The Models of the Corporation and the Development of Corporate Governance

Abstract

[Extract] The 20th century corporation was ‘foreshadowed when the first promoters conceived the plan of distributing stock in an enterprise to be run by a board of managers - a device practiced in England at least as early as the sixteenth century.’ But the leap made by the corporation in the 20th century has been a quantum one, for ‘only in the twentieth century has the process been conducted to an extent which revolutionizes national life.’ Therefore the 20th century can be quarantined as the modern era of the corporation.