Abstract

The growth of the modern corporation from local and nationally centered origins to the multinational and then the global level is traced on the one hand to global flows of matter, energy, and information, and on the other to the geographic and political constraints exercised by nation-states. The emergence of the global corporation follows basic laws of evolution applicable to all complex systems, whether in nature or in society. Thus the global corporation is a new but not an anomalous phenomenon on the stage of history.