Is the best way for a large corporation to continue operating and innovating is to split up into specialized sub-units?
There are several reasons that a large company might want to divide itself into smaller, more specialized units:
1. Efficiency - splitting work up allows different departments or teams within a single organization to specialize in certain areas of expertise and become better at what they do than their competitors who have fewer specialty groups to focus on. This can help reduce overall costs by eliminating duplicated efforts across multiple divisions/groups. Additionally, specialization leads to improved communication between different departments as well allowing information flow to be quicker and more efficient.
2. Market differentiation - depending on the specific needs of its customers or market segments, companies may choose to develop specialized products tailored specifically to meet customer demand, while also retaining a high level of generalizability through broad adoption across all target markets (or even broader applications). As such, divisionalization helps businesses achieve product diversification, increased revenue potential due to wider appeal among existing customers as well as new ones entering into business with them. The latter effect becomes particularly relevant if a division focuses heavily on developing unique technology innovations that serve only themselves and no one else, thus being insulated from competition unless another division were willing to replicate the exact same product but offer it at cheaper prices, making both products comparable against each other regardless of differences. 
3. Cost cutting measures - when an industry goes through downturns where demand dips or increases, larger organizations will often attempt to consolidate operations and reorganize according to changes rather than react slowly to these fluctuations, resulting in lower profits. Specialized entities, especially those working in fields related directly to innovation or production techniques could avoid this risk simply because cost efficiencies can make these companies viable despite market fluctuations and slow growths in particular industries or regions; they can remain profitable and adaptable much easier than centralized corporate giants struggling to maintain similar output levels over long periods of time without changing anything except how they allocate resources based upon economic indicators instead of raw productivity figures.
Overall, I believe the main goal should not always be "how