Development of the modern corporation

Abstract

The debates about the significance of the corporation in contemporary societies have often taken place without sufficient reference to historical and comparative studies of the emergence and development of the corporation. In part, this is a result of the view that the modern corporation is merely a contemporary manifestation of bureaucratic tendencies. Weber (1991, p. 204) saw the ‘large modern capitalist enterprise’ as simply a purer form of the bureaucratic ideal type found at various times and places in history since ancient Egypt. Galbraith (1987, p. 42) has portrayed organisations such as the British East India Company, which lasted from 1600 to 1874, as antecedents of the modern multinational corporation. Business historians, notably Chandler and Daems, have dismissed much of the literature on the modern corporation, typified by Galbraith’s The New Industrial State, as ‘factless theorizing’ (1980). Chandler (1962, 1977, 1990), along with other business historians such as his colleague, Lazonick (1992), have produced detailed histories dealing with the rise of the modern corporation. Their studies draw upon both survey and case study research based on internal company documents.