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Reviews
Organizing America
Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism
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By Charles Perrow
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(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. x, 259. Figures, table, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $37.50.)
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| Are large-scale, bureaucratic institutions necessary mainstays of modern societies? Their inevitability has been questioned in recent decades by various challengers of conventional wisdom—among them, New Left critics of the so-called liberal corporate state, students of technological innovation, productivity and mass production systems, and environmentalists—who point to particular circumstances behind the rise of hierarchical organizations and to the past existence and future potential of alternative structures. Charles Perrow, a leading organizational theorist, now enters the discussion, looking specifically at the corporation (he promises a sequel that will treat government and non-profit institutions). |
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Drawing heavily on the recent writings of labor and business historians, historical and economic sociologists, political scientists, and legal scholars, Perrow reviews and rejects current theoretical positions on the ascendancy and hegemony of the corporation: technological determinism, economies of scale and scope or efficiency arguments (Alfred D. Chandler is a special target), the role of state actors, and "neo-institutional" or cultural approaches. Unfamiliar readers may become addled in the thicket of perspectives, but patience will be rewarded; Perrow furnishes a scorecard of players in an appendix for assistance. |
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