Amini, S orcid.org/0000-0003-2719-8267 and Toms, S orcid.org/0000-0002-6147-7828 (2021) Elite directors, London finance, and British overseas expansion: Victorian railway networks, 1860–1900. The Economic History Review, 74 (2). pp. 496-521. ISSN 0013-0117
Abstract
This article considers how international economic expansion impacts on the composition of elite groups on boards of companies. We examine, why, at the height of the British Empire, boards of national, imperial, and international railway companies, financed from London, were dominated by elites drawn differentially from the aristocracy, the military, finance, and politics. To investigate the reasons for these differences, we conduct a social network analysis of railway company boards in three countries during the second half of the nineteenth century. Results reveal that aristocratic directors were dominant in Britain, military directors in India, and financier directors in Argentina, suggesting that their influence drew on local knowledge, resource access, and network connections. They did not serve on boards for merely ornamental purposes.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. The Economic History Review published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Economic History Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Accounting & Finance Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Sep 2020 12:10 |
Last Modified: | 27 Jul 2022 11:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/ehr.13044 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165632 |