Corporation/Companies Hierarchy Info Needed
- Thread starter Yure
- Start date
Corporations gained the power and influence they currently have due to what is now ancient history. After World War III, it was the Corporations, rather than the surviving remnants of governments, that repaired the Earth and rebuilt the economy rapidly, to the point that Earth was launching starships within a generation of the war's end. They used this prestige and influence to cement Corporate Rule over parts of the Earth and various locations in space. Sirius Corp, the most successful interstellar corporation in human history, raked in huge profits by remaining neutral and selling weapons and military supplies to both sides of the early Federation-Empire Wars - prolonging the conflicts by several decades in the process.
Federation corporations operate under the Federation Charter of Free Commerce, a governance structure that allows corporations to do pretty much whatever they want, so long as they pay their fair share of taxes to the Federation and don't blatantly abuse or enslave their employees. In the Alliance, Corporations are officially "Interstellar Business Organisations" and are recognized as governments in their own right, full members of the Alliance with no strictures placed upon them that other Alliance governments do not also have. In the Empire, Imperial Corporations are granted considerable autonomy; again, so long as they pay taxes, they are free to govern and structure themselves however they please, though a Corporation that chooses to directly compete against the interests of the Imperial Family and other powerful autarchs within the Imperial structure are likely to find themselves opposed by well-funded, more compliant Corporations.
Independent Corporations might be free of the tax burden of superpower-aligned companies, but this is balanced by the need for the Corporation to supply every need for all of the systems and worlds they control.
In terms of how these Corporations work on the ground, these differences actually amount to surprisingly little. They might give themselves different ranks and titles, and wear different uniforms, but Corporations are Corporations, and run much the same no matter which superpower's flag they are operating under; citizens and employees would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Whenever two corporations battle it out for control of a planet or system, the outcome is resolved peacefully by backroom deals and joint stockholder meetings, rather than open warfare, even if they belong to "rival" superpowers that would normally go to war with each other.
Corporations are mostly independent, monolithic entities; subsidiaries and divisions within the company are only visible at the internal level, those outside see just the unified whole. Some of the largest corporations, such as Sirius Corp, have some subsidiaries set up that govern operations in the more remote regions of the galaxy and/or deal in riskier, blue-sky developments; this seems to have been done mainly to enable rapid decoupling in the event of catastrophic failure of these subsidiary ventures, as technically they are completely autonomous corporations in their own right.
Ownership of corporations is much like what was seen in corporations since the Industrial revolution: a meritocracy, where those with skill rise to power and prominence. Dynastic rule is also common across the political spectrum; one might think that "family control" of a company would be more common in the Empire where family connections are more important in society, but this does not necessarily prove to be true; the "family connections" business model works better under the Patronage style of government associated with direct Imperial rule.
The linkages between different corporations of the same political alignment, or even of different alignments, are tenuous at best, and not something that is openly discussed or revealed to the public. "Public disclosure" is so Third Millennium; nowadays, information like this is on a "need to know" basis, and if you're not part of the corporate structure, then you don't need to know.
Federation corporations operate under the Federation Charter of Free Commerce, a governance structure that allows corporations to do pretty much whatever they want, so long as they pay their fair share of taxes to the Federation and don't blatantly abuse or enslave their employees. In the Alliance, Corporations are officially "Interstellar Business Organisations" and are recognized as governments in their own right, full members of the Alliance with no strictures placed upon them that other Alliance governments do not also have. In the Empire, Imperial Corporations are granted considerable autonomy; again, so long as they pay taxes, they are free to govern and structure themselves however they please, though a Corporation that chooses to directly compete against the interests of the Imperial Family and other powerful autarchs within the Imperial structure are likely to find themselves opposed by well-funded, more compliant Corporations.
Independent Corporations might be free of the tax burden of superpower-aligned companies, but this is balanced by the need for the Corporation to supply every need for all of the systems and worlds they control.
In terms of how these Corporations work on the ground, these differences actually amount to surprisingly little. They might give themselves different ranks and titles, and wear different uniforms, but Corporations are Corporations, and run much the same no matter which superpower's flag they are operating under; citizens and employees would be hard pressed to tell the difference. Whenever two corporations battle it out for control of a planet or system, the outcome is resolved peacefully by backroom deals and joint stockholder meetings, rather than open warfare, even if they belong to "rival" superpowers that would normally go to war with each other.
Corporations are mostly independent, monolithic entities; subsidiaries and divisions within the company are only visible at the internal level, those outside see just the unified whole. Some of the largest corporations, such as Sirius Corp, have some subsidiaries set up that govern operations in the more remote regions of the galaxy and/or deal in riskier, blue-sky developments; this seems to have been done mainly to enable rapid decoupling in the event of catastrophic failure of these subsidiary ventures, as technically they are completely autonomous corporations in their own right.
Ownership of corporations is much like what was seen in corporations since the Industrial revolution: a meritocracy, where those with skill rise to power and prominence. Dynastic rule is also common across the political spectrum; one might think that "family control" of a company would be more common in the Empire where family connections are more important in society, but this does not necessarily prove to be true; the "family connections" business model works better under the Patronage style of government associated with direct Imperial rule.
The linkages between different corporations of the same political alignment, or even of different alignments, are tenuous at best, and not something that is openly discussed or revealed to the public. "Public disclosure" is so Third Millennium; nowadays, information like this is on a "need to know" basis, and if you're not part of the corporate structure, then you don't need to know.
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