Corporate Co-Evolution

WINNER OF THE GEORGE R. TERRY ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT BOOK AWARD 2009

"This superb study of a Brazilian state company's transition to private ownership is marvellously comprehensive in its coverage of the firm's entire life span and the full spectrum of its interactions with all aspects of its environment. The outstanding quality of this volume's contribution to co-evolutionary thinking and institutional and political theory has invaluable implications for culture, politics, identity, learning, and adaptation, making it an absolute 'must read' for all organization, management and strategy scholars."
—Christine Oliver, Professor and Henry J. Knowles Chair in Organizational Strategy, Schulich School of Business, York University

"This book by Suzanna B. Rodrigues and John Child is destined to become a classic study for several reasons. It is an exemplary study of co-evolutionary case study research, it is one of a very few longitudinal studies that focus on the interdependencies between firm evolution and the macro political and institutional environment and it provides a comprehensive and integrated state of the art framiing of current co-evolutionary theories and empirical research, It is a must read for scholars in Organization Science."
—Arei Y. Lewin, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, Durham NC

"Corporate Co-evolution is a valuable contribution to the small but precious collection of studies of long-term change in business organizations. Tracking the evolution of a telecommunications company in Brazil over a 27 year period, Rodrigues and Child perform a delicate balancing act, according equal attention to the constraining/empowering effects of a changing institutional environment and to the strategic decisions and actions of the company's leaders."
—W. Richard Scott, Stanford University


Corporate Co-Evolution is a work of major scholarship that develops broad macro-economic principles of corporate strategy by examining and analyzing the history and growth of Telemig, a major Brazilian telecommunications company.

• Analyzes the different domains of the corporate environment - economic, social, cultural and political - that impact on the evolution of companies
• Traces the multi-level changes in a major Brazilian telecommunications company, uncovering the dynamics of change over the course of 30 years
• Develops a broader contextual and historical perspective that enriches our understanding of today’s international corporate environment
• Includes a general introduction to the complex political factors in the corporate environment that impact the growth of companies
• Co-authored by internationally-renowned author and business consultant, John Child

Series Editors’ Foreword ix

Preface xi

Part I Introduction 1

1 Perspectives on Corporate Co-evolution 3

2 The Economic and Political Context of Telecommunications in Brazil 27

3 Scope and Method 46

Part II Historical Co-evolution of Telemig 55

4 Foundations 1953–1985 57

5 Politicization 1985–1993 92

6 Reconstruction and Demise 1993–2000 115

Part III Multidimensional Co-evolution 145

7 Organizational Culture 147

8 Corporate Identity 171

9 Metaphors and Reflective Imaging 200

10 The Politics of Learning at a Time of Restructuring 226

Part IV Conclusion 245

11 A Political Interest Theory of Corporate Co-evolution 247

Author index 273

Subject index 275

Suzana Rodriguez is a Professor of International Business and Organization at Birmingham Business School.

John Child is Chair of Commerce at Birmingham Business School. He is the author of the classic text: Organization and author or co-author of 18 books and more than 120 articles.

Corporate Co-Evolution is one of the first major works in Blackwell’s Organization and Strategy research series of business texts. By tracing the history and growth of Telemig, a major Brazilian telecommunications company, Corporate Co-Evolution develops broader macro-economic principles that can be applied to today’s international corporate environment.

After a general introduction to political regulations and other domains of the corporate environment that impact the growth of companies, Corporate Co-Evolution delves deeply into Telemig’s past. The text closely documents and analyzes the dramatic changes over the course of 30 years that transformed Telemig from a “lumbering dinosaur to a soaring eagle” as privatization takes the corporation into the 21st century. The authors skillfully draw out the practical and policy implications of the Telemig experience to develop a broader systematic theory of corporate evolution that is highly relevant to the contemporary business world.