The Modern Corporation

A guide to information as the transformative tool of modern business. While we have been preoccupied with the latest i-gadget from Apple and with Google's ongoing expansion, we may have missed something: the fundamental transformation of whole firms and industries into giant information-processing machines. Today, more than eighty percent of workers collect and analyze information (often in digital form) in the course of doing their jobs. This book offers a guide to the role of information in modern business, mapping the use of information within work processes and tracing flows of information across supply-chain management, product development, customer relations, and sales. The emphasis is on information itself, not on information technology. Information, overshadowed for a while by the glamour and novelty of IT, is the fundamental component of the modern corporation. In Information and the Modern Corporation, longtime IBM manager and consultant James Cortada clarifies the differences among data, facts, information, and knowledge and describes how the art of analytics has all but eliminated decision making based on gut feeling, replacing it with fact-based decisions. He describes the working style of “road warriors,” whose offices are anywhere their laptops and cell phones are and whose deep knowledge of a given topic becomes their medium of exchange. Information is the core of the modern enterprise, and the use of information defines the activities of a firm. This essential guide shows managers and employees better ways to leverage information—by design and not by accident.

Written more than a half-century ago, The Modern Corporation and Private Property remains the fundamental introduction to the internal organization of the corporation in modern society. Combining the analytical skills of an attorney with those of an economist, Berle and Means raise the central questions, even when their answers have been superseded by changing circumstances. This volume remains of valuable to all those concerned with the evolution of this major social institution.

Nearly seventy years after the last great stock market bubble and crash, another bubble emerged and burst, despite a thick layer of regulation designed since the 1930s to prevent such things. This time the bubble was enormous, reflecting nearly twenty years of double-digit stock market growth, and its bursting had painful consequence. The search for culprits soon began, and many were discovered, including not only a number of overreaching corporations, but also their auditors, investment bankers, lawyers and indeed, their investors. In Governing the Modern Corporation, Smith and Walter analyze the structure of market capitalism to see what went wrong.They begin by examining the developments that have made modern financial markets--now capitalized globally at about $70 trillion--so enormous, so volatile and such a source of wealth (and temptation) for all players. Then they report on the evolving role and function of the business corporation, the duties of its officers and directors and the power of its Chief Executive Officer who seeks to manage the company to achieve as favorable a stock price as possible.They next turn to the investing market itself, which comprises mainly financial institutions that own about two-thirds of all American stocks and trade about 90% of these stocks. These investors are well informed, highly trained professionals capable of making intelligent investment decisions on behalf of their clients, yet the best and brightest ultimately succumbed to the bubble and failed to carry out an appropriate governance role.In what follows, the roles and business practices of the principal financial intermediaries--notably auditors and bankers--are examined in detail. All, corporations, investors and intermediaries, are found to have been infected by deep-seated conflicts of interest, which add significant agency costs to the free-market system. The imperfect, politicized role of the regulators is also explored, with disappointing results. The entire system is seen to have been compromised by a variety of bacteria that crept in, little by little, over the years and were virtually invisible during the bubble years.These issues are now being addressed, in part by new regulation, in part by prosecutions and class action lawsuits, and in part by market forces responding to revelations of misconduct. But the authors note that all of the market's professional players--executives, investors, experts and intermediaries themselves--carry fiduciary obligations to the shareholders, clients, and investors whom they represent. More has to be done to find ways for these fiduciaries to be held accountable for the correct discharge of their duties.

This book examines the changes in General Motors' organization between 1924 and 1970.

Technology in the Modern Corporation: A Strategic Perspective examines the role of technology in corporate planning and all that this relationship implies to corporate organization and strategy. Organized into 13 chapters, this book first discusses the management of corporate entrepreneurship; technological innovation and interdependence; and the rise and character of modern technology strategy. Subsequent chapters describe corporate research and development; corporate strategies for managing emerging technologies; approaches for the strategic management of technology; innovation and corporate strategy; and executive succession, strategic reorientations, and organization evolution.

There is an active debate over whether the traditional purpose of the corporation – to maximize profits and financial value for the benefit of shareholders – can adequately encompass the interests of all other participants or stakeholders in the corporation's activities. Since a corporation cannot operate optimally without the support of its most important stakeholders, particularly its employees and customers, finding ways of incorporating responsiveness to stakeholder needs is vital for corporate management and governance. This anthology is designed to sharpen the debate about the role and purpose of the corporation. The debate includes such fundamental questions as: Who should be considered stakeholders? Which stakeholder interests should a corporation take into account? How should stakeholder interests be balanced against shareholder objectives (such as profits)? What changes should be made in corporate decision making and governance to reflect these new interests? This collection of seminal articles, is divided into three parts: Shareholders and Stakeholders; Morality, Ethics and Stakeholder Theory; and Stakeholder Theory and Management Performance. The articles date from 1916 to 1997, and are drawn from North American and European authors. Managers as well as researchers will find this collection presented will stimulate their thinking on the role of the corporation and its responsiveness to stakeholder interests. The volume is funded in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.