Samenvatting

The years between 1900 and 1930 have been a crucial period for the formation of large organizations in the Western world. Managers and scholars were searching for appropriate business models given the institutional setting. This model has impacted (and still does) the way we look at organizations and organizational change. At the time, however, this enterprise concept was not a triviality or taken for granted. Also contemporary business historians are careful to explain its rise. The purpose of our study is to readdress the issue of the birth of an organization. We find that that the application of different theoretical angles hampers the comparability of the starting point and alternatives routes of organizations. This leaves the question open when we generally can speak of a new organization and gives us the opportunity to critically assess the reference to the dominant business model of the 20th century, namely the multi-divisional enterprise