The Changing Face of Corporate America

A grade miners.com look at the changes in the American business structure over the past century.

This paper examines two scholarly writings - : Neil Fligstein, (1987) "The Intro-organizational Power Struggle" and Gerald F. Davis, Kristina A. Diekmann, and Catherine H. Tinsley. 1994. "The Decline and Fall write an essay on responsibilities of a good citizen of the Conglomerate Firm in the 1980s". These articles are compared for their theories on the changes occuring in corporate America and which factors are responsible for these changes. It examines how these changes might have predicted the economic crisis of today.

In Fligstein (1987) the history of corporate structure in America is addressed. During the early portion of the century, it was possible for the right person to be promoted from manufacturing into management. In the middle decades of the century, control of large firms fell on sales and marketing personnel. However, in the past 25 years, we have seen another shift, finance people now control large corporations. These changes were brought about by changes in organizational structure, anti-trust laws, and an increase in mergers since the end of World War II (Fligstein, 1987).