The paradigm shift in the way we look at corporations has been that everyone talks about them as 'Individuals'. They have certain characteristics which we tend to associate with them. This then leads us to believe that we tend to behave in the same way with corporations as we do with other human beings. Is it actually that way? Do we actually think that this corporation might not like my behavior? I don’t think so.
That is the reason why we want continuous hammering from the leader that yes we are the number 1 company, we give the best of a particular product/service. (The advertisements of the leaders will tell you this.) Come to think of the same scenario in case of our relationship with people around us, we would hate someone telling us again and again that he/she is the best at painting, cricket, anything for that matter. We would stop interacting with them instantly but the opposite is true in case of corporations. This may be attributed to our social fear (people will ridicule me if I buy this from here), functional fear (What if this doesn’t work properly), monetary fear (I can’t risk so much on something from this company, I would rather take it from the no. 1 player).
We would tend to like people who show humility and corporation who show their brute power.
When corporations talk about legacy, we feel proud to be associated with it. We feel that even with changing times, we know we are with someone who has seen it all. But if someone elderly keeps on pestering us that since our times, we have been doing this or we need to follow the practice as we have told you to follow, we would be the first one to say that times are changing. You won’t understand what the current needs are but fail to consider their legacy.
We tend to like people who advise us albeit not always but corporations which keep telling us of their legacy every time in every form of their communication.
We also tend to part ways with companies more easily than we do with people. So I think its a long way to go for a corporation before it can be termed as 'human'.