Incentive-based and knowledge-based theories of the firm: some recent developments

This article presents a critical review of advances in incentive-based and knowledge-based theories of the firm. In particular, we address some developments in the incentive-based approach regarding relational contracts and contracts as “reference points”. As far as the evolution of knowledge-based theories is concerned, we focus on the interesting implications of the concept of dynamic capabilities. Finally, we investigate some recent attempts to bridge these two main streams of research which have for a long time been regarded as rival rather than complementary.