역사적 관점에서 본 기업이론의 전개과정

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

For the last 50 years, particularly during the last 20 years, various theories of the business firm have appeared and theoretical disputes about the nature of modern corporation have been intensified. As the significance of the neo-classical model which assumes perfect competition and profit maximization weakened, the theory of monopolistic competition and oligopoly which seems to describe a market form common in the modern economy, managerialism and new institutional school emerged simultaneously during the 1930s, which constituted a watershed in theoretical studies of the firm. On the one hand, many theorists have been interested in the changes of corporate behavior as a variety of market structure was identified. On the other hand, as the giant corporations emerged at the end of 19th century and early 20th century, some theorists paid attention to the fact that ownership had become divorced from control, generating managerialism which includes a number of managerial models of the firm. For the last 20 years, the new institutional school attracted many social scientists` interest, which was greatly influenced by managerialism. It contains various approach such as transaction cost economics, theory of property rights, principal-agent theory and evolutionary economics, etc., explaining corporate behavior and its organizational characteristics in a broad perspective. As far as theory about modern corporation is concerned, managerialism and new institutional school are known to be representative ones. Both approaches possess common factor by recognizing the firm as an `institution`. However, while managerialism keeps wholistic position and new institutional school chooses individualistic approach in methodological aspect, the former perceives the firm as a social and historical institution and the latter perceives it as a result of individual`s rational choice in the aspect of content. The theory of corporate behavior is more diverse, more complex, and less complete than it seemed in the past. However, by investigating the implications of theoretical nature of the existing firm in reality, a desirable economic system may be sought. In this respect, the author believes this paper can contribute to the development of such system.