Corporation

Corporation Definition

A corporation is a group of people legally structured so as to act, and be treated, as if it were a single person. The word derives from “corporal,” meaning “belonging to the body.” Local governments, large businesses, and professional associations may all be corporations, and a corporation normally elects its own officers.

The Corporation in Modern Economies

As the legal form of organisation for both capitalist and public enterprise, the corporation is one in which control passes — apparently or actually — to a managerial elite appointed for its presumed or credentialed expertise. Large private-sector corporations are the product of joint-stock (share) ownership and blocks of impersonally owned and controlled finance capital; public-sector corporations typically result from state nationalisation and ownership of assets. The classic sociological study of corporate employees remains Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s Men and Women of the Corporation (1977). The concept connects to broader debates on capitalism and the managerial revolution.