The International Corporate Elite

Even though the study of interlocking directorates is basically a study of intercorporate power which cannot be based on theories and evidence of intracorporate power, the structure of the corporation is important for the position of the directors, especially for their position as interlocking directors. If, for example, the internal function of the board of directors is regarded as insignificant, the function of interlocking directorates will also be considered of minor importance. [1] In Section 4.1 the development of the decision-making structure of the large corporation and the main functions of different boards will be sketched. Furthermore, an international survey is necessary to compare national differences and to assign an identical meaning to corresponding positions. Since it is well known that formally similar positions may differ in content from one company to another within the same country, it is obvious that the idiosyncratic differences in companies from different nations will be even greater. For this reason the goal of Section 4.1 is very modest: only some major distinctions will be made to enable us to select the most important positions (Section 4.2) and to construct a simple typology of interlocking directorates according to the character of the position held in each of a pair of interlocked firms (Section 4.4.2).