Volume 15, 2010
Lloyd E. Sandelands
Pages 193-209
Why the Center Holds: On the Nuptial Foundations of the Corporation
Students of law and business administration are perplexed by the solidarity and resilience of the modern corporation. This is because knowledge of the defining elements of the corporation—of individual interests and the nexus of contracts—cannot account for the integrity and vitality of the whole. Beginning with the seminal ideas of Mary Parker Follett about organizations, specifically her ideas about functional relating and self-creating coherence, this essay draws upon Catholic Social Theory to explain how the life of the corporation is rooted in the life of the nuptial pair. Despite its often vast complexity, the modern corporation is literally an incorporation: a joining of male and female in one body. Implications of this idea about the corporation for our understanding of corporate law and business administration are discussed. Also briefly considered are implications of this idea for a theology of the corporation.