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Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm

Author

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  • Orts, Eric W.

    (Guardsmark Professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

Business firms are ubiquitous in modern society, but an appreciation of how they are formed and for what purposes requires an understanding of their legal foundations. This book provides a scholarly and yet accessible introduction to the legal framework of modern business enterprises. It explains the legal ideas that allow for the recognition of firms as organizational "persons" having social rights and responsibilities. Other foundational ideas include an overview of how the laws of agency, contracts, and property fit together to compose the organized "persons" known as business firms. The institutional legal theory of the firm developed embraces both a "bottom-up" perspective of business participants and a "top-down" rule-setting perspective of government. Other chapters in the book discuss the features of limited liability and the boundaries of firms. A typology of different kinds of firms is presented ranging from entrepreneurial one-person start-ups to complex corporations, as well as new forms of hybrid social enterprises. Practical applications include contribution to the debates surrounding corporate executive compensation and political free-speech rights of corporations.

Suggested Citation

  • Orts, Eric W., 2013. "Business Persons: A Legal Theory of the Firm," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199670918.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxp:obooks:9780199670918
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Eric Rasmusen, 2014. "The Goals of the Corporation under Shareholder Primacy," Working Papers 2014-05, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    2. Nuno Ornelas Martins, 2018. "Justice and the Social Ontology of the Corporation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 17-28, November.
    3. Elsabé Keyser & Samson Adeoluwa Adewumi & Rochelle Fourie, 2020. "Environmental Factors and Affective Well-Being Influence on Mine Workers Absenteeism in South Africa," European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 6, ejis_v6_i.
    4. N. Craig Smith & David Rönnegard, 2016. "Shareholder Primacy, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the Role of Business Schools," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 463-478, March.
    5. Ronen Palan & Hannah Petersen & Richard Phillips, 2023. "Arbitrage spaces in the offshore world: Layering, ‘fuses’ and partitioning of the legal structure of modern firms," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 1041-1061, June.
    6. David Gindis & Abraham A. Singer, 2023. "The Corporate Baby in the Bathwater: Why Proposals to Abolish Corporate Personhood Are Misguided," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(4), pages 983-997, April.
    7. Hinton, Jennifer B. & Cornell, Sarah E., 2022. "Profit as a means or an end? A conceptual framework for an ecological economics approach to sustainable business," Working Paper Series 03/2022, Post-Growth Economics Network (PEN).
    8. Caleb Bernacchio, 2023. "Business and the Ethics of Recognition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(1), pages 1-16, June.
    9. David Rönnegard & N. Craig Smith, 2024. "A Rawlsian Rule for Corporate Governance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 295-308, March.
    10. Richard Phillips & Hannah Petersen & Ronen Palan, 2021. "Group subsidiaries, tax minimization and offshore financial centres: Mapping organizational structures to establish the ‘in-betweener’ advantage," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(2), pages 286-307, June.

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