This book brings together some of the world's leading experts to present an interdisciplinary, critical perspective on current issues surrounding the economics of the firms. It eschews standard approaches to the economics of the firm (including analysis of transaction costs) in favour of a more interdisciplinary outlook, with evolutionary economics taken into account. Central to this is the concept of trust and the belief that any approach to the firm must recognize cultural and political factors. The chapters emphasize the themes of change and evolution and explore issues arising from the history and organization of firms.

Preface. Contributors. 1. Introduction: The Firm in an Inter-Disciplinary Context. Part 1: The Economics of the Firm: Analysis and Background 2. The Nature of the Firm Revisited. 3. Trust, Learning and the Firm. 4. Accounting and the Economic Analysis of the Firm as an Entity. 5. The Value of Integration: Old Institutional Economics and New Institutional Sociology. Part 2: The Economics of the Firm: Change and Evolution 6. The Evolutionary Theory of the Firm: Routines, Complexity and Change. 7. Insights into the Self-Reproduction of the Firm with the Von Neumann Automate Model. 8. A Penrosean Theory of the Firm: Implications and Applications for the Study of the Growth of Young Firms. 9. Entrepreneurship and the Corporate Firm. Part 3: The Economics of the Firm: History and Organisation 10. Business History and the Organization of Industry. 11. The Firm in History: City Industry Relations: A Case Study of the Engineering Sector in the UK Economy During the Interwar Years.