Business Elites and Corporate Governance in France and the UK

MAIRI MACLEAN is Professor of European Business at the Bristol Business School, UK. She was previously Reader in European Business at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her recent books include Economic Management and French Business from de Gaulle to Chirac (2002) and Michel Tournier: Exploring Human Relations (2003). She is author of numerous articles in the fields of international business and political economy. CHARLES HARVEY is Dean and Professor of Business History and Management at Strathclyde Business School, UK. He has twice won the prestigious Wadsworth Prize for Business History and is joint editor of the journal Business History. He has published extensively in leading business journals such as the Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations and Organization Studies. JON PRESS is Visiting Professor of Business History at Bath Spa University, UK. He won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History for William Morris: Design and Enterprise in Victorian Britain (1991), co-authored with Charles Harvey. He is expert in computer-based research methods and in 1996 published Databases in Historical Research, also with Charles Harvey. He is a member of the editorial team of Business History.

'In focusing on big companies and their leaders, this book, founded on a mass of original research, offers a different take on the dynamics of the global economy than prevailing stereotypes. National institutions, cultures and mindsets are shown to continue to hold sway in a world of competing capitalisms. It will shape the thought of business leaders, policy makers, and academics alike.' - Mark Casson, Director and Professor of Economics, Centre for Institutional Performance, University of Reading Business School, UK 'Power is the foundation of governing structures and regimes. And at the core of these are elites; socially organized, relationally embedded, and nationally and institutionally specific in their mechanisms of reproduction. Armed with appropriate theory, so often lacking in the corporate governance literature, this book is destined to be a landmark study of how comparative elites are organized and organize.' - Stewart Clegg, Professor of Management and Organization Theory, University of Technology, Australia 'To address relationships between business elites and governance immediately requires a robust analysis of trust, privilege, power and ideology - heady issues, especially when tackled within a comparative framework. This challenging book, based on extensive cross-national research, enlightens and provokes us all to rethink some of our easily assumed views.' - Dame Sandra Dawson, Director and KPMG Professor of Management Studies, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK 'In a rigorous and sweeping analysis of corporate elites and governance in the UK and France, Maclean, Harvey, and Press not only tackle a fundamental question of interest to scholars and practitioners alike, they unearth a veritable catalog of insights on what is really going on at the very top of the business elite. This book is destined to become both a wellspring for future research and the reference book on the subject.' - Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, USA

• Foreword; Sir A. Cadbury Business Elites and Corporate Governance Theoretical Perspectives on Business Elites and Corporate Governance Governance Regimes in Comparative Perspective Social Origins and the Education of Business Elites Elite Careers and Lifestyles Networks, Power and Influence Corporate Governance and the New Global Economy Conclusion - Elites, Power and Governance Appendix: Sources and Methods