Research into interlocking directorates and other organizational ties between large corporations dates back to the beginning of the century. In Germany and the United States interlocking directorates became an important means of coordination and control of large corporations and banks at the end of the nineteenth century and were, as a result, particularly subject to scientific investigation and public debate. Trusts were regarded with mistrust, especially in the United States, where John Moody's study from 1904 was significantly entitled The Truth about Trusts. In Germany much attention was paid to the role-or-the large Berlin banks in the economic development. The first large study in Germany carried the prolix title The Relationship between the Large German Banks and Industry with Special Reference to the Iron Industry (Jeidels, 1905). ---- --------- The studies in the United States were predominantly induced and even carried out by committees of the Federal Congress. In Europe, on the other hand, the labor movement soon became interested in the patterns of interlocking directorates. In the Netherlands, for example, Wibaut, a socialist leader, carried out a study on interlocking directorates, copying the research design of Jeidels. Accordingly, two different schools can be distinguished from the start: the Marxian school which developed the concept of finance capital to explain the existing interlocking directorates, and the institutional economists who used the concept of economic power to explain the same phenomenon.

0 Introduction.- I Themes and Problems.- 1.0 Introduction.- 1.1 The theory of finance capital.- 1.2 Interlocking directorates and economic power.- 1.3 Financial groups.- 1.4 Corporate elite and capitalist class.- 1.5 Summary.- II Between Market and Hierarchy.- 2.0 Introduction.- 2.1 The organization of firms and markets: a neo-classical explanation.- 2.2 Some definitions of firms.- 2.3 Power and control.- 2.4 Ownership and control.- 2.5 Competition, cooperation and control.- 2.6 Summary.- III Imperialism in the Seventies: two models.- 3.0 Introduction.- 3.1 Theories of imperialism.- 3.2 Two models.- 3.3 Research design.- 3.4 Summary.- IV The International Corporate Elite.- 4.0 Introduction.- 4.1 The organization of the supervising and executive function in different countries.- 4.2 Selection of the international corporate elite.- 4.3 Network characteristics of the international corporate elite.- 4.4 Types of interlocking directorates.- 4.5 Summary.- V National Versus International Integration.- 5.0 Introduction to some graph-theoretical concepts.- 5.1 General patterns in the international network.- 5.2 The international network of Western firms.- 5.3 Industrial concentration versus economic centralization.- 5.4 Summary.- VI Domination and Control.- 6.0 Introduction.- 6.1 Clusters of heavily interlocked firms.- 6.2 The network of officer-interlocks.- 6.3 Summary.- VII Competition and Cooperation: the role of banks.- 7.0 Introduction.- 7.1 Interlocks among banks.- 7.2 Overlapping spheres of interests.- 7.3 International bank consortia.- 7.4 The American banks.- 7.5 Summary.- VIII The Impact of World Crisis: changes in the network.- 8.0 Introduction.- 8.1 A new economic world order?.- 8.2 Selection of the 1976 sample.- 8.3 The international corporate elite.- 8.4 International versus national integration.- 8.5 Centrality in the nested networks (1976).- 8.6 Domination and control in the 1976 network.- 8.7 Summary.- IX Summary and Conclusions.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 The structure of the international corporate elite.- 9.3 Conflict or cooperation.- 9.4 The meaning of interlocking directorates.- 9.5 The international corporate elite.- References.- Authors Index.- Firms Index.- Appendix A.