Malcolm Alexander teaches cultural sociology at Griffith University , Australia . His research covers comparative and global studies of corporate power and interlocking directorates in Australia , Canada , the US and Europe . He has published articles on business networks and corporate research structures in Australian and international journals. He is currently researching 'small world' networks of corporate, political and community leaders in Australian cities.

Forum Synopsis

Interlocking directorates have concerned corporate regulators and policy makers sporadically for different reasons at different times. While many debates start when people see corporate interlocks as necessarily symptomatic of structural problems of corporate power, positive normative ideals about networks, partnerships, relationship building and trust often provide countervailing arguments. I suggest that the most enduring concern with interlocking directorates is social rather than structural. This concern sees the density of personal connectedness that interlocks create as a problem. If too few 'leading' directors 'monopolise' the pool of available board seats, the resulting 'clubbiness' blocks the entry of new directors and stifles the input of new ideas to the system. Another symptom of this clubbiness is the homogeneity of personal characteristics among the directors. This paper asks whether social network analysis has the tools to diagnose such a situation. Can it distinguish structural features of a club from those of productive social network? If it can do so, what regulatory intervention does it suggest to address such a situation if it does, indeed, exist? 

Respondent

Ian Ramsay is the Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law in the Faculty of Law at The University of Melbourne where he is Director of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation.  He has practised law with firms in New York and Sydney. He is a member of the Takeovers Panel (which is the main forum for resolving takeover disputes); member of the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee (which is the Federal Government's main corporate law reform advisory body); member of the Federal Government's Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board and member of the National Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Corporations Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia. Former positions he has held include head of the Federal Government inquiry on auditor independence and member of the International Federation of Accountants Taskforce on Rebuilding Confidence in Financial Reporting. Ian has published extensively on corporate law and corporate governance issues both internationally and in Australia.  He is the co-author of the main corporate law treatise in Australia, Ford's Principles of Corporations Law and a member of many editorial boards. He is the co-author of books on corporate law published in New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia.