Corporate Structures, Corporate Control, Corporate Power: Some Conceptual Explorations

In this chapter, I will explicate certain theoretical notions with respect to the corporate economy. Obviously, much of corporate theory as we know it today has evolved in the West, alongside the development of corporate capitalism. While the developmental dynamics in the developing world have been quite different, some of the basic institutional mechanisms of Western corporate capitalism have been imported to the developing world through the relationships of colonialism. As DiMaggio and Powell (1983) have argued, a colonial history produces a certain degree of institutional ‘mimicry’, whereby organisational forms adopted by post-colonial states come to reflect colonial structures. In any case, it is possible to argue that certain similarities characterise capitalisms of both worlds, at least to the extent that they both concern the accumulation of capital through the institution of the modern corporation. In both worlds, the corporation seems to have provided an enduring framework for the ownership and control of assets, the investment and accumulation of capital and the organisation of production.