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Setting the stage for corporate headquarters: a technological explanation for the rise of modern industrial corporations

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  • Carliss Y. Baldwin

    (Harvard Business School)

Abstract

This paper combines theories of organizational design with theories of production to provide a novel perspective, which helps explain the technological forces that led to the rise of vertically integrated “modern” corporations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I describe the technology of a flow process with bottlenecks and show how this technology rewards unified governance, a hierarchical organization structure, and the use of direct authority. These properties in turn became the organizational hallmarks of “modern” industrial corporations with central corporate headquarters.

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  • Carliss Y. Baldwin, 2019. "Setting the stage for corporate headquarters: a technological explanation for the rise of modern industrial corporations," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 8(1), pages 1-16, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jorgde:v:8:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1186_s41469-019-0059-4
    DOI: 10.1186/s41469-019-0059-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Sven Kunisch & Markus Menz & David Collis, 2020. "Corporate headquarters in the twenty-first century: an organization design perspective," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 9(1), pages 1-32, December.
    2. Navya Pandit & Constantin Prox & Carliss Y. Baldwin, 2022. "Studying modular design: an interview with Carliss Y. Baldwin," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 11(2), pages 77-85, June.
    3. Frank Martela, 2023. "Managers matter less than we think: how can organizations function without any middle management?," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 12(1), pages 19-25, June.

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