Casting Call: The Rise of Firms as Social Actors, 1960-2010

• In Event: 482 - Section on Political Sociology Paper Session. The New Politics of Firms and Industries

Abstract

It is a peculiar twist of history that we now reasonably discuss firms as having features like an identity, culture, or values; today we routinely accept that businesses are coherent social actors with a “self.” In early organizational thought, firms did not have autonomous identity characteristics per se. They were instruments for achieving individual goals and interests, which were variously described along a spectrum ranging from enlightened to dangerously selfish. Skeptics argued that corporations were tools of powerful elites and would subvert the public good. Proponents argued corporations provided an efficient structure for production, and thus should be legally protected and promoted. In both views, firms were vehicles for serving the interests of other masters; they did not possess goals or an essence of their own. To some extent, economic- and power-based analyses of firms continue to envision corporations this way using terms like principal-agent or contracts. But in practice and by law firms are increasingly treated as though they are constituted by an autonomous self with interests, rights, and responsibilities that transcend individuals, who can come and go. Our goal is to understand this reconstruction of firms into actors independent of the individuals that build them. Drawing on a content analysis of 300 annual reports from 80 large companies over the period 1960 to 2010, we ask what factors contribute to increased emphasis on firm identity.

Authors

• Patricia Bromley, University of Utah

• Amanda J. Sharkey, University of Chicago