Publication:

Women in corporate networks: An introduction

this article is designed as an introduction to the Business History specialissue, ‘Women in corporate networks’. to begin, we address the maintheoretical and methodological issues. We argue that business histori-ans should engage in greater dialogue with feminist approaches, bywhich we mean a study of the gendered nature of power relations inbusiness networks. We show that network analysis can be a useful toolfor mapping the gendered structure of the corporate elite. We alsoargue that empirical analysis should focus on the profile of firms, whichhave recruited – or excluded – women, and provide historical profilesof women who made their way onto corporate boards. We then presentthe main results of the empirical case studies conducted in the specialissue, highlighting the similarities and differences in the nationalcontexts. Finally, we discuss the limits of the concept of ‘board diversity’and its application