Abstract

"From Bazaars to Corporations: Community in Listed Joint Stock Firms in India (1920s-1970s)"

Pallavi Singh, Queen's University Belfast (psingh05@qub.ac.uk)

This paper re-examines the relationship between informal institutions and the corporate economy in twentieth-century India by analysing how business communities persisted and evolved within the listed joint stock firms. While scholarship in Indian business history has highlighted the significance of caste- and kinship-based networks in precolonial and colonial commerce, little systematic evidence exists on their continued relevance within modern industrial and corporate structures. Drawing on a new dataset compiled from historical business registers (1920s–1970s), this study traces the presence and evolution of business communities across industries and over time by identifying the presence of board directors by their community affiliations.
The evidence complicates existing accounts and shows that community-based networks remained visible within corporate governance throughout the twentieth century. Traditional business communities sustained or expanded their positions within major industries, often reflecting long-standing patterns of specialisation. While certain communities were prominent, their evolution over time shows a divergence with the stagnation or fall of older communities, even as newer communities emerge. Rather than a transition from bazaar-based commerce to impersonal corporate capitalism, the evidence points to an overlapping institutional landscape in which community and corporate forms coexisted and interacted.
The paper situates these findings within wider theoretical debates, drawing on insights from Douglass North and Avner Greif on the persistence of informal institutions in shaping economic organisation. It suggests that India’s corporate economy evolved through the adaptation—not disappearance—of such institutions. By revealing how business communities continued to shape ownership and control, the study raises broader questions about how modern economies may accommodate traditional institutional forms, offering a comparative perspective on the plural and socially embedded paths to modern capitalism.