Is the company obsolete?

Stefan Stern raisies an interesting set of questions in his Financial Times column today - The nature of ownership:

Maybe business has changed for good, and companies are now barely even semi-permanent organisations, with their own ethos and identity.

He gets to this point through a discussion of the tensions between long-term managers and short-term investors (I suggest you read the entire essay). However, one could get to the same point through an analysis of modern management. It isn't financial engineering that is pushing the company to a more networked, and in some cases virtual, organizational structure. It is the nature of the economic enterprise. Open innovation, alliances, extended supplier/customer networks -- all are changing the nature of the corporation. And as the company changes, the nature of the ownership relationship is likely to change as well.

But, rest assured, the short-term financial engineers will find a way to speculate on companies, no matter what the organizational structure. Limiting the damage from that situation is Stern's central concern - and should be ours as well.