A market-process approach to corporate coherence

We address the notion of corporate coherence recently made prominent by Teece et al. (1994. Understanding corporate coherence: theory and evidence. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization <B>23</B>: 1-30). We argue that the literature is confused on the meaning of this notion (and similar notions) along a number of dimensions. Drawing on insights from market-process theories, we propose a dynamic understanding of corporate coherence, an understanding that involves the corporate capacity to strike a favorable balance between the production and exploitation of new knowledge. This argument is elaborated drawing on Austrian economics, evolutionary economics, and post-Marshallian economics. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.