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After having located the corporation as a work, this chapter serves to clearly establish what kind of work the corporation is. This is accomplished along the lines of Heidegger's thinking on technology. To do this it is critical to clearly work out Heidegger's understanding of technology, not in the superficial sense of technology as devices and processes, but in terms of his understanding of the very nature of technology, which designates a background of understanding within which everything is revealed in instrumental terms. This exposes the corporation as a work that is both unoriginal and "blocking off' the understanding of its own very nature. Building on these insights about the very nature of the corporation, it becomes possible to get to an understanding of the very nature of dealing with the entity "corporation', the activity of "corporate management'. The task of corporate management is usually understood as the task of shaping, developing, changing and governing the corporation. This gives little insight into the nature of this task. Given the unoriginality of the corporation and the total denial by the corporation of its nature as a work, this chapter explains corporate management as fundamentally inappropriate for dealing with the corporation as a work and with many other entities in an appropriate way with devastating ethical consequences.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-1875-3_3

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