Erik P.M. Vermeulen – författare

The evolution of partnership forms is stimulated by powerful economic forces that can lead to widespread prosperity and wealth creation for a society. Given the importance of closely held firms in the United States and Europe, The Evolution of Legal Business Forms in Europe and the United States argues that partnership law should trouble itself less with historical and descriptive arguments about the legal rules and structure of the partnership form and focus much more on the new analytical apparatus of the economics of organizational form as well the fundamental economic learning that informs the debates on limited liability, partnership rules regarding management and control, conflict resolution and fiduciary duties. Introducing and extending the best available theories from law and economics, particularly those from the theory of the firm, this book''s analysis demonstrates that the patterns of European partnership law and its recent history are best understood from an economic and comparative law perspective.

By examining the economic theories of the firm and the economics of organization choice, The Evolution of Legal Business Forms in Europe and the United States conceives partnership-type business forms as contractual entities. The key feature of the modern partnership form is that partners have significant flexibility and power to limit their liability, transfer all of their rights, and to freely exit the firm. Another key feature of partnership law is the insight that lawmakers should provide the rules and enforcement mechanisms to regulate the important relationships within the partnership. This book applies an efficiency test to determine which sets of default rules are likely to resolve the main problems in partnerships.

Having identified partnership law with the economic theory of organization, The Evolution of Legal Business Forms in Europe and the United States then goes to argue that most of partnership law is directed at offering bundles of legal rules for different types of firms. Lawmakers should promote partnership rules that attract investors and can be expected to be efficient if they allow entrepreneurs to freely select the bundle of rules that best match their priorities. In a modern vision of partnership law, lawmakers promote economic welfare through creating non-mandatory rules that allow multiple businesses to switch to a favourable business form without significant costs. Jurisdictions plagued by falling incorporations and low levels of small and medium business activity, should abandon the mandatory and standardized framework and the ''lock in'' effect that it promotes, and focus on the mechanisms of legal evolution and rules that tend to mimic the market.

This innovation work will have ramifications felt across European jurisdictions, and will be debated by a large audience of policymakers and academic lawyers involved in law reform. Moreover, the book will receive serious attention from students of law and economics, as well as practising lawyers involved in resolving complex issues of organizational law.

The exponential growth of disruptive technology is changing our world. The development of cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and other related autonomous systems, such as self-driving vehicles, have triggered the emergence of new products and services. These significant technological breakthroughs have opened the door to new economic models such as the sharing and platform-based economy. As a result, companies are becoming increasingly data- and algorithm-driven, coming to be more like “decentralized platforms”. New transaction or payment methods such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, based on trust-building systems using Blockchain, smart contracts, and other distributed ledger technology, also constitute an essential part of this new economic model. 

The sharing economy and digital platforms also include the everyday exchange of goods allowing individuals to commodify their surplus resources.Information and innovation technologies are used in order to then match these resources with existing demand in the market. Online platforms such as Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon reduce information asymmetry, increase the value of unused resources, and create new opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Moreover, the sharing economy is playing a major role in the transition from exclusive ownership of personal assets toward access-based exploitation of resources. The success of online matching platforms depends not only on the reduction of search costs but also on the trustworthiness of platform operators. 

From a legal perspective, the uncertainties triggered by the emergence of a new digital reality are particularly urgent. How should these tendencies be reflected in legal systems in each jurisdiction? This book collects a series of contributions by leading scholars in the newly emerging fields of sharing economy and Legal Tech. The aim of the book is to enrich legaldebates on the social, economic, and political meaning of these cutting-edge technologies. The chapters presented in this edition attempt to answer some of these lingering questions from the perspective of diverse legal backgrounds. 

This book argues that large corporations need to implement governance practices and processes that make them better innovators and that the challenge is to identify organizational principles and practices that provide the best chance of delivering innovative products to create a meaningful consumer experience. In this context, it is important to recognize that when we address organizational forms, we are not thinking of corporate governance in the sense of managing agency costs and ensuring regulatory compliance, but the more pressing business task of putting in place organizational systems and processes that facilitate value creation through continued and sustained innovation. The book examines how the contemporary concept and discourse of corporate governance may be obsolete or, at least, is increasingly disconnected from the needs and realities of the most innovative firms today. The concept of organizing for innovation—identifying process and practices that deliver the best opportunities for innovation—needs to take centre stage. This book aims to contribute to the nascent debate in this area by bringing together a series of chapters that examine various issues related to organizing for innovation.