The question of the firm. Organizational forms and dimensions

The paper will dedicate some development to the theory of the firm, that is: general considerations on organization, capabilities and uncertainty, with particular reference to interactions among entrepreneurship, uncertainty and innovation. Particular attention will be paid to the idea of radical uncertainty in order to clarify frequent misconceptions as to the meaning and substance of this variable, its links with the question of competence and profit and – one of the most abstruse of questions – its measurability and the possible implications of deriving such a measure, primarily on the management of the business cycle. The treatment of these subjects will lead into a discussion of the size of the firm, the connected organizational problems and, hence, the nature of the corporation, the question of its responsibilities, the monitoring role of the profit rate intended as an accountability (not distributive) variable, i.e. as an expression of a firm’s results and hence of the success of its decision making and some considerations on optimization .