The Power of Corporate Networks: A Comparative and Historical Perspective

Corporate networks, the links between companies and their leaders, reflect a country’s economic organization and its corporate governance system. Most research on corporate networks focuses on individual countries or particular time periods, however, making fruitful comparisons over longer periods of time difficult. This book provides a unique long-term analysis of the rise, consolidation, decline, and occasional re-emergence of these networks in fourteen countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

In this volume, the editors bring together the most internationally well-known specialists to investigate the long-term development of corporate networks. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research approaches, the authors describe the main developments and changes in the corporate network over time by focusing on important network indicators in benchmark years, and identify historical explanations for these developments. This unique, long-term perspective allows readers insight into how and why national corporate networks have evolved over time.

Thomas David is a Professor in the Institute of Economic and Social History at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Gerarda Westerhuis is Researcher at the Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, and Lecturer at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.