Contrary to well-known theories regarding the firm as a “black box”, or a nexus of contracts, or whatever else, since end-19th century two Continental European branches of economic thought -namely Betriebswirtschaftslehre in Germany, and Economia Aziendale in Italy- stated that firms can be interpreted as a system (form Henry Poincaré to L. von Bertalanffy) oriented to the satisfaction of human needs, with i) the objective condition of existence of economic equilibrium, and ii) the subjective goals imposed by its governing core group. This way firms can be interpreted by systems of a) financing and investments, b) capitals, intangibles and managers, b) prices, d) organization elements and culture, and so on. In particular, firms as <systems of prices> are composed of two whole sub-systems, of cost-prices and revenue prices respectively, as well as by the merging of both in the continuous look for economic equilibrium (from the rentability, finance, and monetary point of view) within the never-ending changes of products, markets and technologies.
On the Economic Nature of the firm
CANZIANI, Arnaldo
2005-01-01
Abstract
Contrary to well-known theories regarding the firm as a “black box”, or a nexus of contracts, or whatever else, since end-19th century two Continental European branches of economic thought -namely Betriebswirtschaftslehre in Germany, and Economia Aziendale in Italy- stated that firms can be interpreted as a system (form Henry Poincaré to L. von Bertalanffy) oriented to the satisfaction of human needs, with i) the objective condition of existence of economic equilibrium, and ii) the subjective goals imposed by its governing core group. This way firms can be interpreted by systems of a) financing and investments, b) capitals, intangibles and managers, b) prices, d) organization elements and culture, and so on. In particular, firms asI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
