An evolution analysis of executive-based listed company relationships using complex networks

• We transformed the two-mode affiliation network into one-mode network.
• This method based on the co-attendance relationships of senior executives.
• The co-attendance behaviors of executives became more widespread.
• The small world quotient ‘Q’ becomes more and more stable.

This paper addresses the problem of relationship analysis of listed companies. It mainly focuses on the analysis of affiliation relationship network among listed companies based on the co-attendance behavior of senior executives. In order to solve this problem we propose a two-stage method. In stage 1, we propose a method of network construction which can change the two-mode affiliation network to one-mode network using model-descending process, and in stage 2, we analyze the networks from stage 1 in four aspects includes analysis of topological characteristic, influence distribution, information control ability distribution and small world phenomenon. We then took a case of Chinese listed companies’ executive-based network as an example of the method and the results of the case study showed that the co-attendance behaviors of executives became more widespread (the number and percentage of related listed companies increased 624% and 322%) and that more companies preferred to relate to others on this level, improving the stability of the massive company structures.