The Nature of the Large Corporation

The large corporation is the productive engine of the modern industrial world. The contemporary view of the corporation sees it not as an agglomeration of assets or contracts, but as a holder of specialised resources - rights, reputations, routines, and competencies. The very size of large corporations signals the presence of unusual concentrations of these specialised resources. The corporation’s organisation is both the repository of special competencies and the agent for the creation of new resources. Hence the critical distinctive feature of the modern large corporation is its organisational form. We are presently in a period in which the “ideal” organisational form (or forms) is in flux. Fifteen-to-twenty years ago there was general agreement in Western countries that the Full-Fledged M-form represented an “ideal” towards which most large corporations ought to strive. The dominant managerial logic was based on efficiencies gained through control (C-Logic). Simultaneously, in Japan an alternative ideal form evolved, emphasising the values of problem-solving at low levels in the organisation, extensive co-ordination, experimentation and organisational learning (L-Logic).