Alfred Chandler's theory of managerial capitalism has critically influenced all serious research on the rise and development of big business since the Second Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century. Originally constructed based mainly on the prime case of the United States from the 1880s to the 1950s, the Chandlerian vision of managerial capitalism emphasized the strategic primacy of discretionary decision making by senior, inside management which possesses the competitive advantages of the knowledge of markets and technology. The Chandlerian model presented a coherent analytical structure centered around the core concepts of learned and accumulated knowledge and organizational capabilities, based on which his approach can be applied to other national economies and different historical time periods. The Chandlerian framework actually has stimulated extensive comparative research on large industrial enterprises of many other nations, this particular book being one of them.

As the most influential historical theory of managerial capitalism, the Chandlerian model has faced a more than fair share of criticism from various perspectives: historical, economic, political, and sociological. From the theoretical viewpoint the most pointed criticism to date has come from an approach broadly called agency theory and corporate governance. Taking as their primary examples the mediocre financial performance and the decline in international competitiveness since the 1970s of many large U.S. enterprises, scholars mainly of finance economics and corporate law have documented many cases of managerial decision making and organizational implementation working against the economic welfare of shareholders, the firm, and the American economy. Sharply pointing out the dysfunction of internal monitoring mechanisms, these critics demanded a drastic overhaul of the corporate governance structure and suggested the enforcement of external disciplinary devices, particularly those of capital markets.