Publications
Publications
- 2012
- The Small Worlds of Corporate Governance
The Small Worlds of Business Groups: Liberalization and Network Dynamics
By: Jon Brookfield, Sea-Jin Chang, Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, Sergio G. Lazzarini, Jordan I. Siegel and Juan Pablo von Bernath Bardina
Abstract
Using comparative data from six major emerging economies — Brazil, Chile, Israel,
Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan — we examine how ownership networks in those
societies responded to a roughly similar “ structural break ” of economic liberalization during the 1990s involving both increased openness and/or reduced direct state
control (e.g., privatization programs). We are particularly interested in assessing how
these changes affected the typical patterns of organization found in emerging economies, notably concentrated ownership and the presence of “ business groups ” involving clusters of firms linked by common controlling owners. While standard economic
rationales would suggest that openness and privatization would lead to more foreign
entry and the disruption of existing ownership structures, sociological arguments
would typically predict resilience: actors who actively attempt to defend and even
reinforce their local positions (e.g., Kogut and Walker, 2001).
Keywords
Citation
Brookfield, Jon, Sea-Jin Chang, Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, Sergio G. Lazzarini, Jordan I. Siegel, and Juan Pablo von Bernath Bardina. "The Small Worlds of Business Groups: Liberalization and Network Dynamics." Chap. 3 in The Small Worlds of Corporate Governance, edited by Bruce Kogut, 77–115. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012.