The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 'Original and thought-provoking... A brilliantly erudite account of the major waves in the theory and practice of management' Financial Times 'Instead of theory it has wisdom... an excellent book' New Statesman For generations, we have defined a corporation as a business that uses its accumulated wealth to own the means of production and exercise economic power. That is no longer the reality. Corporations no longer control their own industries, and our most desired goods and services aren't stacked in container ships: they appear on your screen, fit in your pocket or occupy your head. But even as we consume more than ever before, big business faces a crisis of legitimacy. The pharmaceutical industry creates life-saving vaccines but has lost the trust of the public. The widening pay gap between executives and employees is destabilising our societies. Facebook and Google have more customers than any companies in history but are widely reviled. In incisive, provocative prose, economist John Kay describes how the pursuit of shareholder value has destroyed mammoth companies, redefines successful commercial activity, and looks to the future of what the corporation might be.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 'Original and thought-provoking... A brilliantly erudite account of the major waves in the theory and practice of management' Financial Times 'Instead of theory it has wisdom... an excellent book' New Statesman For generations, we have defined a corporation as a business that uses its accumulated wealth to own the means of production and exercise economic power. That is no longer the reality. Corporations no longer control their own industries, and our most desired goods and services aren't stacked in container ships: they appear on your screen, fit in your pocket or occupy your head. But even as we consume more than ever before, big business faces a crisis of legitimacy. The pharmaceutical industry creates life-saving vaccines but has lost the trust of the public. The widening pay gap between executives and employees is destabilising our societies. Facebook and Google have more customers than any companies in history but are widely reviled. In incisive, provocative prose, economist John Kay describes how the pursuit of shareholder value has destroyed mammoth companies, redefines successful commercial activity, and looks to the future of what the corporation might be.

A radical reappraisal of the nature and activities of business--what it is for and how it works In the world of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, capitalists built and controlled mills and factories. That relationship between capital and labor continued in the automobile assembly lines and petrochemical plants of the twentieth century. But no longer: products and production have dematerialized. The goods and services provided by the leading companies of the twenty-first century appear on your screen, fit in your pocket, or occupy your head. Ownership of the means of production is a redundant concept. Workers are the means of production; increasingly, they take the plant home. Capital is a service bought from a specialist supplier with little influence over customer businesses. The professional managers who run modern corporations do not exert authority because they are wealthy; they are wealthy because they exert authority. John Kay's incisive overhaul of our ideas about business redefines our understanding of successful commercial activity and the corporation--and describes how we have come to "love the product" as we "hate the producer." This is a brilliant and original work from one of the greatest economists.

A radical reappraisal of the nature and activities of business--what it is for and how it works In the world of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, capitalists built and controlled mills and factories. That relationship between capital and labor continued in the automobile assembly lines and petrochemical plants of the twentieth century. But no longer: products and production have dematerialized. The goods and services provided by the leading companies of the twenty-first century appear on your screen, fit in your pocket, or occupy your head. Ownership of the means of production is a redundant concept. Workers are the means of production; increasingly, they take the plant home. Capital is a service bought from a specialist supplier with little influence over customer businesses. The professional managers who run modern corporations do not exert authority because they are wealthy; they are wealthy because they exert authority. John Kay's incisive overhaul of our ideas about business redefines our understanding of successful commercial activity and the corporation--and describes how we have come to "love the product" as we "hate the producer." This is a brilliant and original work from one of the greatest economists.