Networks and Fields: Corporate Business Leader Involvement in Voluntary Organizations of a Large Nonmetropolitan City

Abstract

This paper examines the network structure of overlapping leadership between the corporate business sector and voluntary sector of a growing, non-metropolitan city in the Midwest. The data are from a study initially conducted in the early 1970s, and the analysis uncovers a pattern of selective, possibly strategic, involvement by corporate business leaders in the community's voluntary sector. An interactional field perspective is utilized to anticipate and interpret the findings. There are a number of community development implications of the findings and analytical approach, including support for expanded utilization of network analysis as a diagnostic tool for identifying strengths and limitations of community structures related to local capacity for community improvement activity.

Keywords:

• interactional fields
• community power
• network analysis