Centrality, dominance, and interorganizational power in a network structure: Interlocking directorates among American railroads, 1886–1905

Contrary to the prevailing theory that assumes a positive relationship between an organization's structural centrality and its relational power, our analysis of the interlocking structure of major American railroad companies from 1886 to 1905 reveals that an organization's dominance within a latent class of directors is a structural variable that is more closely related to interorganizational power than overall centrality. Moreover, in one of the first longitudinal analysis of an interlocking directorate structure, we find that changes in dominance within a latent class and changes in interorganizational power are associated not only cross‐sectionally, but over time. We conclude that, while network centrality may be related to interorganizational power within a singular, monotonically hierarchical structure, in the highly clustered, or Balkanized, system like that of the American railroad system around the turn of the century, the relationship between centrality and interorganizational power dissolves. The primary theoretical implication is that the relationship between a structural variable like centrality and a power relation variable like interorganizational power is therefore a contingent relationship rather than a determinant one.