This paper intends to depart from a critique of the nexus of contracts theory of the firm endowed with its moral personification to propose some theoretical foundations of the firm as a real entity. Some old legal views of the corporation are mobilized to complete the conceptual vacuity of...

Business firms as well as each of their subunits can be thought of as a set of contracts in which participating agents seek their own goals. Participants contribute resources, expecting to receive in exchange more than the opportunity cost of their contributions. For this system to work, the...