corpocracyn.
/kɔːˈpɒkrəsi/, U.S. /kɔrˈpɑkrəsi/ Originally U.S.
Originally: corporate governance; the dominant culture or cultural dominance of large commercial organizations; (later also) corporate bureaucracy; the internal organization of a large company, esp. characterized as overly hierarchical, bureaucratic, or conservative. Also as a count noun. Cf. big business n. at big adj. and adv. Compounds 2.
ΚΠ
1935 J. Davis Capitalism & its Culture iv. 65 We are..in an era which might be called corpocracy. The old competition is gone. The corpocracy itself is controlled by a very few individuals.
1975 Daily News (Port Angeles, Washington) 19 Sept. 4/4 This nation is rapidly heading into the shoals of corpocracy and our ideals of economic equality under democratic opportunity being eclipsed by corporation dictum.
1985 M. Green & J. F. Berry Challenge of Hidden Profits 11 [This] is the first book to report on waste in the corporate bureaucracy—a phenomenon we call ‘corpocracy’ to distinguish it from its governmental cousin.
1989 Daily Tel. 9 Oct. 21/5 I am sure that BAT will, without the burden of corpocracy, flourish and develop.
2006 S. Godin Small is New Big 36 While we're on the subject of failed bureaucracies, inert organizations, and brain-dead ‘corpocracies’, why don't big companies publish their org charts?
Derivatives
ˈcorpocrat n. a senior member of a large or dominant commercial organization, esp. (later) one characterized as adopting an overly hierarchical, bureaucratic, or conservative approach to business.
ΚΠ
1974 R. Heller Common Millionaire v. iii. 241 When relations soured between ICI and Hyman—the corpocrats reluctant to share his entrepreneurial visions, and the entrepreneur eager to tell the corpocrats how to run their corpocracy—the financing arrangement was undone.
1990 Time 5 Feb. 57/2 Bull corpocrats, not yet indicted politicians and assorted overweeners..have massed here [at the Super Bowl].
2006 Observer 24 Sept. (Business section) 9/4 The City Svengalis alone pocketed £21bn in bonuses last year, all paid for by corpocrats who weakened their equities by daft overpayments for mergers and acquisitions.
corpoˈcratic adj. of, designating, or relating to corpocracy; characteristic of corporate bureaucracy.
ΚΠ
1986 N.Y. Times 3 Dec. a31/2 Top management must bear responsibility for the costs and consequences of corpocratic management.
2004 Wall St. Jrnl. 11 Feb. (Central ed.) a19/6 Mr. Ellison revels in his image as an overgrown software punk, but in fact he's been a harbinger in bringing corpocratic instinct to the once entrepreneurial world of Silicon Valley.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1935