Why do some firms perform better than others? What enables a firm to grow and take advantage of its opportunities? Currently much discussion of these questions pivots around the ideas of competencies and capabilities, and the concept of the learning organization or knowledge-creating company....

Edith Penrose's "The theory of the growth of the firm" has offered key ingredients to an evolutionary approach to the growth of the firm. The entrepreneur enlivened by Edith Penrose in that book is revisited here, considering the role played by institutions in his decision-making. It is argued...

Intro -- Table of Contents -- Foreword by Edith Penrose (1995) -- Preface -- Chapter -- I: Introduction -- The purpose of the study and the nature of the argument -- II: The Firm in Theory -- Different ways of looking at firms -- The firm in the theory of price and production -- Limits to size...