Y. Biondi works as Researcher at the CNRS (France) and as an Associate Professor at CNAM (Paris). Biondi coordinated a collective book that articulates ad hoc contributions and reprints of canonical scholars such as Simon, Coase or Berle. Biondi teams up with 11 others contributors who are Italian (3), American (2), French (5) or English (1) scholars. The aim of this collective opus is to provide a new contribution to the theory of the firm based on the synthetic notion of the enterprise entity. Starting from the current economic understanding of the firm, as an institution and an organization, the book goes beyond the narrow boundaries of neoclassical economics to an interdisciplinary approach integrating accounting with law and economics. The authors search to bring a new and original understanding of the firm as an institution and an organization having an active impact on economy and society.
The book is made of four parts. The first part “The firm as an entity” summarizes the joint intent of editors and authors by presenting the idea of enterprise entity and the scope of the book. The authors consider that recent crises in corporate governance and disclosure highlight the deficiencies and shortcomings of received approaches. More troubling, the management and enforcement recommendations they advocate imply poor policy and sometimes huge economic and social losses. The second part “On the economic theory of the firm as an institution and an organization” deals with the current approaches to the firm and summarizes some key issues such as the nature of the firm or its insertion in economy and society. The part is open by O. Weinstein's contribution that provides a review of the current state of economic theory of the firm that is divided among contractual and competence‐based approaches. The four others contributions are reprints of texts from H. Simon, M. Shubick, R. Coase and A. A. Berle who have brought a better understanding of the institutional and organizational dimensions of the firms. Those famous scholars have also indicated non standard ways to understand the firm role in the economy and society. The third part “Perspectives for accounting, law and economics: lessons from the past” is the occasion to put ahead some neglected tradition of thought that have already developed challenging manners to understand business firm and its impact on economy and society. This third part sets six contributions. The first three are ad hoc texts. A. Canziani summarizes the contributions of the Italian and continental traditions of business economics and accounting. R. S. Avi‐Yonah and D. Sivan undertake a historical perspective of legal views on the business firm with special attention to the implications for corporate social responsibility. T. Kirat overviews four two French legal‐economics scholars (Perroux and Rippert) and two American ones (Clark and Commons). The last three texts are reprints of texts from Berle, Anthony and Strauss. Those six contributions are more or less coloured by the classical institutionalism. They defend a view of the firm as an entity, a whole and dynamic system whose institutional economic substance is characterized by legal‐economic, accounting and financial matters. Therefore, they suggested interdisciplinary approach integrating accounting with law and economics. Those contributions also suggest that the firm as an entity is characterized by a peculiar economic and monetary process that generates business incomes while is confronted with the actual dynamics and complexity of reality. The part IV “Essays on economics, legal and accounting features of the firm an entity” is composed of five papers considering that notion of “enterprise entity” constitutes a new way to enter the organizational and institutional dimensions of the firm by understanding it as a whole and dynamic system. Those five contributions explore the consequences and the implications of this interdisciplinary and systemic perspective. Y. Biondi deals with the accounting understanding of the economic nature of the firm as an entity. D. Gindis provides some theoretical building blocks for the theory of the firm as a real entity. F. Manfrin discusses about the relationship among the economic substance of the firm and the legal forms it involves whereas G. Marzo challenges the neoclassical financial economics by an entity approach to the financing process of the firm. M.T. Moore and A. Reberioux end by looking for the evergreen issue of corporate governance by rediscovering the Berle and Means work from the entity perspective.
This book provides groundwork for the development of a comprehensive framework centered on the firm as an enterprise entity. In the light of this perspective, this book tackles with subjects as the nature of learning, diffusion and information processes; the closeness of products, technologies, resources and internal organization and the working framework of rules and norms. The book also develops considerations that tie business strategy and finance, sociology and regulation.
This book belongs to the now a day movement that is reconsidering the theory of the firm by associating interdisciplinary approach with a great attention to the firm as a part of society. It can be recommended to those who are searching for non standard theory of the firm. It should generate researches especially in the intersection of legal statutes; accounting and functioning of the contemporary enterprises.
