The study of a business elite and corporate philanthropy in a United States metropolitan area

This paper draws on a study of business elites and corporate philanthropy in Minneapolis-St Paul (USA) (see Galaskiewicz, 1985). The purpose of this article is twofold: to describe a fairly complex research methodology that might be useful for studying elites in other systems and to suggest ways to improve upon our efforts. After a brief overview of the study and its main findings, we will discuss how we identified the corporate philanthropic elite, interviewed them, and operationalized variables measuring their impact on an urban grants economy. This will be followed by discussions of ways to improve the methodology and ethical issues that arose both during and after the study.