Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy
    The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy
    The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy

    Written by Gerald F. Davis

    Narrated by Jeff Hoyt

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders).

    Gerald Davis argues this is a root cause of the income inequality and social instability we face today. Corporations were once an integral part of building the middle class. He points out that in their heyday they offered millions of people lifetime employment, a stable career path, health insurance, and retirement pensions. They were like small private welfare states.

    The businesses that are replacing them will not fill the same role. For one thing, they employ far fewer people—the combined global workforces of Facebook, Yelp, Zynga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Tableau, Zulily, and Box are smaller than the number of people who lost their jobs when Circuit City was liquidated in 2009. And in the “sharing economy,” companies have no obligation to most of the people who work for them—at the end of 2014 Uber had over 160,000 “driver-partners” in the United States but recognized only about 2,000 people as actual employees.

    Davis tracks the rise of the large American corporation and the economic, social, and technological developments that have led to its decline. The future could see either increasing economic polarization, as careers turn into jobs and jobs turn into tasks, or a more democratic economy built from the grass roots. It's up to us.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBerrett-Koehler Publishers
    Release dateMay 2, 2016
    ISBN9781626569201
    Author

    Gerald F. Davis

    Gerald F. Davis is the Wilbur K. Pierpont Collegiate Professor of Management at the Ross School of Business and professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Managed by the Markets (winner of the Academy of Management’s George R. Terry Book Award) and the coauthor of Changing Your Company from the Inside Out, Social Movements and Organization Theory, and Organizations and Organizing. He also serves as the editor of Administrative Science Quarterly.

    Related to The Vanishing American Corporation

    Related audiobooks

    Corporate & Business History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Jonah Goldberg: Pandemic Is A Blown Opportunity For Conservative Nationalists

      May 20, 2020

      Future historians of the American right are going to have a devil of a time figuring out what the hell happened as the second decade of the 21st century came to a close. But every day I become more convinced about at least one of their conclusions: T

      3 min read

    • Article

      An Invitation to Corruption

      Mar 20, 2020

      An Invitation to Corruption
      3 min read

    • Article

      Time 100 Most Influential Companies

      Apr 30, 2021

      Time 100 Most Influential Companies
      5 min read

    • Article

      Corporations Pledge To Fight Racial Inequality. Will It Work?

      Nov 3, 2020

      If the U.S. could close racial gaps in areas such as wages and college access, the economy would add $5 trillion of economic activity, Citibank says.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Capitalism To The Rescue

      Apr 16, 2020

      Capitalism To The Rescue
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Limits Of CEO Activism

      May 13, 2022

      CAN CEOS RUN THE WORLD? AND WILL THE world allow them to? That has become a central question of our times, as leaders of Big Business step up to address some of society’s most pressing problems. Consider: A majority of Fortune 500 CEOs, according to

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Limits Of CEO Activism

      May 14, 2022

      CAN CEOS RUN THE WORLD? AND WILL THE world allow them to? That has become a central question of our times, as leaders of Big Business step up to address some of society’s most pressing problems. Consider: A majority of Fortune 500 CEOs, according to

      3 min read

    • Article

      Torn In The USA

      May 27, 2021

      AMAZON’S NET PROFITS increased by 84 per cent in 2020. As Covid-19 swept across America during March and April, Jeff Bezos’s personal fortune increased by $24 billion. In contrast, nearly a million American manufacturing jobs were lost in the decade

      4 min read

    • Article

      Just Because We Can, Does It Mean We Should?

      May 27, 2019

      Every business is faced with daily moral and ethical decisions. I once worked for a company whose claimed values were ‘customer first’ – yet at the end of the quarter our values suddenly became ‘sell all the crap you can to get our numbers up!’ Being

      3 min read

    • Article

      2 The MAKING of GENZ

      Jul 11, 2023

      2 The MAKING of GENZ
      5 min read

    • Article

      The New Startup Geography

      Mar 16, 2021

      HIGH ALPHA calls itself a venture studio. That’s a combination incubator, early-stage investor, and startup consultancy. But it might better be called a venture catapult. Last year, the Indianapolis company showed its Midwestern can-do-ness in the mi

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Year Small Businesses Suffered

      Dec 18, 2020

      running a small-, medium- or micro-enterprise (SMME) in South Africa has been an extreme sport for a few years now. Local SMMEs have been contending with a myriad of hurdles. Operating in a sluggish economy, lack of funding, crime, little or debilita

      3 min read

    • Article

      Best Of The Financial Columnists

      Dec 16, 2022

      Editorial The Economist Second-tier cities usually have productivity that “matches or exceeds the national average”, says The Economist. In Britain, it’s lower. Manchester, with its 3.4 million inhabitants, is as populous as Amsterdam, Hamburg and

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Vanishing American Corporation

    4.5/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words