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The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century

Why (almost) everything we are told about business is wrong

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The Corporation in the Twenty-First Century

By: John Kay
Narrated by: Peter Wicks
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Summary

 SHORTLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES AND SCHRODERS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

"Original and thought-provoking... A brilliantly erudite account of the major waves in the theory and practice of management" - The Financial Times

"The doyen of British thinkers on the evolution of business...One of the great attractions of his [work] is that he stands above and apart from conventional political attitudes" - Literary Review

For generations, we have defined a corporation as a business run by a capitalist elite, that uses its accumulated wealth to own the means of production and exercise economic power.

That is no longer the reality. In the twenty-first century, our most desired goods and services aren't stacked in warehouses or on container ships: they appear on your screen, fit in your pocket or occupy your head.
But even as we consume more than ever before, big business faces a crisis of legitimacy. The pharmaceutical industry creates life-saving vaccines but has lost the trust of the public. The widening pay gap between executives and employees is destabilising our societies. Facebook and Google have more customers than any companies in history but are widely reviled.

John Kay, one of the greatest economists of our time, describes how the pursuit of shareholder value has destroyed some of the leading companies of the twentieth century. Incisive and provocative, this book redefines successful commercial activity and leadership, the knowledge economy and what the future of the modern corporation might be.©2024 John Kay (P)2024 Profile Books Ltd Business Ethics Corporate & Public Finance Economic History Economics Workplace & Organisational Behavior Business US Economy Taxation Socialism Capitalism Economic Inequality
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Borderline five stars as a history of / introduction to the idea and operations of modern business. A tad repetitive in places, and likely rather *too* introductory for many actually involved in this stuff day to day, but it does a good job of tracing the history and evolution of the idea of the corporation up to more or less the present.

I can't help feeling that it's already a little out of date with the rise of AI, though. If the core idea here is that a corporation's core value is the sum of the knowledge, skills, experience, and relationships of its people, then what happens with GenAI offers more rapid access to that knowledge, and AI Agents break down the need for some current human-led business relationships? Is AI a sufficient substitute? Can it create value - or is the implication of Kay's analysis of the corporation that it can only destroy it?

The narrator mostly does a good job, bar some strange pronunciation choices - for instance opting for the Swedish way of saying IKEA when everything else is British is a bit jarring.

Very good introduction / overview to how business works

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the clarity of the arguments put forward and the range of examples given throughout the book.

book of the year so far

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Kay's book is an example of academic writing that is both informative and enjoyable to read. He covers a lot of ground and elegantly connects subject matters diverse in time and fields of knowledge. He has a talent for explaining complex financial and economic notions and I particularly loved the very many real life examples of companies we all interact with or are very well aware of.

complex ideas made easy to follow

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I enjoyed it but not enough that I would actively recommend it to my friends.

I found it a series ok relatively interesting titbits

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First, I have read many of John Kay's works over many years. He is top of my list when recommending to others a book on personal investing. I really looked forward to this book- but even listening at 1.5X speed I find it tedious. Do I really need a history lesson in the weight of military weapons to get the point that 'better is not the same as more' (which is not '21st century economy', mud huts were better than caves and wooden buildings better than mud huts). And the promise of a second volume feels more like a threat. Sorry John, more may not be better when it comes to word count.

Rather disappointed. Three hours of excellence wrapped in ten hours of circumlocution.

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