Broken Ties: Interlocking Directorates and Intercorporate Coordination

Abstract

For detailed comments on the most recent versions ot this paper, I wish to thank Ronald Burt, Maggie McLoughlin, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Jerry Ross, and an anonymous ASQ reviewer. For comments on earlier drafts, I wish to thank Charles Perrow, Michael Schwartz, Joanne Martin, Jon Bendor, Dick Scott, the participants of the NIMH Research Training Program at Stanford University, and the members of the MACNET Research Group at SUNY-Stony Brook For patience, I thank the union waiters and waitresses at Zim's. Little is known about the specific types of relationships that interlocking corporate directorates facilitate. This study examines the connective and directional continuity of all ties disrupted accidentally among 1,131 large U.S. corporations between 1962 and 1964to determinethe relative likelihood that different types of interlock ties facilitate relationships of formal coordination. In accordance with previous theory, the number and type of interlocks of which a tie consists was found to be related to the likelihood that it is a vehicle of formal coordination. However, previous assumptions aboutthe percentage of ties in thefull network that facilitate such relationships and the significance of interlock direction were not supported. The implications of these results for interpreting past results and directing future research are also discussed.@