The Firm and the Market

In this book, a well known theorist of the multinational firm extends his major contributions to encompass the scope of the firm in general. Casson presents a model showing how the different activities of the firm - R & D, production, marketing, and distribution, for example - are linked in a way that is just as important in determining the scope of the firm as are the traditional factors of market share or product type. Casson infers from an extensive consideration of the history, development, and organization of the multinational that the scope of any firm is determined by the way it resolves the problem of coordinating these production activities; the possibility of its becoming a multinational, in fact, depends on the strategic problems encountered in these operations. After chapters in which he critically reviews the literature and sets forth his own theoretical insights, the author looks at case studies of topical concern in the shipping, construction, and motor vehicle industries in order to explain contemporary rationalization and restructuring in manufacturing. Mark Casson is Professor of Economics at the University of Reading and author of Economics of Unemployment: An Historical Perspective (MIT Press 1984).