Lyda S. Bigelow

Theories of the Firm-Market Boundary

A central role of the entrepreneur-manager is assembling a strategic bundle of complementary assets and activities, either existing or foreseen, which when combined create value for the firm. This process of creating value however requires managers to assess which activities should be handled by the market and which should be handled within hierarchy. Indeed, for more than forty years, economists, sociologists and organizational scholars have extensively examined the theory of the firm’s central question: what determines the boundaries of the firm? Many alternative theories have emerged and are frequently positioned as competing explanations, often with no shortage of critique for one another. In this paper, we review these theories and suggest that the core theories that have emerged to explain the boundary of the firm commonly address distinctly different directional forces on the firm boundary - forces that are tightly interrelated. We specifically address these divergent, directional forces - as they relate to organizational boundaries - by focusing on four central questions. First, what are the virtues of markets in organizing assets and activities? Second, what factors drive markets to fail? Third, what are the virtues of integration in organizing assets and activities? Fourth, what factors drive organizations to fail? We argue that a complete theory of the firm must address these four questions and we review the relevant literature regarding each of these questions and discuss extant debates and the associated implications for future research.

Skirting the Issues Experimental Evidence of Gender Bias in IPO Prospectus Evaluations

Given the increasing number of women executives in the top management teams of initial public offering (IPO) firms, the lack of female-led IPO firms is a curious fact, especially since women-owned private businesses represent almost half of the new businesses formed in the United States, with patterns of founding similar to those of male-owned businesses. This lack of female-led IPOs suggests a potentially larger problem—a gender-based capital gap for new ventures. Given the empirical evidence suggesting a positive association between the presence of female executives and firm performance, the authors test whether investor perceptions are aligned with these empirical patterns. Using a sample of MBA students, the authors construct a simulated IPO, manipulating the gender demographics of the top management team. Their results suggest that female CEOs may be disproportionately disadvantaged in their ability to attract growth capital, when all other factors are controlled. Despite identical personal qualifications and firm financials, female founders/CEOs were perceived as less capable than their male counterparts, and IPOs led by female founders/CEOs were considered less attractive investments.

New Institutional Economics: New Institutional Economics, Organization, and Strategy

Introduction Although the roots of research into business strategy were seeded in the late 1960s with Igore Ansoff and Richard Brandenburg (1967), the field broke through to the surface and began to grow quickly in the 1970s and early 1980s. In particular, 1980 was a watershed year because of the launching of the fields first major journal, the Strategic Management Journal , and Michael Porters (1980) book, Competitive Strategy , which was heralded in the business community. Since then research into business strategy has been a “growth opportunity,” attracting scholars from many disciplines and subdisciplines and publishing an increasing number of papers each year in a widening number of journals of both general and special interest. Transaction cost economics (TCE) is one of the subdisciplines that planted seeds in the strategy field and nurtured them with notable success. The good news for those studying TCE is that the field of strategy remains fertile and, in our opinion, TCE remains a useful tool for planting many more seeds as well as for harvesting opportunities. Research into business strategy is motivated by three questions: (1) Why do some firms earn more rents than other firms, even in the same industry? (2) Why do performance differences persist? And (3) what can managers do to earn higher and enduring rents for their firms? (For a discussion, see Rumelt, Schendel, and Teece 1991.