Edith Penrose

Edith Elura Penrose, born Tilton (* November 15, 1914 in Los Angeles, California, † 11 October 1996 in Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, UK), was an American-British economist. Their main work is The Theory of the Growth of the Firm in 1959.

Life

Penrose began her studies first at their place of birth Los Angeles. She moved to Baltimore, where she met her master and her PhD graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with Fritz Machlup. Her dissertation was a study on the growth of the Hercules Powder Company. After living in Geneva, Toronto and London Penrose returned in 1950 for the next 10 years to the University to Baltimore back. During the McCarthy era, she had voluntarily left the country because of " un-American activities" with her second husband, more or less. After living in Australia - Guggenheim Fellowship at the Australian National University in Canberra - and at the University of Baghdad in 1960 she came to London, where she remained for the next 20 years.

First, in half at the LSE and SOAS working, she was Professor of Economics in 1964 with a focus on Asia at SOAS. This chair she held until 1978. From 1977 to 1984 she was employed at INSEAD, the last two years after her retirement in 1982 as Associate Dean.

Penrose 1934 married very young David Denhardt, but died in 1938. With him she had a son. During her time at Johns Hopkins University, she met Ernest Penrose know who there held a Chair economy and whom she married in 1944. She worked with him for the International Labor Office in Geneva and Toronto and as a consultant for the American Ambassador in London, John Winant. With Penrose, who died in 1984, Edith Penrose had three more sons.

Penrose has received honorary doctorates from the universities of Uppsala and Helsinki. She was a member of the " Economic Committee " of the Economic and Social Research Council ( ESRC) from 1970 to 1976, the council of the Royal Economic Society from 1975 to 1980, Director of the Commonwealth Development Corporation from 1975 to 1978 and a member of the ODI 1992-1994.

The Theory of the Growth of the Firm

Significant statements

A company is in the model of Penrose a bundle of physical and intangible resources. The management of such a company can thus be equated with the management of this resource bundle.

A resource, even if it is the same resource, is not the same for two companies. Differences between two companies so in part based on different resources, but on the other hand, the differences in the productive services that make the companies with these resources. Productive services are all services (for example, manufacturing or service ) or indirectly (for example, R & D, internal services ) are to be provided for the company's product directly.

The productive services of a company based on its specific resources are unique in the specific context, on the one hand because they are intrinsically unique ( for example employees), and secondly because they can only be produced in each specific context. The resources of a company to generate productive services are never fully utilized, since they naturally only discrete and indivisible present. From existing resources continuously new resources are generated, new productive services conceived as more knowledge results in more resources and new services, which in turn lead to increased knowledge.

Growth of the company arises be made productive in the untapped resources of the company. From the specific type of resources, there is also the direction of growth.

" Unused productive services are, for the enterprising firm, at the same time a challenge to innovate, to incentive to expand, and a source of competitive advantage. They Facilitate the introduction of new Combinations of resources - innovation - within the firm. The new combi nations ' may be Combinations of services for the production of new products, new processes for the production of old products, new organization of administrative functions. "

The management task to the growth of a company in the exploitation of untapped resources and the discovery and integration of new resources ( particularly in the case of M & A). Since management resource is a specific resource and management of a specific productive service, limited the existing resource management the company's growth. It is assumed and also empirically verified that companies can not realize several periods of accelerated growth sequentially. The latter is called the Penrose Effect.

Reception

Virtually all schools of the Resource - based View quote Penrose as their starting point. In the narrow sense on their approach, building are the ideas for the use of intangible assets ( on the balance sheet begin to see as an intangible asset ) of Itami and Roehl (1987 ), the core competencies theory of Hamel and Prahalad (1990/ 94) and the Knowledge - based view (eg donors 1994) and following it demands knowledge organization and knowledge management ( Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995).

Works

  • The Economics of the International Patent System, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1951, ISBN 0-8371-6653-5
  • The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1959, ISBN 978-0-19-828977-7
  • The Growth of the Firm - A Case Study: The Hercules Powder Company, Business History Review, Volume 34, Spring Issue, pp. 1-23, 1960 ( publication of the dissertation )
  • The Large International Firm in Developing Countries: The International Petroleum Industry, London, Allen & Unwin, 1968, ISBN 0-8371-8850-4
  • New Orientations: Essays in International Relations, with Peter Lyon, Frank Cass & Co, 1970, ISBN 0-7146-2593-0
  • Iraq: International Relations and National Development, with Ernest Penrose, Boulder, Westview Press, 1978, ISBN 0-89158-804-3
October 11 SOAS, University of London Gary Hamel Hirotaka Takeuchi Name Authority File
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