The theory of the growth of the firm /

Provides several concepts for understanding business and industrial organization. This work focuses on teams and organizational knowledge, underlining contemporary discussion of 'organizational competences'.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Penrose, Edith Tilton
Corporate Author: Oxford University Press
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1995.
Edition:3rd ed.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Table of Contents:
  • Intro
  • Table of Contents
  • Foreword by Edith Penrose (1995)
  • Preface
  • Chapter
  • I: Introduction
  • The purpose of the study and the nature of the argument
  • II: The Firm in Theory
  • Different ways of looking at firms
  • The firm in the theory of price and production
  • Limits to size
  • The 'firm' is not a firm
  • The firm as an administrative organization
  • The function and nature of an industrial firm
  • Size and administrative coordination
  • Industrial firms and investment trusts
  • Continuity in the 'history' of a firm
  • The firm as a collection of physical and human resources
  • The motivation of the firm
  • The profit motive
  • Long-run profits and growth
  • III: The Productive Opportunity of the firm and the 'Entrepreneur'
  • Growth limited by a firm's 'productive opportunity'
  • The role of enterprise and the competence of management
  • Entrepreneurial versus managerial competence
  • The quality of entrepreneurial services
  • Entrepreneurial versatility
  • Fund-raising ingenuity
  • Entrepreneurial ambition
  • Entrepreneurial judgment
  • The role of expectations in the productive opportunity of the firm
  • IV: Expansion Without Merger: The Receding Managerial Limit
  • Two basic assumptions
  • The nature of the managerial limit on expansion
  • The management team
  • Release of managerial services
  • Growth of managerial services
  • The receding limit and the 'static' approach
  • The effect of uncertainty and risk
  • Uncertainty and information
  • Risk and unavoidable uncertainty
  • V: 'Inherited' Resources and the Direction of Expansion
  • Types of inducement to expand
  • The continuing availability of unused productive services
  • Indivisibility and the 'balance of processes'
  • The specialized use of resources
  • Heterogeneity of resources
  • Interaction between material and human resources.
  • The creation of new productive services
  • 'Demand' and the productive resources of the firm
  • What is the relevant demand?
  • The direction of expansion
  • VI: The Economies of Size and the Economies of Growth
  • The economies of size
  • Technological economies
  • Managerial economies
  • Economies in operation and expansion
  • The economies of growth
  • Disappearing versus enduring economies
  • VII: The Economics of Diversification
  • Efficiency of 'integration'
  • Meaning of diversification
  • Areas of specialization
  • Specific opportunities for diversification
  • Importance of industrial research
  • The significance of selling efforts
  • Importance of a technological base
  • Some examples
  • The role of acquisition
  • The role of competition
  • The necessity of continued investment in existing fields
  • Full-line diversification
  • Competition and diversification into new areas
  • Diversification as a solution to specific problems
  • Temporary fluctuations in demand
  • Permanent adverse changes in demand
  • The direction of diversification
  • Diversification as a general policy for growth
  • Vertical integration
  • The firm as a pool of resources
  • VIII: Expansion Through Acquisition and Merger
  • The corporation and merger
  • The economic basis of acquisition
  • Personal considerations and special situations
  • Critical points in the process of expansion
  • The competitive expansion of Alpha
  • Where Beta blocks the expansion of Alpha
  • Combination
  • The purchase and sale of 'businesses' that are not firms
  • Economic basis for the sale of a 'business'
  • Effect on the process of growth
  • The appropriateness of diversification
  • The role of entrepreneurial services
  • Entrepreneurial temperament and the profit motive
  • Empire-building and merger
  • The role of managerial services
  • The necessity of administrative integration.
  • Merger and the dominant firm
  • IX The Rate of Growth of Firms Through Time
  • Introduction
  • Special assumptions
  • Measurability
  • The fundamental ratio
  • Managerial services available for expansion
  • Increase in the administrative task with growth
  • Impact of changing environmental conditions
  • Managerial services required for expansion
  • Character of expansion
  • Relation to existing activities and market conditions
  • Method of expansion
  • Changes in the rate of growth with increasing size
  • The 'growth curve'
  • X The Position of Large and Small Firms in a Growing Economy
  • The special position of small firms
  • Competitive handicaps, especially finance
  • The continued existence of small firms
  • Opportunities for growth
  • 'Interstices' in a growing economy
  • The principle of comparative advantage
  • XI Growing Firms in a Growing Economy: The Process of Industrial Concentration and the Pattern of Dominance
  • Barriers to entry
  • General effect on investment in the economy as a whole
  • The importance of 'Big Business' competition
  • Capital requirements and consumer loyalty
  • Artificial barriers and the interstices
  • Merger in a growing economy
  • Merger in relation to indices of business activity
  • The effect on the interstices of 'natural' limitations on acquisition
  • Interstices and the business cycle
  • The process of industrial concentration
  • Measurement of concentration
  • Concentration and growing firms in a growing economy
  • Some shaky evidence
  • Concentration within industries
  • Diversification and industry concentration
  • Concentration and dominance
  • The continued dominance of large firms
  • Conclusion
  • Index
  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D
  • E
  • F
  • G
  • H
  • I
  • J
  • K
  • L
  • M
  • N
  • O
  • P
  • Q
  • R
  • S
  • T
  • U
  • V
  • W
  • Y.