We view the entrepreneur as an agent who possesses human capital in the form of specific skills or talents. When she starts a firm, her human capital is essential to the firm and it has substantial private value. The entrepreneur transforms her human capital over time into what we call...

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the theory of organisational learning (OL) by developing a middle range theory of how research institutes learn. Because of a research institute’s specific division of labour in the organisation-environment interactions, the means of mediation between...

We consider a hierarchical organization with two fully rational agents. The goal of the organization is that of selecting the best alternative out of several available, and agents are heterogenous in the accuracy with which they screen the alternatives. We show that, if internal communications...

In this paper we want to analyze the internal divisional structure within an organi-zation in the framework of incomplete contract theory. We use the framework of Aghionand Tirole (1997) and define the managerial control structure as sequence of search.A key feature of this paper which...

This paper investigates the relationships between firm organization attributes, namely a structure á la Chandler, and their inward looking or exploitation attitude in R&D and innovation. We argue that because of sunk costs and learning processes an inward looking behavior is a consequence of...

The main aim of the paper is to highlight the relation between flexibility and vertical integration. To this purpose, we go through the selection of the optimal degree of vertical disintegration of a flexible firm which operates in a dynamic uncertain environment. The enterprise we model enjoys...

Die Globalisierung wirtschaftlicher Aktivitäten bei gleichzeitiger Fragmentierung und Dynamisierung der Markts verschärft den internationalen Kosten- und Innovationswettbewerb. Flexibilität und Innovationsfähigkeit sind zu entscheidenden Wettbewerbsfaktoren geworden. Viele Unternehmen haben...

In Italy an extremely large number of companies is organized as a pyramidal group. As compared to other control structures, pyramidal groups might offer minority shareholders less protection and hence discourage them from holding shares. We evaluate empirically the impact of some variables that...