The book is an examination of General Motors' operations, delving into how large corporations impact society on a broad level. Drucker's biographer Jack Beatty referred to it as "a book about business, the way Moby Dick is a book about whaling".[1]

In writing and researching the book, Drucker was given access to General Motors resources, paid a full salary, accompanied CEO Alfred P. Sloan to meetings, and was given free run of the company.

Drucker's focus was the insider view of the company. He focused, in contrast to his contemporaries, on what happened inside a company and how this related to the company's success or failure. Fascinated by this question, he studied management to find out what really made a business tick.

Until then, management was seen as a no-brainer: the CEO would simply give the orders and the others would follow. But Drucker was interested in the human interactions within a company, and more specifically on how power structures, political environments, information flows, decision making and managerial autonomy contributed to success. By shifting his focus, he was able to explain why General Motors was such a success.