Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
Corporate ownership, corporate control, and social networks in the capitalist class
Abstract
This dissertation examined three problems. First, despite the dispersion of stock ownership, were there sufficiently large concentrations of stock ownership to serve as bases for possible control of large corporations? Stock ownership was identified in 1,050 large corporations in the United States between the years 1975 and 1980, including the 1980 Fortune 500 corporations. Data on stock ownership were collected from five directories that were published by the Corporate Data Exchange, which obtained the data from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The five percent stock ownership criterion was used to classify corporate ownership, thereby identifying 297 corporations as family owned (28.29 percent), including 144 (28.8 percent) of the 1980 Fortune 500 corporations. Second, were management and ownership of large blocks of stock separated in large corporations? Ownership and management were combined in 190 family-owned corporations, since the chairpersons, presidents, and/or chief exective officers of 190 corporations were members of the families that owned the controlling blocks of stock (including two private companies in which the largest stockholders were managing directors or partners). Third, were capitalists isolated individuals or were they linked in a social network that consisted of overlapping memberships in clubs and policy organizations? The capitalists manifested variable linkage, ranging from isolation, to slight to moderate overlap, to integration in a small core or inner circle of the capitalist class, which was composed of individuals who were linked through overlapping memberships in clubs, policy-planning organizations, and lobbyist organizations. The chief executive officers who were the largest stockholders in the private financial companies were the most strongly integrated capitalists. Thus, it was concluded that ownership was a relevant variable for identifying both corporate control and the capitalist class.
Subject Area
Labor relations
Recommended Citation
Davis, Rollin Randolph, "Corporate ownership, corporate control, and social networks in the capitalist class" (1988). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8818614.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8818614