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Old 01-13-2019, 01:37 PM   #1
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Using Megacorporations

I am wondering how people use and portray megacorporations in their campaigns? I do not think that current business models support such organizations, corporate executives are more destroyers than creators and hedge funds like to dismantle the large corporations that they have purchased after forcing them to take on the debt that they used to acquire said corporations, but I can see someone (or a group of someones) with more vision than greed adopting a more sustainable business model. After all, corporate executives are only legally obligated to maximize shareholder value when the company is purchased and can otherwise safely ignore shareholder lawsuits.

A megacorporation would then have a management culture that emphasizes stability, growth, and competition. In the case of stability, actions by executives that would destabilize the company in the long term, even if they are profitable in the short term, would result in summary dismissal without any compensation, and the employment contracts would stipulate such measures. In the case of growth, the company would grow in one market until it reached the point where the expense of further market share would limit profits, then it would enter a new market while keeping the profit generation of the old market. In the case of competition, the megacorporation would expand through competition instead of acquisition, as acquisition just allows inferior executives to enter the organization.

Such a megacorporation would want to keep employees reasonably happy to promote stability, would want to limit legal entanglements in order to profitably maximize market share, and would use every legal and quasi-legal method to drive its competition into bankruptcy before acquiring its assets. By keeping on the right side of the law, it would give the authorities no reason to look to closely at it, and it would toss anyone in its organization that is guilty of malfeasance to the wolves as a necessary sacrifice to keep the authorities and the public happy. Additionally, it would likely promote from within, as it would value loyalty as much as it values competence, and would hire and groom talented people straight out of college.

Now, such an organization would likely face stiff resistance from the established business community, as such long term thinking endangers the short term profits of corporate raiders and hedge funds, so they would need to effectively monopolize a new technology. After the first such company reached megacorporation states (defined here as having revenues of 1% global GDP or greater), other large corporations would adapt their structures in order to compete. Eventually, you would likely end up with a dozen megacorporations that control an average of 2% of global GDP each, a total of 24% of global GDP, with the remainder of global GDP being divided between governments, other corporations, NGOs, and the rest of the public.

At that point, the megacorporations start becoming their own states, though their exact status would depend on what they could leverage from individual governments. At the very least, they will want immunity from everything except federal and international laws, as they will not want state and local governments interfering with their affairs. Smart executives will gain the support of their unions, as union members vote in elections, as giving more benefits to union members will make them more likely to convince other people of the goodness of their employees.

Does this mean that megacorporations will be good? No, at least not any more good than any other governing structure. It does mean that megacorporations will likely want deniable assets to sabotage their competitors, negotiate with politicians, and convince the unions to work with them. For some of them, that will involve suitcases of unmarked nonsequential bills. In other case, it will involve assassination and blackmail. In any case, it will provide plenty of opportunities for PCs to find adventure.
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