The corporate power élite in South Africa: interlocking directorships among large enterprises

The interlocking corporate directorate straddles the research agendas and political and industrial geography and yet remains a relatively untilled research area for geographers. The present paper investigates the network and geographical fabric of interlocking directorates in South Africa. The empirical material is situated against the backdrop of four theoretical interpretations on the significance of interlocking directorships, namely managerial theory, environment control or reciprocity theory, financial control theory and class hegemony theory. Corporate power in South Africa is dominated by a small élite group which is tightly knit through connections of interlocking directorships. The spatial dimensions of the network reveal the existence of three distinct axes of interlocking organized through different headquarter office locations.