This is a report on thirteen major American corporations. I think of these<br > corporations as the lucky tbirtcen. They re lucky because recently they have<br > undergone a study that gives them a fresh new way to know themselves.<br > Knowing themselves better allows them to improve their performance.<br > We on the outside looking in are lucky， too. Because these corporations<br > have been willing to look at themselves in exhaustive detail， and to let the<br >i outcome of such study be known， we， too， can teanl what makes them tick.<br > Most people are curious about bnsiness life and the corporation. Some of<br >"+ as work in a corporation or serve several of them as advisors or suppliers.<br >" Others don t work in corporations， but their spouses do. Others are students<br > who plan careers in business. Others work in fields apart from business， such<br >2"~!，s medicine or education， but feel its impact. There are still others in those<br > "fidds apart from business who contemplate a career switch into business and<br > wonder what working for a corporation is like. Then there are those who<br > do not work at all， such as children， the elderly， and the unemployed， who<br > are touched To)， the corporation as consmners and by the state of the economy<br > itself.<br > Most of us， then， want to know more about the corm oration. The rapid<br > growth in the size of the business sections of our daily papers over the past<br > few years shows that business itself is news. This book is intended to help<br > satisfy our appetite for information and knowledge about corporate life.<br > The thirteen corporations in this stud)， are representative of American<br > business life and the slice of corporate America that produces the over-<br > whelming bulk of our gross national product. The annual sales of these<br > corporations range from approximately $300 million to $3 billion. This<br > means our stud)， does not include the behemoths such as Exxou， nor those<br > stIlall， primarily family-owned businesses that number in the thousands and<br > dot the landscape.<br >