The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise

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A definitive reframing of the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era

The twentieth century was the managerial century in the United States. An organizational transformation, from entrepreneurial to managerial capitalism, brought forth what became a dominant narrative: that administrative coordination by trained professional managers is essential to the efficient running of organizations both public and private. And yet if managerialism was the apotheosis of administrative efficiency, why did both its practice and the accompanying narrative lie in ruins by the end of the century In The Corporation and the Twentieth Century, Richard Langlois offers an alternative version: a comprehensive and nuanced reframing and reassessment of the the economic, institutional, and intellectual history of the managerial era.

Langlois argues that managerialism rose to prominence not because of its inherent superiority but because of its contingent value in a young and rapidly developing American economy. The structures of managerialism solidified their dominance only because the centurys great catastrophes of war, depression, and war again superseded markets, scrambled relative prices, and weakened market-supporting institutions. By the end of the twentieth century, Langlois writes, these market-supporting institutions had reemerged to shift advantage toward entrepreneurial and market-driven modes of organization.

This magisterial new account of the rise and fall of managerialism holds significant implications for contemporary debates about industrial and antitrust policies and the role of the corporation in the twenty-first century.

Reviews

"Sharp analysis. . . . Chock -full of sophisticated economic theory rendered in lucid prose, this adds up to a bracing evaluation of a consequential and once dominant commercial entity." * Publishers Weekly *

Author Bio

Richard N. Langlois is professor of economics at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of Firms, Markets, and Economic Change: A Dynamic Theory of Business Institutions (with Paul L. Robertson); The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism: Schumpeter, Chandler, and the New Economy, which won the Schumpeter Prize of the International Joseph A. Schumpeter Society; and other books.