Robert Aaron Gordon: Activation

“In the infinitely complex economic system on which we rely for our daily bread, no productive function is more important than that of our business leaders. These men are charged with the responsibility of giving direction and unity to the efforts of the many who participate in economic activity. It is their job to make the plans and decisions which will transform economic effort into the particular goods and services wanted by a myriad of consumers. Conversely, it is their job also to translate consumers' needs into employment opportunities for labor and other economic resources”

Robert Aaron Gordon

Source: Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945), p. 3

Men , Business , Decision , Effort

“Speak… of the separation of ownership and active leadership. Ordinarily the problem is stated in terms of the divorce between ownership and "control". This last word is badly overused, and it needs to be precisely defined… Our procedure… will be to study the ownership of officers and directors and then to ascertain the extent to which non-management stockholdings are sufficiently concentrated to permit through ownership the wielding of considerable power and influence (control?) over management by an individual, group or another corporation.”

Robert Aaron Gordon

Source: Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945), p. 24, footnote 20; as cited in: Marco Becht et al. Corporate Governance and Control, 2005. p. 61

Problem , Study

“This pioneer work, written for both the professional economist and the businessman, has become a classic in its field. It is a detailed examination of the structure of the large business corporation in relation to its actual economic functioning. Because Gordon views the corporation not as an external institution but as organized human activity, his emphasis is on the personal and volitional elements in leadership, or how businessmen actually shape their practices. His analysis is based on a formidable mass of case material and statistical data”

Robert Aaron Gordon

Abstract
Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945)

Business , Personality

“The more active working directors become, the more closely involved they resemble the executives now responsible for providing business leadership. A full-time working director is merely another official who is also a director. Wide adoption of the proposal for professional directors, particularly if management is able to select the directors itself, may merely make general the situation now found in some companies in which only the executive group is represented on the board.”

Robert Aaron Gordon

Source: Business Leadership in the Large Corporation (1945), p. 346-7

Business , Time