ABSTRACT

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.

part I|57 pages

Large Developed Economies

chapter 3|18 pages

The Structure of Networks

The Transformation of UK Business, 1904–2010

part II|59 pages

Small European Economies

chapter 5|18 pages

The Dutch Corporate Network

Considering Its Persistence

chapter 6|18 pages

From National Cohesion to Transnationalization

The Changing Role of Banks in the Swiss Company Network, 1910–2010

chapter 7|21 pages

Austria Inc. under Strain, 1937–2008

The Fading Power of Creditanstalt Bank and the End of the Nationalized Industry

part III|42 pages

State Capitalism?

chapter 9|20 pages

Persistent and Stubborn

The State in Italian Capitalism, 1913–2001 1

part V|50 pages

Developed Economies in Asia and Latin America