The complex nature of firms : a meta-theoretical approach

Κάμπης, Αλέξανδρος Δ.

Η σύνθετη φύση των επιχειρήσεων : μία μετα-θεωρητική προσέγγιση

Doctoral Thesis

Author

Κάμπης, Αλέξανδρος Δ.

Date

2026-04

Abstract

This dissertation is a meta-theoretical inquiry into the nature of firms. Unlike conventional firm theory, which analyses firm behaviour within inherited frameworks, meta-theoretical inquiry examines the foundational assumptions determining what firms are taken to be, what can be known about them, and how they can legitimately be analysed. The motivation arises from a persistent pattern: despite decades of refinement, existing theories exhibit recurring explanatory limitations regarding adaptation, innovation, heterogeneity, and structural instability – consequences not of empirical anomalies but of assumptions inherited from a mechanistic paradigm. Because firms exhibit the defining properties of complex adaptive systems – emergence, path-dependence, relational constitution, fundamental uncertainty – reconceptualisation requires intervention at the level of foundational assumptions rather than incremental extension. The dissertation adopts problematisation as its methodology: generating theoretical contributions through systematic assumption-challenging rather than gap-spotting. Where gap-spotting extends literatures while leaving foundational commitments intact, problematisation interrogates background assumptions, evaluates which warrant challenge, and develops coherent alternatives. This methodology is appropriate because the limitations of firm theory arise from an assumptive configuration requiring structural intervention rather than local repair. From this stance emerges the primary research question: How should firms be reconceptualised when the foundational assumptions of mainstream economic theorising are systematically problematised and reconstructed to be compatible with a complex adaptive systems perspective? This question emerged through three recognitions: that explanatory tensions arise under assumptions suited to closed, stable, decomposable settings; that surface-level extensions cannot address tensions arising from deeper commitments; and that criticism alone is insufficient – alternatives require explicit replacement assumptions. Five subsidiary questions operationalise the inquiry: assumption identification and diagnostic evaluation (SQ1–2); and ontological, epistemological, and methodological reconstruction (SQ3–5). Through the FROM→TO transformation framework, the dissertation proceeds in three movements corresponding to the diagnostic, reconstructive, and evaluative stages of problematisation. First, it identifies the assumptive architecture of mainstream firm theory. The architecture comprises fifteen interlocking assumptions across a Lakatosian hard core – foundational commitments treated as methodologically irrefutable – and protective belt. The hard core consists of five ontological assumptions (reductionism, determinism, substance ontology, closure, atomism) and four epistemological assumptions (certainty, universal laws, monism, perfect information). The protective belt consists of six derivatives: equilibrium, linearity, homogeneity, ergodicity, optimisation, decomposability. Three reinforcing feedback loops interlock at high-centrality nodes, producing a triple-locked architecture explaining why piecemeal reform fails: the preserved hard core regenerates challenged derivatives or absorbs modifications as special cases. Second, it develops an alternative assumption ground through coordinated FROM→TO transformations. Ontologically: emergent wholeness replaces reductionism; process ontology replaces substance; relational primacy replaces atomism; thermodynamic openness replaces closure; the meso-level is restored as the privileged analytical scale. Epistemologically: fundamental uncertainty is recognised as ontological; pattern-based navigation replaces prediction-centred knowledge; scaffolded rationality replaces unbounded optimisation. Methodologically: structured pluralism replaces monism. These alternatives form a mutually reinforcing architecture – emergence requiring relational constitution, process ontology necessitating openness, fundamental uncertainty following from non-ergodicity – forging a Lakatosian hard core as genuine paradigmatic alternative. Third, it evaluates whether the alternative generates compelling theory. The reconceptualisation yields a transformed understanding: firms as historically evolving, open, multi-level process-patterns – relationally constituted configurations whose identity consists in self-reproducing activity rather than fixed essence, whose boundaries function as selective membranes, whose capabilities emerge from relational configurations, and whose evolution follows path-dependent trajectories. Properties that mechanistic assumptions render invisible – emergence, downward causation, path-dependence, adaptive tension – become analytically accessible. This reconceptualisation transforms not only answers but the nature of questions themselves. In strategic management, sustainable advantage gives way to adaptive capacity; strategy becomes navigation rather than optimisation. In organisational design, control-based intervention gives way to enabling conditions for emergence. In economic methodology, theoretical monism dissolves into structured pluralism under explicit scope conditions. The dissertation operates under explicit constraints that are design choices appropriate to paradigm-level work: pure theory without empirical testing, since foundational reconstruction must precede meaningful testing; scope confined to the firm-as-CAS at the meso-level; modest predictive ambitions under non-ergodicity. These constraints open space for subsequent programmes: empirical investigation of meso-level phenomena, operationalisation of structured pluralism, case-based research examining firms as process-patterns – programmes enabled by the reconstructive cascade.

Department

Σχολή Οικονομικών, Επιχειρηματικών και Διεθνών Σπουδών. Τμήμα Οργάνωσης και Διοίκησης Επιχειρήσεων

Number of pages

633

Language

English

URI

https://dione.lib.unipi.gr/xmlui/handle/unipi/19167

Collections

Τμήμα Οργάνωσης και Διοίκησης Επιχειρήσεων

Show full item record

Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
Αναφορά Δημιουργού-Μη Εμπορική Χρήση-Όχι Παράγωγα Έργα 3.0 Ελλάδα