Emerging research from Carroll (2017) provides a wide-angle view on the organization and architecture of the carbon sector in Canada, mapping its internal structure as a network of
interlocking directorates and its ties to the financial sector and other segments of corporate capital--national and transnational.
Although never formally defined, weak governance is characterized by diffusion of shareholdings among outside owners, board passivity, minimal
interlocking directorates, and managerial/board characteristics such as minimal equity ownership or an insider heavy board (Bethel & Liebeskind, 1993; Dalton & Dalton, 2011; Westphal & Fredrickson, 2001).
How is the carbon-capital elite internally structured as a network of
interlocking directorates, which operates simultaneously at two levels: that of the corporation and that of the individual (Carroll 1984)?
There have been derivative suits alleging illegal
interlocking directorates. In these suits, members of the board of a company are accused of breaching their fiduciary duties by allowing the overlapping directorate in violation of antitrust law.
Interlocking Directorates and Section 8 of the Clayton Act
One of the most contentious and yet recurrent ways senior leaders exercise power in society is through overlapping board memberships, what scholars call "
interlocking directorates" or simply "interlocks." The tendency of boards of for-profit firms, policy groups, nonprofit organizations, and even universities is to share members.
Schoorman, 1983, "A Limited Rationality Model of
Interlocking Directorates," Academy of Management and Review 8, 206-217.
Specific family business topics explored include: (1) governance and long-term orientation, (2)
interlocking directorates, (3) social responsibility, (4) corporate entrepreneurship, (5) perceptions of justice, and (6) altruism and agency.