Corporate elite studies have for long investigated networks of interlocking directorates to test and corroborate key theoretical expectations regarding the cohesive organization of such an elite and their ability and willingness to act on behalf of general business interests. These studies typically collect data on a list of 50, 100, 200 or 500 corporations ranked by economic size, sometimes stratified in sectors. The sampling approach often follows previous studies in order to increase comparability. These relatively arbitrary sampling practices are problematic because they impact the empirical results and our therefore the conclusions drawn from it. Using a sample of 3251 Canada-based corporations, we establish that indeed different sampling criteria – that is sample size, proportion of financial firms, inclusion of state-owned enterprises and so on – significantly impacts network properties of corporate elite networks. We establish rather disturbing differences, especially for smaller sample sizes (<100). Subsequently, we develop alternative demarcation criteria of the corporate elite based on a k-core decomposition. We conclude by emphasizing that the sampling decisions in interlocking directorate studies should much more be carefully be thought through in future research on the topic, both in corporate elite studies and beyond.

中文翻译：

---

界定企业精英：探究连锁董事会网络的边界和组成

长期以来，企业精英研究一直在调查相互关联的董事会网络，以测试和证实有关此类精英的凝聚力组织及其代表一般商业利益行事的能力和意愿的关键理论预期。这些研究通常收集按经济规模排列的 50、100、200 或 500 家公司名单的数据，有时按部门分层。抽样方法通常遵循以前的研究，以增加可比性。这些相对随意的抽样做法是有问题的，因为它们会影响实证结果，从而影响我们从中得出的结论。使用 3251 家加拿大公司的样本，我们建立了确实不同的抽样标准——即样本大小、金融公司的比例、包括国有企业等——显着影响企业精英网络的网络属性。我们建立了相当令人不安的差异，特别是对于较小的样本量（<100）。随后，我们制定了企业精英的替代划分标准，基于k-核分解。我们最后强调，在未来的企业精英研究和其他领域的研究中，应该更加仔细地考虑联锁董事会研究中的抽样决策。