Economic Organization, Capabilities and Coordination

Table of contents

1. Cover
2. Halftitle
3. Title
4. Copyright
5. Contents
6. List of illustrations
7. Notes on contributors
8. 1 Introduction: co-ordination and capabilities
9. 2 George Richardson’s career and the literature of economics
   1. Introduction
   2. Richardson’s path to economics
   3. The research co-ordination problem
   4. The limited impact of Richardson’s work
   5. Was Debreu the cause of Information and Investment’s failure to take off in the 1960s?
   6. Networks, institutions and academic search processes
   7. Conclusion
10. 3 Some principles of economic organisation
    1. The need for co-ordination
    2. The invisible hand
    3. A cardinal principle of economic organisation
    4. The need for co-operation
    5. The need for direction
    6. Direction: its scope and limits
    7. The firm as a microeconomy
    8. Pricing within a firm
    9. Communications, scale and structure
    10. A summary of the argument so far
    11. The costs of consolidation
    12. Other functions of the firm
11. 4 Co-operation and competition paradoxes in the theory of the organisation of industry
    1. Introduction
    2. Information, knowledge and industrial co-ordination
    3. The nature of the firm and the paradox of co-operation
    4. The nature of industry and the paradox of competition
    5. Conclusion
12. 5 Marshall, Andrews and Richardson on markets: an interpretation
    1. Introduction
    2. General Economic Equilibrium: agents and markets
    3. Agents and markets in a Marshallian perspective
    4. Individual agents in Andrews and Richardson
    5. Global markets in Andrews and Richardson
    6. Conclusion
13. 6 Information and investment in a wider context
    1. Introduction
    2. Richardson’s criticism of general equilibrium
    3. The origins of the problem of knowledge
    4. Attempts to mend the model: the Marshallian elements
    5. The defence of cartelisation
    6. The planned economy
    7. Considerations from the wider literature
    8. Conclusion
14. 7 Information and co-ordination in an effective competitive process: Downie’s evolutionary model as a means of resolving Richardson’s problem with competition in the context of post-Marshallian economics
    1. Introduction
    2. Downie’s population ecology of the industry
    3. Richardson’s competitive process
    4. An alternative welfare economics
    5. Conclusion
15. 8 Austrian and post-Marshallian economics: the bridging work of George Richardson
    1. Introduction
    2. Marshall, the post-Marshallians and Austrian economics
    3. George Richardson: Marshallian answers to Austrian problems
    4. Austrian and post-Marshallian economics: the theory of the firm
    5. Conclusion
16. 9 The concept of capabilities
    1. Introduction
    2. The division of labour and the organisation of knowledge
    3. Direct ‘knowledge how’
    4. Indirect ‘knowledge how’
    5. Competitive advantage
    6. Capabilities in decision-making
    7. The evolution of capabilities
17. 10 Capabilities and the theory of the firm
    1. Introduction
    2. Production costs I: Pigovian price theory
    3. Transaction costs
    4. Modern transaction-cost theory
    5. Production costs redux: capabilities
18. 11 Information costs and the organisational structure of the multinational enterprise
    1. Introduction
    2. General principles
    3. Meta-rationality: minimising the risk of mistakes
    4. Decisiveness, consultation and the internal balance of power
    5. The quality of information
    6. Applications to the multinational enterprise
19. 12 Clusters of collaboration: the firm, join ventures, alliances and clubs
    1. Introduction
    2. The evolution of collaborative activity
    3. The evolution of collaboration in the diversified firm
    4. The evolution of strategic business alliances
    5. Conclusions
20. 13 Limits to a firm’s rate of growth: the Richardsonian view and its contemporary empirical significance
    1. Introduction
    2. Richardson’s view on restraints to growth
    3. Contemporary evidence on limits to a firm’s growth
    4. Limits to small-firm growth: the trade-off relationship
    5. Conclusion
21. 14 Information, similar and complementary assets, and innovation policy
    1. Introduction
    2. Information and innovation
    3. Information, similarity and complementarity
    4. Innovation and industry maturity
    5. Conclusion
22. Index