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The English East India Company was one of the most powerful and enduring organizations in history. Between Monopoly and Free Trade locates the source of that success in the innovative policy by which the Company's Court of Directors granted employees the right to pursue their own commercial interests while in the firm's employ. Exploring trade network dynamics, decision-making processes, and ports and organizational context, Emily Erikson demonstrates why the English East India Company was a dominant force in the expansion of trade between Europe and Asia, and she sheds light on the related problems of why England experienced rapid economic development and how the relationship between Europe and Asia shifted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though the Company held a monopoly on English overseas trade to Asia, the Court of Directors extended the right to trade in Asia to their employees, creating an unusual situation in which employees worked both for themselves and for the Company as overseas merchants. Building on the organizational infrastructure of the Company and the sophisticated commercial institutions of the markets of the East, employees constructed a cohesive internal network of peer communications that directed English trading ships during their voyages. This network integrated Company operations, encouraged innovation, and increased the Company's flexibility, adaptability, and responsiveness to local circumstance. Between Monopoly and Free Trade highlights the dynamic potential of social networks in the early modern era.

History of the United Kingdom and Ireland --- History of Asia --- anno 1600-1699 --- anno 1700-1799 --- Free trade --- Capitalism --- Social networks. --- East India Company --- History. --- Market economy --- Economics --- Profit --- Capital --- Networking, Social --- Networks, Social --- Social networking --- Social support systems --- Support systems, Social --- Interpersonal relations --- Cliques (Sociology) --- Microblogs --- Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East Indies --- United Company of Merchants of England, Trading to the East Indies --- English East India Company --- East India Company (English) --- East India Tea Company --- East-India Companie --- United East India Company --- Compagnie des Indes orientales d'Angleterre --- Compagnie unie de marchands d'Angleterre commerçans aux Indes orientales --- Tung Yin-tu kung ssu --- Honourable East-India Company --- Sharikat al-Hind al-Sharqīyah al-Barīṭānīyah --- Engelse Oost-Indische Maatschappy --- Kumpanī-i Hind-i Sharqī --- کمپنى هند شرقى --- English Company Trading to the East-Indies --- Īsṭa Iṇḍiyā Kampanī --- Asia. --- Asian commercial institutions. --- Asian merchants. --- Asian ports. --- Asian trading ports. --- Court of Directors. --- English East India Company. --- English trade patterns. --- Europe. --- Industrial Revolution. --- alternative explanations. --- analytical sociology. --- choosing ports. --- commercial networks. --- comparative analysis. --- corruption. --- decentralization. --- decentralized market exchange. --- decentralized organizational structure. --- decentralized ports. --- early modern period. --- eastern ports. --- economic development. --- economic theory. --- financial networks. --- foreign trade institutions. --- global trade. --- historical change. --- individual-level actions. --- market structure. --- merchant capitalism. --- micro-level behavioral patterns. --- militarization. --- modernity. --- monopoly. --- multilateral commercial network. --- new markets. --- new organizational forms. --- nineteenth century. --- operational decisions. --- opportunity structures. --- organizational background. --- organizational characteristics. --- organizational context. --- organizational incentive structures. --- other East India companies. --- overseas trade expansion. --- overseas trade. --- patterns of innovation. --- private trade allowances. --- private trade. --- small-scale commercial actors. --- social networks. --- trade networks. --- trading decisions. --- trading partnerships. --- trading ships. --- underdevelopment.