Interlocking Directorates of Banks and Industrial Companies in Hungary at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
The article uses new archival research on the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest and industrial companies to examine the validity of existing interpretations of interlocking directorates in Hungarian bank-industry relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. The results show that interlocking hardly depended on capital relations, which suggests that board membership had not only a control or monitoring function. The lack of regular capital relations made bank hegemony, or even a significant bank influence, not concomitant with interlocking. The Hungarian Commercial Bank was not always able to represent its own interests effectively, not even in those cases when beside the interlocks the bank was a significant owner or creditor of industrial companies. The article concludes that a more complex interpretation of interlocking directorships in Hungary is essential.
Power geometries: Social networks and the 1930s multinational corporate elite
Abstract This paper employs the concept of power geometries that has been applied in analyses of today’s corporate elite and the globalisation of the economy to explore the networks of an economic actor who ran British multinational companies in the early 1930s. By focusing on the contacts engendered by the Bank of England director who was appointed in 1931 as the 30th governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in order to rescue this most emblematic of imperial trading companies, we examine not only the architecture of the web of connections within which both the company and its governor were embedded, but also the ways in which channels of interaction and communication were actually used. We show that while structural analyses of multiple and interlocking directorships offer a useful initial means of understanding power geometries, more detailed, ‘thick description’ approaches, based on archival material, reveal that not all apparent links were active and, in the case of the early-20th century multinational elite, networks appear to have embraced a much broader array of contacts. These extended in both social and geographical space well beyond the corporate boardrooms of London.
Comparative studies of α-Lactalbumin and lysozyme: Echidna lysozyme
Summaryα-Lactalbumin is a modifier protein for galactosyl transferase in the biosynthesis of lactose and lysozyme catalyses the cleavage of β(1–4) glycosidic linkages. It is now generally believed that α-lactalbumin and lysozyme have diverged from a common ancestor. Comparative studies of these proteins from several species are reported here.The presence of lactose and lactose synthetase activity is shown in mature milk samples from a variety of placental mammals (eutheria) and a pouch bearing mammal (marsupialia). The isolation of the α-lactalbumins involved and their properties are compared.The position is different in the milk samples of monotremes. The α-lactalbumin, lactose and lactose synthetase activity levels in the two platypus samples studied are very low. The levels of lactose and lactose synthetase activity in some echidna(Tachyglossus aculeatus) samples are low, but appreciable in others. No α-lactalbumin is present. The lysozyme activity is appreciable, some samples containing a different lysozyme from that present in others. One of these (designated echidna lysozyme I) is capable of lactose synthetase modifier activity in the presence of bovine “A protein”.The properties of this lysozyme are compared with those of lysozymes and α-lactalbumins from a variety of species and their significance is discussed.