A New Methodological Approach to the Study of the Institutional Structure of Corporations

Abstract

This paper deals with a new approach to the study of a corporation. The approach is based on understanding corporations as institutional systems. The article determines the subsystems and elements of corporations’ institutional structure and introduces their characteristics. It grounds the necessity to observe the proportionality principle in corporations’ institutional structure and the dysfunctional character of the hypertrophy of any institution. The article also hypothesizes and introduces theoretical grounds with regard to the inversion of corporations’ subjects and institutional structure. The suggested approach allows introducing methodological grounds of the necessity to observe the proportionality of corporations’ institutions, which is essential for designing a corporation of the future, a corporation that would represent a combination of purposefulness, solidarity, and personal commitment.This article suggests a new approach to explaining the institutional nature of what modern material production is based on, which is corporations. We have concluded that corporations can be considered as an economic category that means the institutionally autonomous forms of organizing material production in their entire diversity, irrespective of specific historical or legal forms.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s2p571