Unveiling the Systemic Nature of the Firm Using a Grammar of Social Processes

Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to explain all forms of economic coordination with a computational complexity approach, which takes into consideration the main theoretical perspectives of the firm: the contract-based or transaction costs view and two extended versions of the resource-based view, the competence-based and relational views. At first, a processual model of sequences of decision-making events deduced from the Generative Grammar Theory proposes a distinction between the market and all alternative coordination structures. Finally, the contribution mechanism of a systemic view of the firm is detailed as an extension of the competence and interorganizational relationship social processes.

Keywords: Critical Realism, Social Ontology, Theory of the Firm

JEL Classification: D21, C63, L25