Community Control and the Theory of the Firm
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9255982 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John F Tomer (0000-0001-7657-6346, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1980 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 191-214 |
| Publication date | 1980-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of Social Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-6764 • E-ISSN: 1470-1162 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00346768000000318 |
| OpenAlex | W1965609835 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 6 |
In a capitalist economy, businessmen generally have considerable freedom regarding the type of economic activity they engage in. How? ever, there are substantial differences among societies and communi? ties in their tolerance for and acceptance of various types of business endeavor. Moreover, as social attitudes and values change, what was once considered to be a legitimate activity may no longer find accept? ance, or vice versa. If so, business organizations and their members may experience a variety of external social influences which may be independent of the economic returns expected from the challenged activity. This kind of development raises important questions for the economic analyst. How do firms respond to external social influences? Do these responses improve economic welfare? These questions have assumed greater significance in the last decade or so as the legitimacy of many business endeavors has increasingly been challenged for a variety of reasons. Economists, for the most part, have not tried to answer questions of this sort. In the orthodox (neoclassical) economic theory of the firm, firms decide to produce the quantity of output which maximizes their profit (allowing for risk and uncertainty), and in the absence of market im? perfections and externalities, this result is an efficient one in the sense that this allocation of resources maximizes the net benefits to society. If imperfections and externalities, which are economic in character exist, either too few or too many of particular goods are produced. The purpose of this paper is to show how certain social factors exter? nal to the firm may influence or constrain it from producing the amount that one would expect based on economic considerations alone. Thus, external social factors may contribute to or impair the efficiency of markets. In the latter case, market failure, external social con? siderations may contribute to the persistence of certain types of social problems. The analysis below focuses on those instances of external
Control (management) · Economics · Externality · Legitimacy · Market economy · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Profit (economics) · Public economics · Theory of the firm · Variety (cybernetics) · Welfare · Climate Change Policy and Economics · Economic theories and models · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law
| Citations per year | 0.06 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1992 - 1998 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |