The behavior of large companies and their impact on leading economies
have been subjects of investigation since big business emerged
in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Alfred D. Chandler Jr.'s
work has defined this field. Chandler's first systematic study of large
corporations. Strategy and Structure (1962), compared the managerial
evolution of Du Pont, General Motors, Standard Oil, and Sears.' The
Visible Hand (1977) explored the origins and early dynamics ofthe largest
U.S. companies, analyzing their hehavior in different sectors.^ Scale
and Scope (1990) opened debate with its comparison of the two hundred
largest corporations in the United States, Germany, and the United
Kingdom during the first half of the twentieth century.^
Chandler's work inspired other scholars to publish monographs on