This book provides a scholarly and yet accessible introduction to the legal framework of modern business enterprises. It explains the legal ideas that allow for the recognition of firms as organizational "persons" having social rights and responsibilities, and how law sets the boundaries of firms.

• Introduction - The Recognition and Boundaries of the Firm


• 1: Foundations of the Firm I: Business Entities and Legal Persons


• 2: Foundations of the Firm II: Agency, Contracts, and Property


• 3: The Public/Private Distinction: Two Faces of the Business Enterprise


• 4: Enterprise Liability, Business Participant Liability, and Limited Liability


• 5: The Nomenclature of Enterprise: A Taxonomy of Modern Business Firms


• 6: Managing and Regulating the Shifting Boundaries of the Firm


• 7: Two Applications


• Conclusion

Eric W. Orts is the Guardsmark Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a secondary appointment in Management. He is the faculty director of the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership and a co-faculty director of the FINRA Institute at Wharton. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Leuven, the University of Michigan Law School, NYU School of Law, Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, the University of Sydney Law School, and UCLA School of Law. His research focuses on business theory, corporate law, ethics, and sustainability.