Owning successive stages of the chain. This is the best-theorised model on the list: Chandler for the history, Williamson for the economics, Christensen for when it stops paying.
How DuPont, GM, Standard Oil and Sears built the multidivisional firm.
How salaried managers replaced markets in coordinating US business, 1840 to 1920.
Recommended by: Paul Graham
The value chain: how to find where a firm's cost or differentiation advantage lies.
Why firms exist: transaction costs decide when to own rather than contract.
How Rockefeller built Standard Oil, faced its breakup and gave his fortune away.
“…books I've recommended, highlighted to death, or forced on friends.” — Andrew Wilkinson
Source: Andrew Wilkinson's Bookshelf, neverenough.com
Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Charlie Munger and 12 others
How a company can build new businesses through low-end and new-market disruption.
Recommended by: Jeff Bezos, Keith Rabois
An industrial philosophy of mass production, written at the height of the Model T.
Why big industrial firms in the US, Britain and Germany rose or lagged, 1880 to 1940.
Charlie Mungerrecommends 1 book here
Paul Grahamrecommends 1 book here