Chandler in a Larger Frame: Markets, Transaction Costs, and Organizational Form in History

• Published in: Enterprise & society Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 355 - 375
• Main Author: Langlois, Richard N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.09.2004; OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
• Subjects: 19th century; Business community; Business history; Business structures; Business studies; Capitalism; Chandler, Alfred D; Chandler, Alfred Dupont Jr; Commercial production; Corporate culture; Corporations; Economic costs; Economic theory; Economics; Electronics industry; Essays; History; Market; Organizational change; Organizational structure; Organizations; Socioeconomic factors; SYMPOSIUM: FRAMING BUSINESS HISTORY; Transaction costs; Transportation; Transportation costs; Vertical integration; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 1467-2227; 1467-2235
• DOI: 10.1017/S1467222700013732

In 1977, when Alfred D. Chandler's pathbreaking book The Visible Hand appeared, the large, vertically integrated, “Chandlerian” corporation had dominated the organizational landscape for nearly a century. In some interpretations, possibly including Chandler's own, The Visible Hand and subsequent works constitute a triumphalist account of the rise of that organizational form: the large, vertically integrated firm arose and prospered because of its inherent superiority, in all times and places, to more decentralized, market-oriented production arrangements. A quarter century later, however, the Chandlerian firm no longer dominates the landscape. It is under siege from a panoply of decentralized and market-like forms that often resemble some of the “inferior” nineteenth-century structures that the managerial enterprise had replaced.