Corporations

Abstract

The corporation is a legal entity constructed to facilitate economic cooperation between individuals. This mode of social organization emerged from European trading companies and evolved into massive manufacturing and service firms in the twentieth century, many with international reach. One branch of scholarship on the corporation has focused on relations within the firm, especially the mediation of owners and managers, the distribution of status and wealth, and the treatment of employees. Another branch has analyzed the effects of corporations and corporate elites on political decision‐making. Corporations are increasingly sites of contention for social movement groups, even as the number of US corporations has sharply declined. Recently, social theorists have focused on financialization, corporate social responsibility, and globalization as factors affecting corporate action.