The purpose of this symposium is to shed light on the genealogy of the idea of a business corporation, an economic institution which has long been regarded with a mixture of awe and apprehension. Each of the four original contributions addresses the history of some of its key features. In the process, each contributor reveals some of the insights that history has to teach us regarding the central concepts that inform contemporary debates about the nature of the corporation, the contours (...) of the corporation's purpose, the sources of corporate power, the functions of corporate law, the duties of directors, the status of shareholders, and the legitimacy of corporate rights. (shrink)

How can gift and gift-giving studies be relevant to the study of institutions and vice versa? This is the question we broadly address in the introduction to this symposium while drawing on the contributing articles and sketching out a possible future research in a perspective of integration between these two fields of study. Is the gift an institution? What types of methodological approaches would be most suitable in view of such integration? We define the gift as transfers underpinned by institutions, (...) including customs and norms. We contend that the institutional thought can employ empirical and qualitative research methods used by anthropology and that there are important and fruitful lines of tension between gift-giving and institutions – from the relationship between freedom and obligation to the role of third sector between state and market – worthy of further research in the future. (shrink)