Research on interlocking directorates has gained increasing prominence within the field of organizations, but it has come under increasing criticism as well. This chapter presents an in-depth examination of the study of interlocking directorates. I focus initially on both the determinants and the consequences of interlocking directorates, reviewing alternative accounts of both phenomena. Special attention is paid to the processual formulations implied by various interlock analyses. I then address the two primary criticisms of interlock research and evaluate the tenability of these criticisms. I conclude with a discussion of future directions for interlock research.

and Stanford. We are especially indebted to Robert K. Merton, who provided detailed comments on virtually every page of the manuscript, and to ASQ Associate Editor Reed Nelson, the anonymous ASQ reviewers, and Linda Johanson. Finally, we thank Paul DiMaggio and Woody Powell for their feedback and cooperation throughout this project.Arguing that knowledge in the social sciences is socially constructed through the selective interpretation of major works, we examine the fate of a classic article in organizational theory, DiMaggio and Powell's 1983 essay on institutional isomorphism. We show that one aspect of this article, the discussion of mimetic isomorphism, has received attention disproportionate to its role in the essay. A detailed examination of 26 articles in which researchers attempted to operationalize various components of DiMaggio and Powell's model shows that measures used to capture one of their concepts could have served as valid measures of one of the others. Findings show that DiMaggio and Powell's thesis has become socially constructed, as authors have selectively appropriated aspects of the work that accord with prevalent discourse in the field, and that centrally located researchers in sociology and organizational behavior are more likely than other scholars to invoke this dominant interpretation of their article.' Scholars have many motives for their writings. The most obvious and immediate issue is that publishing is the primary indicator of success in one's career. For academic scholars, publication forms the basis of hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions, as well as the basis of one's reputation. Not only must one publish, but one's writings must receive critical acceptance from one's peers. But even more important than critical acceptance are two additional goals: scholars want their work to be read, and they want their work to influence that of other scholars. In the sciences, one's scholarly influence can be gauged by the extent to which other scientists make use of one's theories, hypotheses, and findings (Cole, 1992). This influence manifests itself in citations but also in the extent to which one's work is the subject of discussion or even the basis of an article or book itself. At its highest level of influence, one's work forms the basis of a school of thought, a perspective, or approach whose origin is attributed to the work of a particular scientist (or a small number of scientists).Whatever the extent of pure curiosity, self-fulfillment, and joy in work that might motivate the efforts of scientists, most hope that their work will be, if not revolutionary, at least influential. But the possibility that one's work will be used by others raises an interesting question: What if that work is misinterpreted or used in a way that differs from the original intent of the author? "Just spell my name right" is a common plea among those striving for careers in music and theater, indicating that one's primary concern is to be known, regardless of the basis of that knowledge. The sciences are n...

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the Arts at the University of Michigan. We thank Mark Granovetter, Harry Makler, Christine Oliver, and the anonymous ASQ reviewers for comments on previous versions of this paper, and seminar participants at the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Stanford University for their insightful suggestions. We are grateful to Kathleen Much and Linda Johanson for editorial help.This paper examines how the place of banks in the intercorporate network has changed as a result of their decreasing role as financial intermediaries in the U.S. economy. An analysis of comprehensive data on the boards of the fifty largest banks and their connections with the several hundred largest nonbank corporations from 1982 to 1994 shows that the centrality of banks has significantly declined as executives of major corporations, particularly those representing central firms, joined bank boards at a substantially lower rate. Declining centrality reflects a strategic choice on the part of the banks: as the returns available from lending to major corporations have declined, the largest banks have moved into other forms of business and reduced their recruiting of centrally located directors. We conclude with a discussion of the role of financial intermediation in shaping the social organization of the economy.'In corporate governance, the economic and the social are inextricably linked. Board members are typically recruited from among friends and acquaintances of current directors. Conversely, relations that begin as economic ties often become overlaid with social relations, and the resulting social structures shape corporate decision making. Board interlocks, created when two firms share a director, may reflect a number of economic and social influences ranging from coopting powerful suppliers to extending relations from golf course to boardroom. Regardless of their origins, they lend a social organization to the economy that in turn influences economic and political decisions (Mizruchi, 1996). Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) get higher salaries when their outside directors are well paid (O'Reilly, Main, and Crystal, 1988), and firms adopt takeover defenses or engage in takeovers themselves when they share directors with other firms that have done so (Davis, 1991; Haunschild, 1993). Corporations tied to the same financial institutions make the same sorts of political contributions (Mizruchi, 1992). More heavily interlocked firms are opinion leaders whose actions are more likely to be imitated (Davis and Greve, 1997), while they are also more susceptible to normative pressure in the social system of corporations (Useem, 1984). Specific interlocks, and the overall configuration of the interlock network, thus shape economic decisions in important ways. Researchers' burgeoning interest in the role of board interlocks in corporate governance attests to the economic influence of those social ties, but less attention has been paid to changes in the intercorporate network in recent years that may affect the prominence of one central in...