We can find in Marshall’s works an approach to business environments that is different from his traditionally accepted contribution to mainstream economics. Though Marshall is indeed the founder of the partial equilibrium analysis branch of traditional microeconomics, his work on the theme of business is much richer than his specific contribution to microeconomics. The article explores Marshall's institutional and historical analysis of firms, markets and of business environments. As an outcome, it suggests that Marshall can be pointed out as a forerunner of modern approaches to the theme, like Berle and Means’s and Chandler’s works on corporations, and the capabilities approach to the theory of the firm.
firm; market; business organization; Marshall