Once a project is finished, the launching network ends, but its members often create new combinations for new projects. Twenty-five years ago, one in five U.S. workers were employed by a Fortune 500 company. Today, the ratio is less than 10. Large companies are far less vertically integrated today, and they increasingly rely on outside suppliers for both components and services. While big companies control ever-larger cash flows, they exert less direct control over business activity.
Business organizations are, in essence, mechanisms for coordination.
They exist to guide the flow of work, materials, ideas and money. The form they take is strongly affected by the available coordination technologies. When it is cheaper or faster to conduct transactions internally, organizations grow. When it is cheaper or faster to use independent entities, organizations stay small or even shrink. From the 1920's to the 1940's, big studios like MGM and Columbia controlled the movie business.