Interlocking Directorships among Companies in Ringkøbing Amt: A Case of Social Capital

This paper describes a small research project into board memberships and directorships interlock in a particular rural county in Denmark. This research also looks at other counties in Denmark as well as a group of the largest companies, in terms of revenue, within the country. The paper describes how UCINET and PAJEK software was used. The findings indicate that the companies in Ringkøbing Amt are interlocked by board and directorships, but much less so than the largest companies in Denmark. This leads us to attempting to relate the concept of interlocking directorships with more resent research into social capital, individual as well as corporate social capital. We conclude by discussing these findings as well as suggest areas for further research in this area.