Book excerpt: Donald W. Katzner explores the concepts, their properties, and the implications of those properties that underlie many of the current approaches to the economics of firm organization. Topics covered include authority structures, the social interaction (including supervision) among employees required to fulfill the responsibilities of their jobs, participatory decision making to the extent that it occurs, the impact of time, and certain kinds of complexity and efficiency, all of which are fundamental to analyses of the internal organization of the economic firm. The author provides a clear and extensive presentation of the basic ideas, and examines how they relate to the operation and profitability of the firm.