The English East India Company: Model for Future Multinational Corporations?
INTRODUCTION The English East India Company (EIC) might be a model for how a multinational corporation could survive and prosper in an increasingly chaotic and hostile geopolitical world. HISTORIC BACKGROUND The East India Company (EIC) was chartered in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I to promote and monopolize English trade with Asia. England, a poor country in the 1600s but with colonial ambitions after defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588, outsourced its colonial ambitions to the EIC and other private companies. The East India Company was privately funded by 218 merchants and other investors. It was the first modern multinational corporation. The EIC was a joint stock company, that is, a company with publicly traded stock bought and sold in a secondary stock market. Like modern companies, the EIC issued financial reports, held annual meetings for stockholders, and had quarterly meetings of the Board of Directors. The EIC was vertically integrated. The company designed, built