Replication material for: “From local champions to global players: a long-term perspective on Swiss companies’ connections across territorial scales.”

Replication material for: “From local champions to global players: a long-term perspective on Swiss companies’ connections across territorial scales.”

Authors

Michael Strebel (Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne)
André Mach (Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne)

Publication year

2022

How to cite

Strebel, M.A., Mach, A. (2022). Replication material for: From local champions to global players: a long-term perspective on Swiss companies’ connections across territorial scales. FORS - Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.25597/29G9-TX69

Publisher

FORS - Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences

Abstract

Corporate interlocking at the national and the transnational scale has received substantive scholarly attention. Less is known about companies’ ties to the cities in which they have their seats. In this paper, we conduct a long-term analysis of the multilevel ties that companies maintain with the local and the national context they are embedded in. To do so, we adopt a positional approach and identify the directors of the major companies in the three largest Swiss cities (Basel, Geneva, and Zurich) and study company directors’ ties to local and national organizations in seven benchmark years between 1890 and 2020. Our analysis documents the rise and fall of company directors’ ties to national organizations over the course of the 20th century and it highlights the continued persistence of companies’ ties to the local level and their city until the new millennium, when companies’ ties with national and local organizations vanish, coinciding with the transnationalization of company boards.

Keywords

Corporate interlocking
Sociology of elites
urban areas
transnational capitalist class
business elites
social network analysis

Description of the material

readme.txt: Read-me file with basic information on the datasets and syntax;
Datasets: Mandates18902020.csv, Individuals18902020.csv, OrganizationsNMembers1890-2020.xlsx, LocalChampions_18902020.xlsx;
Syntax (R-scripts): Script1_Networks.R, Script2_Companies.R, Script3_Individuals.R

Geolocation

Switzerland, Europe

Publication

No. 3