30The Future of the Corporation I2003

Just the other day I had a telephone call from an old friend in Europe, who was my student in New York about 45 years ago. He called up to tell me that he had just been named CEO of one of the major European multinationals. And then he said, “Peter I have a question: Does the corporation have a future?” And I said, “Yes, but it will be different.”

We could talk, for instance, about moving from control by ownership to control by strategy. Or we could talk about moving from the monolithic corporation, which owns everything that it does, to a confederation based on alliances and relationships.

Everybody in this room, including myself, takes the corporation for granted. We don’t realize what a recent development ...

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