Megacorporation
Very large companies spanning
multiple sectors doing business.
A megacorporation is a huge corporation typically completely covering
the area of the
interstellar
state where it resides, having a profound economic power in and beside
it's area of competence.
Of the millions of organizations which do business inside and outside
the Imperium, most are limited to
one or two worlds. A few thousand
corporations trade over one or more subsectors,
a few hundred cover one or more sectors.
Only a few firms (a total of 13) are truly Imperial in scope; they are
megacorporations. Staggering in size, these organizations are so
large that no one person can know everything they are concerned with at
any given moment. Total shares of stock, annual profits, number
of employees, are all astronomical. Many organizations are so
large that different divisions of the same megacorporation may actually
be working at cross-purposes. In most regions, megacorporations
merely own the land their installations are on, but in some areas they
control entire planets, either directly or indirectly.
Most megacorporations are organized very much like smaller companies
(with a board of directors, a president, and vice-presidents), but the
board and the higher level executive officers of the company are
largely out of contact with the day-to-day (or even year-to-year)
functioning of the company. These upper level executives plan
only general policy and a few long-distance actions. The most
important executives, in terms of personal power, are the various
regional managers (by whatever name they may be called). A
regional manager may control only a small portion of a
megacorporation's total assets, but many hold more power in some
regions than the local representatives of the Imperial government.
A small number of Imperial regulatory agencies have power over
megacorporations, and the businesses are subject to any applicable
local taxes, but, provided they do not blatantly violate Imperial
sovereignty, regional managers can usually conduct their company's
business as they see fit. If only because a direct confrontation
with the Imperium would be bad for business, intentional violation of
Imperial laws would not occur, although it is rumored that some
megacorporations have done just that but on a covert basis.
All corporations engaging in interstellar commerce are required to
possess an Imperial charter, usually indicated by the letters LIC
following the company name (LIC stands for Limited liability Imperial
Charter). A few Vilani
megacorporations are still in business under their Vilani titles.
It is difficult for a company to grow to the size of a megacorporation
unless it has the protection of a suitably-sized government.
Because the Imperium controls space and an economy that could support
megacorporations, they almost naturally sprang up.
Some of the interstellar empires that border the Imperium have grown to
the size that they can also support megacorporations. In
comparison, the largest of the non-Imperial megacorporations is perhaps
median-sized when compared with an Imperial megacorporation; the
smallest is smaller than any of the Imperial companies.
There are 13 imperial megacorporations: Delgado
Trading, LIC; General
Products, LIC; GSbAG; Hortalez
et Cie, LIC; Instellarms,
LIC; Ling
Standard
Products; Makhidkarun;
Naasirka; SuSAG,
LIC; Sharurshid; Sternmetal
Horizons, LIC; Tukera
Lines,
LIC; Zirunkariish.
There are also 13
non-imperial megacorporations. Among those are: Menderes
Corporation in
the Julian Protectorate; Otaiokeh
in the Aslan Hierate; Priantqlovr
Drafr
in the Zhodani Consulate; Reastirlao
in the Aslan Hierate; Star Patterns Trading in the Hive
Federation; Tlasayerlahel
in the Aslan Hierate; Transstar
in the Solomani Confederation;
Wyaroaer in the Aslan Hierate.
-RC mc
-cam MS