A corporation is an economic and legal institution that establishes a business enterprise as a distinct legal entity separate from its owners, capable of owning property, entering contracts, and bearing legal liability in its own name, typically limiting the personal financial liability of its shareholders to their investment. The corporate form traces its institutional origins to medieval guilds, chartered trading companies such as the British and Dutch East India Companies, and municipal corporations, evolving into the modern joint-stock corporation that underpins large-scale capitalist enterprise. As a social institution, the corporation has reshaped the organization of large-scale production, ownership and economic power, and remains a central subject of study in economic sociology and organizational theory.
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