Canoes, Bracelets and the Firm

Tiha von Ghyczy - Darden School of Business, University of Virginia   

Abstract: The firm, or in any case the modern firm, is a socially impoverished institution. The dearth of social features and dynamics within the firm, if remarked upon at all, will be normally viewed as an ineluctable concession to the realization of efficiency. I will present for discussion a set of observations and somewhat speculative arguments to challenge this view. This may have some urgency: more and more public policy making relies on conceptualizing society modeled after the firm with potentially debilitating consequences for both.