Synopses & Reviews
Why do some firms perform better than others? What enables a firm to grow and take advantage of its opportunities?
Currently much discussion of these questions pivots around the ideas of competencies and capabilities, and the concept of the learning organization or knowledge-creating company. The Theory of the Growth of the Firm is a rich and pioneering work that addresses these questions and laid the foundation for this approach often referred to as the "resource based view of the firm." Edith Penrose analyzes managerial activities and decisions, organizational routines, and knowledge creation within the company and argues that they are critical to the ability of a firm to grow.
Review
"The basic propositions Edith Penrose put forth in her book The Theory of the Growth of the Firm were provocative and path breaking...How good it is to have her book, long out of print, available again. Her insights, her arguments, still read fresh and right, and finally will get the attention that they warrant."--Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University
"Edith Penrose's pioneering work on the resource-based approach to the firm's growth has greatly inspired me and hundreds of other scholars...As we enter the "knowledge society", this reissue of her classic work with its new foreword is well-timed and welcome."--Ikujiro Nonaka, Hitotsubashi University
Synopsis
This 'goldmine of concepts for understanding business and industrial organization' was originally published in 1959 but has been an influence in business schools ever since. The author combines rigorous theory with close observation of the real business world, and writes simply but with an original approach. Her focus on teams and organizational knowledge underlies contemporary discussion of 'organizational competences', and she has written a new introduction which assesses the book's impact and describes the subsequent development of her own ideas.
Table of Contents
Foreword, Edith Penrose (1955)
Preface
1. Introduction
2. The Firm in Theory
3. The Productive Opportunity of the Firm and the 'Entrepreneur'
4. Expansion Without Merger: The Receding Managerial Limit
5. 'Inherited' Resources and the Direction of Expansion
6. The Economies of Size and the Economies of Growth
7. The Economics of Diversification
8. Expansion Through Acquisition and Merger
9. The Rate of Growth of Firms Through Time
10. The Position of Large and Small Firms in a Growing Economy
11. Growing Firms in a Growing Economy: The Process of Industrial Concentration and the Pattern of Dominance