ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter may appeal both to economists of organisation and to resourcebased scholars. However, they are likely to entertain divergent expectations about its contents. Thus, for those mainly interested in economic organisation, expectations probably will be directed towards a question such as, ‘How do we secure incentives to invest in accumulating assets with a given and well-known rent-earning capacity?’ The interesting aspects of this question would depend on the assumed information cost constraints on contracting for such an investment. On the other hand, for those economists and management scholars mainly interested in resource-based perspectives on firms, the title probably would be interpreted as a label covering discussions of issues such as: ‘How may rent-earning assets be accumulated as outcomes of the activities taking place within the firms?’, ‘How may differences in historic circumstances and accumulation capacity between firms explain the rents generated from those assets?’ and ‘How may such assets best be explored?’
