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Max-Planck-Institut für Ökonomik

Max Planck Institute of Economics

Staff of the Max Planck Institute

Klaus Rathe

[Klaus Rathe]

Klaus Rathe
Research Associate
Max Planck Institute of Economics,
Evolutionary Economics Group
Kahlaische Straße 10
D-07745 Jena
Germany
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Research Topics

Dissertation Project

With its quest for explaining the "nature" of the firm the transaction costs oriented approach predominates the research agenda in the theory of the firm. In this perspective three fundamental research questions are of central interest:

  1. Existence: why do firms exist?
  2. Boundaries: what factors determine their boundaries relative to the markets?
  3. Internal organization: what determines the firms’ internal organization?

When answering these questions usually comparative static models are employed comparing the relative efficiency of different contractual or organizational arrangements. One important problem with this type of theorizing is the comparative static view on firms: firm organizations undergo significant changes over their life span and these changes interact with the intentions pursued by choosing the institutional form of the firm for the divison of labor. The growth of a firm usually means serious organizational challenges as it requires changing ways of achieving co-ordination. Organizing the division of labor by means of a firm may therefore imply very different arrangements when looking at a newly founded, small enterprise on the one hand and a large scale, multi-division managerial company on the other. In order to understand the development of a particular firm organization rather different questions are focused upon:

  1. Creation: What guides the creation of a firm organization?
  2. Co-Evolution: How do firm organizations and the markets they are connected to through input and output relations co-evolve?
  3. Development: What regular paths of internal organizational development can be identified, and what contingencies determine which of the paths is likely to be taken?

The foundation for answering these questions was laid by Edith Penrose in her 1959 book "The theory of the growth of the firm". The project builds on her contribution (which mainly focuses on question (III), neglecting other important questions in a developmental perspective) as well as on various strands in cognitive research, organizational behavior and business administration in order to develop a process perspective on firm organization which is claimed to be more realistic than the functional approach of the modern economics of organization.

Publications


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Last Modification: 2009-10-05, 11:55Imprint