Markets, Hierarchies, and Families: Toward a Transaction Cost Theory of the Family Firm
提出交易成本框架，识别一类称为通用不可交易资产（GNTs）的资产，解释家族企业在开发、维持和获取这类资产价值方面的相对优势与劣势，从而说明家族企业的存在、多样性和成功。
Why do family businesses exist? What factors explain their versatility, limitations, and success within and across different industrial and geographic contexts? We develop a transaction cost framework that addresses these questions. In doing so, we identify a class of assets we term generic nontradeables (GNTs), that are firm specific, but generic in application. While many types of firms may possess such assets, we reason that family firm governance provides relative advantages in developing, sustaining, and appropriating value from GNTs through combinations with other types of assets. We propose that these advantages, as well as some concomitant disadvantages, explain the versatility, limitations, and success of family business enterprise.