We explore the meaning and implications of Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power and integrate it into a wider conception of the formation and functioning of elites at the highest level in society. Corporate leaders active within the field of power hold prominent roles in numerous organizations, constituting an ‘elite of elites’, whose networks integrate powerful participants from different fields. As ‘bridging actors’, they form coalitions to determine institutional settlements and societal resource flows. We ask how some corporate actors (minority) become hyper-agents, those actors who ‘make things happen’, while others (majority) remain ‘ordinary’ members of the elite. Three hypotheses are developed and tested using extensive data on the French business elite. Social class emerges as persistently important, challenging the myth of meritocratic inclusion. Our primary contribution to Bourdieusian scholarship lies in our analysis of hyper-agents, revealing the debts these dominants owe to elite schools and privileged classes.
AhujaG (2000) Collaboration networks, structural holes and innovation: A longitudinal study. Administrative Science Quarterly45(3): 425–455.
2.
AhujaGSodaGZaheerA (2012) The genesis and dynamics of organizational networks. Organization Science23(2): 434–448.
3.
AnheierHKGerhardsJRomoFP (1995) Forms of capital and social structure in cultural fields: Examining Bourdieu’s topography. American Journal of Sociology100(4): 859–903.
BoltanskiLChiapelloE (2007) The New Spirit of Capitalism, London: Verso.
6.
BorgattiSPMehraABrassDJLabiancaG (2009) Network analysis in the social sciences. Science323(5916): 892–895.
7.
BotteroW (2004) Class identities and the identity of class. Sociology38(5): 985–1003.
8.
BourdieuP (1985) The social space and the genesis of groups. Theory and Society14(6): 723–744.
9.
BourdieuP (1986a) The forms of capital. In: RichardsonJG (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, New York: Greenwood, pp. 241–258.
10.
BourdieuP (1986b) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, London: Routledge.
11.
BourdieuP (1987) What makes a social class? On the theoretical and practical existence of groups. Berkeley Journal of Sociology32: 1–17.
12.
BourdieuP (1990) The Logic of Practice, Cambridge: Polity.
13.
BourdieuP (1993) The Field of Cultural Production, Cambridge: Polity.
14.
BourdieuP (1996a) The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, Cambridge: Polity.
BourdieuP (2011) Champ du pouvoir et division du travail de domination. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales190(5): 126–193.
17.
BourdieuPPasseronJ-C (1977) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London: Sage.
18.
BurtRS (1992) Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19.
BurtRSHogarthRMMichaudC (2000) The social capital of French and American managers. Organization Science11(2): 123–147.
20.
CarrollWKSapinskiJP (2011) Corporate elites and intercorporate networks. In: ScottJCarringtonPJ (eds) The Sage Handbook of Social Network Analysis, London: Sage.
21.
CoignardSGuichardM-T (2000) French Connections, New York: Algora.
22.
Collins-DogrulJ (2012) Tertius lungens brokerage and transnational intersectoral cooperation. Organization Studies33(8): 989–1014.
23.
CourpassonDCleggSR (2006) Dissolving the iron cages? Tocqueville, Michels, bureaucracy and the perpetuation of elite power. Organization13(3): 319–343.
24.
CourpassonDDanyFCleggS (2012) Resisters at work: Generating productive resistance in the workplace. Organization Science23(3): 801–819.
25.
CreedWEDScullyMAAustinJR (2002) Clothes make the person? The tailoring of legitimating accounts and the social construction of identity. Organization Science13(5): 475–496.
26.
CulpepperPD (2008) Capitalism, coordination and economic change: The French political economy since 1945. In: CulpepperPDHallPAPalierB (eds) Changing France: The Politics that Markets Make, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 29–49.
27.
DasTKTengB-S (2002) Alliance constellations: A social exchange perspective. Academy of Management Review27(3): 445–456.
28.
DenordFLagneau-YmonetPThineS (2011) Le champ du pouvoir en France. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales190: 24–57.
29.
DezalayY (1995) ‘Turf battles’ or ‘class struggles’: The internationalization of the market for expertise in the ‘professional society’. Accounting, Organizations and Society20(5): 331–344.
30.
DudouetF-XJolyH (2010) Les dirigeants français du CAC 40: Entre elitisme scolaire et passage par l’état. Sociologies Pratiques21(2): 35–46.
31.
EkmanS (2013) Fantasies about work as limitless potential: How managers and employees seduce each other through dynamics of mutual recognition. Human Relations66(9): 1159–1181.
32.
EymeriJ-M (2001) La Fabrique des énarques, Paris: Economica.
33.
FlemmenM (2012) The structure of the upper class: A social space approach. Sociology46(6): 1039–1058.
34.
FligsteinN (1997) Social skill and institutional theory. American Behavioral Scientist40(4): 397–405.
35.
FrançoisPLemercierC (2016) Une financiarisation à la française: Mutations des grandes entreprises et conversion des élites. Revue Française de Sociologie57(2): 269–320.
36.
GeletkanyczMAHambrickDC (1997) The external ties of top executives: Implications for strategic choice and performance. Administrative Science Quarterly42(4): 654–681.
37.
GenieysW (2005) The sociology of political elites in France: The end of an exception?International Political Science Review26(4): 413–430.
38.
GiddensA (1984) The Constitution of Society, Cambridge: Polity.
39.
GiddensA (1991) The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge: Polity.
40.
Godechot O (2011) Finance and the rise of inequalities in France. Working Paper 13. Paris School of Economics.
41.
GoyerMJungDK (2011) Diversity of institutional investors and foreign blockholdings in France: The evolution of an institutionally hybrid economy. Corporate Governance: An International Review19(6): 562–584.
42.
HallPA (1984) Governing the Economy: The Politics of State Intervention in Britain and France, Cambridge: Polity.
43.
HallPA (2008) Introduction: The politics of social change in France. In: CulpepperPDHallPAPalierB (eds) Changing France: The Politics that Markets Make, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–26.
44.
HalseyAH (1995) Change in British Society, 4th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
45.
HanckéB (2002) Large Firms and Institutional Change: Industrial Renewal and Economic Restructuring in France, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
46.
HartmannM (2000) Class-specific habitus and the social reproduction of the business elite in Germany and France. Sociological Review42(2): 241–261.
47.
HartmannM (2011) Internationalisation et spécificités nationales des elites economiques. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales190(5): 10–23.
48.
HarveyCMacleanM (2008) Capital theory and the dynamics of elite business networking in Britain and France. Sociological Review56(s1): 103–120.
49.
HarveyCMacleanM (2010) Transnational boards and governance regimes in Britain and France. In: DjelicM-LQuackS (eds) Transnational Communities: Shaping Global Economic Governance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 107–129.
50.
HarveyCMacleanMGordonJShawE (2011) Andrew Carnegie and the foundations of contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy. Business History53(3): 425–450.
51.
HermskerkEM (2007) Decline of the Corporate Network: Network Dynamics of the Dutch Business Elite, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
52.
JessopB (2007) State Power, Cambridge: Polity.
53.
KadushinC (1995) Friendship among the French financial elite. American Sociological Review60(2): 202–221.
54.
KerrRRobinsonS (2011) Leadership as an elite field: Scottish banking leaders and the crisis of 2007–2009. Leadership7(2): 151–173.
55.
KhanSR (2011) Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St Paul’s School, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
56.
KlingGHarveyCMacleanM (2015) Establishing causal order in longitudinal studies combining binary and continuous dependent variables. Organizational Research Methods. Available online first at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1094428115618760.
57.
Korn/Ferry International (2002) Gouvernement d’entreprise en France en 2002, Paris: Korn/Ferry International.
58.
Le WitaB (1994) French Bourgeois Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
59.
LindsayDM (2008) Evangelicals in the power elite: Elite cohesion advancing a movement. American Sociological Review73(1): 60–82.
60.
LounsburyMGlynnMA (2001) Cultural entrepreneurship: Stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resources. Strategic Management Journal22(6–7): 545–564.
61.
MacleanM (2002) Economic Management and French Business from de Gaulle to Chirac, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
62.
MacleanMHarveyC (2016) ‘Give it back, George’: Network dynamics in the philanthropic field. Organization Studies37(3): 399–423.
63.
MacleanMHarveyCChiaR (2010) Dominant corporate agents and the power elite in France and Britain. Organization Studies31(3): 327–348.
64.
MacleanMHarveyCChiaR (2012) Reflexive practice and the making of elite business careers. Management Learning43(4): 385–404.
65.
MacleanMHarveyCKlingG (2014) Pathways to power: Class, hyper-agency and the French corporate elite. Organization Studies35(6): 825–855.
66.
MacleanMHarveyCKlingG (2015) Business elites and the field of power in France. Research in the Sociology of Organizations43: 189–219.
67.
MacleanMHarveyCPressJ (2006) Business Elites and Corporate Governance in France and the UK, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
68.
MacleanMHarveyCPressJ (2007) Managerialism and the post-war evolution of the French national business system. Business History49(4): 531–551.
69.
McDonaldMLKhannaPWestphalJD (2008) Getting them to think outside the circle: Corporate governance, CEOs’ external advice networks, and firm performance. Academy of Management Journal51(3): 453–475.
70.
MillsCW (1956) The Power Elite, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
71.
MizruchiMS (1986) What do interlocks do? An analysis, critique, and assessment of research on interlocking directorates. Annual Review of Sociology22: 271–298.
72.
MorinF (2000) A transformation in the French model of shareholding and management. Economy and Society29(1): 36–53.
73.
MoulinYPointS (2013) Les administratrices des grands groupes français cotés: Quels atouts privilégier?.. Revue Française de Gestion233(4): 15–32.
74.
NorthDC (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PalmerDBarberBM (2001) Challengers, elites, and owning families: A social class theory of corporate acquisitions in the 1960s. Administrative Science Quarterly46(1): 87–120.
77.
PikettyT (2014) Capital in the Twenty-first Century, Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
78.
PinçonMPinçon-CharlotM (2007) Sociologie de la bourgeoisie, Paris: La Découverte.
79.
ReedMI (2012) Masters of the universe: Power and elites in organization studies. Organization Studies33(2): 203–221.
80.
RobsonKSandersC (2009) Quantifying Theory: Pierre Bourdieu, New York: Springer.
81.
SavageM (2000) Class Analysis and Social Transformation, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
82.
SavageMWilliamsK (2008) Elites: Remembered in capitalism and forgotten by social sciences. Sociological Review56(s1): 1–24.
83.
SavageMCunninghamNDevineFFriedmanSLaurisonDMcKenzieLet al. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
84.
SavageMWardeADevineF (2005) Capitals, assets, and resources: Some critical issues. British Journal of Sociology56(1): 31–47.
85.
ScottJ (1991) Networks of corporate power: A comparative assessment. Annual Review of Sociology17: 181–203.
86.
ScottJ (2002) Social class and stratification in late modernity. Acta Sociologica45(1): 23–35.
87.
Spence C, Voulgaris G and Maclean M (2017) Politics and the professions in a time of crisis. Journal of Professions and Organization. Online ahead of print. DOI: 10.1093/jpo/jox001.
88.
SternIWestphalJD (2010) Stealthy footsteps to the boardroom: Executives’ backgrounds, sophisticated interpersonal influence behaviour, and board appointments. Administrative Science Quarterly55(2): 278–319.
89.
StevensonWBRadinRF (2009) Social capital and social influence on the board of directors. Journal of Management Studies46(1): 16–44.
90.
SuleimanE (1978) Elites in French Society, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
91.
SwartzDL (1997) Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, London: University of Chicago Press.
92.
SwartzDL (2008) Bringing Bourdieu’s master concepts into organizational analysis. Theory and Society37(1): 45–52.
93.
UseemM (1984) The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the US and UK, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
94.
UseemMKarabelJ (1986) Pathways to top corporate management. American Sociological Review51(2): 184–200.
95.
WacquantLJD (1993) From ruling class to field of power: An interview with Pierre Bourdieu on La Noblesse d’état. Theory, Culture & Society10(3): 19–44.
96.
WacquantLJD (2002) The sociological life of Pierre Bourdieu. International Sociology17(4): 549–556.
97.
WestphalJDZajacEJ (1995) Who shall govern? CEO/board power, demographic similarity, and new director selection. Administrative Science Quarterly40(1): 60–83.
98.
ZajacEJWestphalJD (1996) Director reputation, CEO-board power, and the dynamics of board interlocks. Administrative Science Quarterly41(3): 507–529.
99.
ZaldMNLounsburyM (2010) The Wizards of Oz: Towards an institutional approach to elites, expertise and command posts. Organization Studies31(7): 963–996.
100.
ZaheerAGözübüyükRMilanovaH (2010) It’s the connections: The network perspective in interorganizational research. Academy of Management Perspectives24(1): 62–77.
