ABSTRACT
Notwithstanding their insights, and their innovative contributions to a better
understanding of the economy of the firm, the accepted theories of the firm still
have a flavour that is distinctly neoclassical, i.e., they directly or indirectly rely
on ‘‘worldviews’’ (Weltanschauungen) as well as on tools rooted in the neo-classical
tradition. Such a common approach rests on two basic preconceptions. Drawing
upon methodological individualism, which reduces collective phenomena to
transient interactions among individuals, the collective dimension of the firm is
entirely associated to the question of the legal personality and thus to the cor-
poration. As a consequence, once the firm – seen as a corporation – dissolves in
atomistic interplays, or is merely understood either as a ‘‘legal fiction’’ or a
‘‘governance device’’ dealing with the relations among stakeholders, it loses its
fundamental contents of an economic, holistic and dynamic nature.
