Social Network Analysis of Kuwait Publicly-Held Corporations

Abstract

Interlocking directorates is a major element in corporate governance system. Interlock occurs when a director of one company sits on the board of directors of other companies. This phenomenon has given rise to number of concerns in the economy. The relationships of some companies’ attributes and corporate interlocks in Kuwait Stock Exchange among publically listed companies are investigated and uncovered for the first time. We explored the characteristics of the whole corporate network created by the directorship interlocks, and investigated the relationships of firms’ characteristics and interlocking directorates, i.e. member and company interlocks. The findings of work will spur some focus on one of the main elements of corporate governance, i.e. outside directors’ links, and contribute to the establishment of corporate governance codes and regulations in the context of Kuwait economy. Social network analysis shows clustering coefficients the financial companies are the highest degree centrality in the interlock network and hence the most influential actor in the network. The circle of influence stems from the high number of links with others. Another interesting observation elicited from the degree centrality analysis is the indirect interlocks companies can have. Companies can have indirect interlocks with companies having similar kind of business, which may facilitate collusion or anti-competition behaviors.