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Entrepreneurship, Money, and Coordination begins with a single page introduction by the editor, Jurgen Backhaus, a well known economist now at the University of Erfurt, in which we learn that the contribution by Horst Feldmann (Hayek's theory of cultural evolution: A critique of the critiques) provided the impetus for the book's remaining six chapters, a mélange of papers by Brian J. Loasby,¹ Jurgen G. Backhaus, Christian Schubert, Alexander Ebner, Martin T. Bohl and Jens Holscher, and Walter W. Heering. Unfortunately, the papers assembled here do not cohere well and in some instances are not altogether “reader-friendly.” The papers by Bohl and Holscher (a six-page overview and econometric analysis of Hayek's theory of competing currencies) and Heering (on monetary theory) seem rather disconnected from the main theme of the book. Surprisingly, Backhaus’ “Introduction” does not provide a useful integrating overview of the book's subject matter and papers, something readers surely would have appreciated from so eminent a scholar.

“It is now becoming widely recognised that many of the central unresolved problems in economics turn on questions of knowledge” (Loasby, 1986, p. 41). Nearly twenty years after that was written, it may be appropriate to take a (necessarily selective) look at ideas about human knowledge and to suggest some implications for the practice of economists. The ideas with which we shall begin long predate the observation that I have just recalled; and the delay in recognising their implications indicates how the growth of knowledge is dependent on the formation of appropriate linkages – which of course are not recognised as appropriate until they have been formed. Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall and Friedrich Hayek were all confronted with the uncertain basis of knowledge before they began their study of economics; and what their responses have in common is not only a theoretical focus on the process by which people develop what we call “knowledge” but also a reliance on similar kinds of process, which result in the formation of connections within particular domains. Each author recognises the impossibility of demonstrating that any such process can deliver proven truth; instead each envisages sequences of trial and error within particular contexts, leading to the preservation of what seems to work – until it no longer does, when a new sequence of trial and error begins. In other words, they all offer evolutionary theories, Marshall and Hayek explicitly so, while Smith, directly and indirectly, had a major influence on the development of Darwin’s ideas.

Professor Shackle is the most courteous, the most erudite, and the most radical critic of orthodox economics. The concept of profit, which apparently serves as such a convenient instrument of equilibrium, on closer enquiry is revealed to be necessarily subversive of such schemes of order; for profit can arise only where knowledge is not adequate to support any agreed — even probabilistically agreed — assessment of a situation. Thus any consideration of Professor Shackle's (1972, Chapter 35) discussion of profit focuses our attention on the insufficiency of knowledge which is the core of his criticism of orthodoxy. It should be no surprise, therefore, to find that the problem of coherence within economic systems resembles the problem of coherence in the growth of knowledge. Both appear to depend upon a productive but precarious tension between imaginative conjectures and a framework of serviceable conventions within which they may be tested.

Style and Purpose “It's all in Marshall”. There is more truth in that once‐familiar claim than there would be in a similar claim about any other economist; yet as Samuelson (1967, p. 25) rightly observed, what is in Marshall cannot be revealed by the reading of Marshall alone. What one sees is very largely a reflection of one's own viewpoint; often it is only after thinking about a specific issue that one realises that Marshall had thought about it too, and had set down his ideas in his usual unemphatic way, as if they were already common property. His manner is very different from that of Hicks, who always explains what he is doing and why; neither in the Principles (1961) nor in Industry and Trade (1919) does Marshall attempt to distinguish his own contributions, though frequently acknowledging those of others; and his clear views on how economists should proceed, though not suppressed, are not allowed to mark out a distinctively Marshallian programme. As a consequence, though he gained a great reputation, his ideas have had very little influence.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

I. Routines and Experiments Though at least as old as The Wealth of Nations, the concept of the market as an experimental mechanism finds no place in standard modern theory; it is nevertheless implicit in the “appreciative theory” by which the relative merits of markets and central planning are commonly appraised. The outstanding analyst of the experimental process and its implications is Joseph Schumpeter; and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication in English of his Theory of Economic Development (the original German version of which appeared in 1911) provides a convenient opportunity for some comment on his work. What makes this opportunity particularly timely is the citation of Schumpeter by Nelson and Winter as one of the two primary intellectual pro‐genitors of their own Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.

In this study we consider the role of business management in delivering good in society, from the perspective of the philosophical work of Adam Smith, Karl Marx and Alfred North Whitehead. We find that Whitehead's process explanations of the nature of experience and consciousness articulate meaningfully with Smith's idea of ‘self-love’ and Marx's conceptualisation of ‘rich-experience’. As a result, we argue that business practice must reconnect with society in a more appropriate understanding of a good as something beyond a mere economic entity. Using principles of process thought, we make recommendations as to how this might be achieved in daily management practice.

It is possible to say that an expert in any field of knowledge can be expected to know particular things and techniques. This can be said of a stone mason, a physicist or a midwife. The expertise consists of a notional core of knowledge and skills (i.e. applied knowledge). Such expertise arguably can be found in other experts in the same field, although there will be idiosyncrasies of approach and valuation and quite probably divergencies in what is considered “right” and “wrong”.

Discusses research ideas on the distinctions between data, information and knowledge, the categories of knowledge and knowledge‐processing activities in Holsapple and Whinston’s (HW’s) taxonomy (1987, 1988a, 1988b), and their application to markets and the activities of the firm. Describes a manufacturing firm’s inputs, production processes and outputs in terms of HW’s taxonomy, pointing out that management must filter the information surrounding the firm to turn it into knowledge of various types, e.g. descriptive, derived, assimilative etc. Considers the role of information for customers of and investors in the firm; and the relationship between knowledge and efficiency. Identifies three types of knowledge workers (builders, stewards and appliers) and calls for further research on the taxonomy of knowledge and standards of knowledge within the finance discipline.