Company Man: Rise and Fall of Corporate Life

This work tells the story of the evolution of the social phenomenon of the 20th century - company man. The business corporation has become not only the engine of economic power, but the dominant community in much of the industrial world. Its executives have become enclosed in their own hierarchies and bureaucracies which have dominated their careers and their families' lives. The book shows how this new breed emerged and developed across the world, through successive industrial changes, and how different versions of company men - in America, Europe and Asia - are now competing for survival. Anthony Sampson is the author of "The Anatomy of Britain", "The New Europeans", "The Sovereign State of ITT", "The Seven Sisters", "The Arms Bazaar", "The Money Lenders", "Black and Gold", "The Midas Touch" and "The Essential Anatomy of Britain".

In this provocative and incisive social history of the corporation, British journalist Sampson observes that the "organization man" of the 1950s and '60s?a loyal worker confident of annual raises and a growing pension?is virtually extinct. Today's company men and company women face insecurity in offices that seem placeless networks of telecommuters and data banks, with short-term specialists and consultants increasingly replacing lifetime employees. Drawing on an array of writers, including H. G. Wells, G. B. Shaw, Franz Kafka, Sinclair Lewis, Thorstein Veblen, Kurt Vonnegut and John Kenneth Galbraith, Sampson explores the often dehumanizing fabric of corporate life and charts the history of corporations from 17th-century European merchant companies and Rockefeller's Standard Oil to the present, with profiles of IBM, Microsoft, General Motors, Sony, Toyota and Shell, among others. While middle managers and clerical employees are being squeezed and are more vulnerable to layoffs, top bosses have become more powerful and better-paid than ever, and Sampson urges safeguards to protect both shareholders and employees against the lack of corporate accountability.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.