In order to survive as a social institution a firm needs a constitutional social contract, even though implicit, among its stakeholders. This social contract must exist if an institution is to be justified. The book focuses on two main issues: To find out the terms of the hypothetical agreement among the firm's stakeholders in an ex ante perspective and to understand the endogenous mechanism generating appropriate incentives that induce to comply with the social contract itself, as seen in the ex post perspective.

This book presents a theory of moral norms and codes of ethics seen as the resolution of decision problems and games situations involving incompleteness of contracts and unforeseen contingencies within firms and organisational hierarchies in general

Inhalt
1 An Overview of the Theory: Hierarchies, Social Contract and Reputation.- 2 Economic Theory and the Social Contract of the Firm.- 3 Games of Reputation and Compliance with the Social Contract.- 4 How Far Does Reputation Extend? Abuse of Authority and Corporate Culture.- 5 Information, Incomplete Contracts and the Ethical Code.- 6 Dealing with Vagueness of Norms: the Theory of Fuzzy Sets.- 7 A Game Theoretic Model of Incomplete Contract and Ethical Code.- 8 Ethical Decision-making Procedure: Vagueness, Default Reasoning and Reputation.- References.- Names Index.