 539-558.
    15. Philippe Dulbecco & Pierre Garrouste, 1999. "Towards an Austrian theory of the firm," Post-Print halshs-00274296, HAL.
    16. Frey, Bruno S., 2010. "Superb Posner – but can we go further?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 65-69, March.
    17. Marie-Laure Salles-Djelic & Radu Vranceanu, 2007. "Moral Foundations of Management Knowledge," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-01891991, HAL.
    18. Richard N. Langlois & Nicolai J. Foss, 1999. "Capabilities and Governance: The Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 201-218, May.
    19. Lewin, Peter & Phelan, Steven E, 2000. "An Austrian Theory of the Firm," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 13(1), pages 59-79, February.
    20. Bruno S. Frey, 1997. "Not Just for the Money," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1183.
    21. Schelling, Thomas C, 1978. "Egonomics, or the Art of Self-Management," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(2), pages 290-294, May.
    22. Nicolai J. Foss & Peter G. Klein, 2005. "The Theory of the Firm and Its Critics A Stocktaking and Assessment," DRUID Working Papers 05-03, DRUID, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy/Aalborg University, Department of Business Studies.
    23. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 489-520.
    24. Pierre Garrouste & Philippe Dulbecco, 1999. "Towards an Austrian Theory of the Firm," Post-Print halshs-01300362, HAL.
    25. Holmstrom, Bengt R. & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "The theory of the firm," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-133, Elsevier.
    26. Williamson, Oliver E, 1971. "The Vertical Integration of Production: Market Failure Considerations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 112-123, May.
    27. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1996. "What Firms Do? Coordination, Identity, and Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 7(5), pages 502-518, October.
    28. Richardson, G B, 1972. "The Organisation of Industry," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 82(327), pages 883-896, September.
    29. Elias L. Khalil, 1999. "The Janus Hypothesis," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., vol. 21(2), pages 315-342, January.
    30. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    31. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12319 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Cheung, Steven N S, 1983. "The Contractual Nature of the Firm," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-21, April.
    33. Axel Ockenfels & Gary E. Bolton, 2000. "ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 166-193, March.
    34. Argandoña, Antonio, 2007. "Anthropological and ethical foundations of organization theory," IESE Research Papers D/707, IESE Business School.
    35. Posner, Richard A., 2010. "From the new institutional economics to organization economics: with applications to corporate governance, government agencies, and legal institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-37, March.
    36. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    37. Herbert A. Simon, 1996. "The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262691914, December.
    38. Brousseau,Éric & Glachant,Jean-Michel (ed.), 2008. "New Institutional Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521876605.
    39. Herbert A. Simon, 1991. "Organizations and Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 25-44, Spring.
    40. Brousseau,Éric & Glachant,Jean-Michel (ed.), 2008. "New Institutional Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521700160.
    41. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    42. Antonio Argandoña, 2008. "Integrating Ethics into Action Theory and Organizational Theory," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 78(3), pages 435-446, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    2. Giampaolo Garzarelli & Matthew Holian, 2014. "Parchment, guns, and the problem of governance," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 71-80, March.
    3. Randall G. Holcombe, 2013. "Firms as knowledge repositories," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 259-275, September.
    4. Richard N. Langlois, 2013. "The Austrian theory of the firm: Retrospect and prospect," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 247-258, September.
    5. Der-Fang Hung, 2015. "Sustained Competitive Advantage and Organizational Inertia: The Cost Perspective of Knowledge Management," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(4), pages 769-789, December.
    6. Richard N. Langlois & Nicolai J. Foss, 1999. "Capabilities and Governance: The Rebirth of Production in the Theory of Economic Organization," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 201-218, May.
    7. Soufiane Mezzourh & Walid A Nakara, 2009. "Governance and innovation : A Knowledge-based approach [La gouvernance de l'innovation : une approche par la connaissance]," Post-Print halshs-01955966, HAL.
    8. Foss Kirsten & Foss Nicolai & Klein Peter G. & Klein Sandra K., 2002. "Heterogeneous Capital, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Organization," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, March.
    9. Hildenbrand, Andreas, 2013. "Is a firm a firm? A Stackelberg experiment," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-26.
    10. Allen Kaufman & Ernie Englander, 2011. "Behavioral Economics, Federalism, and the Triumph of Stakeholder Theory," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(3), pages 421-438, September.
    11. Stoelhorst, J. W. & van Raaij, Erik M., 2004. "On explaining performance differentials: Marketing and the managerial theory of the firm," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 462-477, May.
    12. Bruno Tinel, 2004. "Que reste-t-il de la contribution d'Alchian et Demsetz à la théorie de l'entreprise ?," Post-Print halshs-00270895, HAL.
    13. Nicholas S. Argyres & Teppo Felin & Nicolai Foss & Todd Zenger, 2012. "Organizational Economics of Capability and Heterogeneity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1213-1226, October.
    14. Saras D. Sarasvathy & Nicholas Dew, 2013. "Without judgment: An empirically-based entrepreneurial theory of the firm," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 277-296, September.
    15. Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "Corporate Governance for Crooks? The Case for Corporate Virtue," IEW - Working Papers 164, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Baker, George P. & Gibbons, Robert & Murphy, Kevin J., 2008. "Strategic alliances: Bridges between "islands of conscious power"," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 146-163, June.
    17. John Finch & Nicola Dinnei, 2001. "Capturing Knightian Advantages of Large Business Organisations Through Group Decision-making Processes," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 379-403.
    18. Fikret Adaman & Pat Devine, 2002. "A Reconsideration of the Theory of Entrepreneurship: A participatory approach," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 329-355.
    19. Peter Drysdale, 1995. "The Question of Access to the Japanese Market," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 71(3), pages 271-283, September.
    20. Alvarez, Sharon A. & Barney, Jay B., 2004. "Organizing rent generation and appropriation: toward a theory of the entrepreneurial firm," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 621-635, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Action; Action theory; Firm; Motivations; Organization; Theory of the firm;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ebg:iesewp:d-0855. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: Noelia Romero (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ienaves.html .

    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.