Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8bljj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-30T17:33:38.918Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Business History in Latin America: A Historiographical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

María Inés Barbero
Affiliation:
MARÍA INÉS BARBERO is director of the Centra de Estudios de Historia y Desarrollo de Empresas at the Universidad de San Andrés (Argentina), where she teaches economic and business history.

Abstract

In this survey of the trajectory of Latin American business history, the focus is on its development over the course of the past twenty years, when the discipline began to be recognized as a field of specialization within historical studies. The first section is a consideration of the origins of business history in Latin America, from the 1960s to 1985. The second section, covering 1985 to the present, is an analysis of the institutionalization of Latin American business history as research expanded and practitioners in the field began to adopt a more professional approach to their work. In the third section, the focus is on the topics that have attracted the most attention during the previous two decades, identifying research trends that have transcended national differences as well as some notable traits of Latin American business. The last section, a consideration of how Latin America can contribute both to business history and to comparative studies, concludes with proposals for a new research agenda.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Writing an article on Latin American business history is not a simple task. Even though this continent may be thought of as a unit, it constitutes a heterogeneous reality. Every at-tempt to identify common elements entails some simplification and does not reflect all the shades in the different national cases or those of the regions beyond political boundaries. For histories of individual countries, see, for example, Barbero, María Inés, “La storia d'impresa in Argentina,” Imprese e Storia 19 (1999): 107–30Google Scholar, and her “La historia de empresas en la Argentina: Trayectoria y temas en debate en las últimas dos décadas” in La historia ecónomica argentina en la encrucijada, ed. Gelman, Jorge (Buenos Aires, 2006), 153–69Google Scholar; Cerutti, Mario, “Estudios regionales e historia empresarial en México (1840–1920): Una revisión de lo producido desde 1975,” in Empresa e historia en América Latina, ed. L. de Guevara, Carlos Dávila (Bogotá, 1996), 137–70Google Scholar; Carlos Dávila L. de Guevara, “Estado de los estudios sobre la historia empresarial en Colombia,” in Empresa e historia en América Latina, ed. Dávila, 87–136, and “Hacia la comprensión del empresariado colombiano: Resultados de una colección de estudios históricos recientes,” in Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia: Sighs XIX y XX, ed. de Guevara, Carlos Dávila L. (Bogotá, 2003), xiii–lxxviiiGoogle Scholar; Heras, Raúl García, Historia empresarial e historia económica en Argentina: Un balance a comienzos del siglo XXI (Bogotá, 2007)Google Scholar; Colin Lewis, “Historia empresarial brasileña, c.1850–1945: Tendencias recientes en la literatura,” in Empresa e historia en América Latina, ed. Dávila, 35–58; Marichal, Carlos, “Historia de las empresas e historia económica en México: Avances y perspectivas,” in Los estudios de empresarios y empresas: Una perspectiva internacional, ed. Basave, Jorge and Hernández, Marcela (Mexico City, 2007), 71100Google Scholar. See also some recent contributions on Latin American business history: Barbero, María Inés, “Business History in Latin America: Issues and Debates,” in Business History around the World, ed. Amatori, Franco and Jones, Geoffrey (Cambridge, U.K., 2003), 317–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Guevara, Carlos Dávila L., “La historia empresarial en América Latina,” in Historia empresarial: Pasado, presente y retos del fiituro, ed. Erro, Carmen (Barcelona, 2003), 349–81Google Scholar; Miller, Rory, “Business History in Latin America: An Introduction,” in Business History in Latin America: The Experience of Seven Countries, ed. de Guevara, Carlos Dávila L. and Miller, Rory (Liverpool, 1999), 116Google Scholar; Szmrecsanyi, Tamás and Topik, Steven, “Business History in Latin America,” Enterprise and Society 5 (2004): 179–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A new book on Latin American business history, edited by María Inés Barbero and Raúl Jacob, is forthcoming, with articles by the editors on Argentina and Uruguay and from Armando Dalla Costa, Carlos Dávila, and Carlos Marichal on Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

2 Detailed information on Chile, Peru, and Venezuela can be found in Dávila, ed., Empresa e historia en América Latina and in the English version of this book, Dávila and Miller, eds., Business History in Latin America.

3 Dávila, “Introduction,” in Empresa e historia en América Latina, 11–16; Baughman, James, “Recent Trends in the Business History of Latin America,” Business History Review 39 (Winter 1965): 425–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelles, H. V., “Latin American Business History since 1965: A View from North of the Border,” Business History Review 59 (Winter 1985): 543–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Warren Dean, The Industrialization of São Paulo (Austin, 1969); Evans, Peter, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, 1979)Google Scholar; Safford, Frank, “Commerce and Enterprise in Central Colombia,” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1965Google Scholar, and Significatión de los Antioqueñios en el Desarrollo Económico Colombiano: Un examen crítico de las tesis de Everett Hagen,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 3 (1965): 4569Google Scholar; Hagen, Everett, El cambio social en Colombia: El factor humano en el desarrollo (Bogotá, 1963)Google Scholar.

4 Cochran, Thomas and Reina, Rubén, Entrepreneurship in Argentine Culture: Torcuato Di Tella and SIAM (Philadelphia, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

See also Reber, Vera Blinn, British Mercantile Houses in Buenos Aires, 1810–1880 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979)Google Scholar; Guy, Donna, Argentina Sugar Politics: Tucuman and the Generation of the Eighty (Tempe, Ariz., 1980)Google Scholar; Lewis, Colin, British Railways in Argentina: A Case Study of Foreign Investment (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Socolow, SusanMigden, The Merchants of Buenos Aires, 1778–1810: Family and Commerce (Cambridge, U.K., 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Solberg, Carl, Oil and Nationalism in Argentina (Stanford, 1979)Google Scholar.

5 Among them are Wilkins, Mira, The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from the Colonial Era to 1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar and The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from 1914 to 1970 (Cambridge, Mass., 1974)Google Scholar; Platt, Christopher, Latin America and British Trade, 1806–1914 (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Platt, Christopher, ed., Business Imperialism, 1840–1930: An Inquiry Based on British Experience in Latin America (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar; Abel, Christopher and Lewis, Colin, eds., Latin America, Economic Imperialism, and the State (London, 1984)Google Scholar.

6 It is worth mentioning that structuralism and dependence theory were largely outside the frontiers of business history. Among recent contributions to the study of these topics, see Haber, Stephen, Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890–1940 (Stanford, 1998)Google Scholar; Gootenberg, Paul, “Hijos of Dr. Gerschenkron,” in The Other Mirror, ed. Centeno, Miguel Angel and Lopez-Alves, Fernando (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar; Love, Joseph, “The Rise and Decline of Economic Structuralism in Latin America: New Dimensions,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 100–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coatsworth, John, “Structures, Endowments and Institutions in the Economic History of Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 126–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ficker, Sandra Kuntz, “From Structuralism to the New Institutional Economics: The Impact of Theory on the Study of Foreign Trade in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 40, no. 3 (2005): 145–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Zalduendo, Eduardo, El empresario industrial en América Latina: Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1963)Google Scholar; Cardoso, Fernando Enrique, Empresário industrial e desenvolvimento econômico (São Paulo, 1964)Google Scholar; Pinto, Aníbal, Chile, un caso de desarrollo frustrado (Santiago, 1965)Google Scholar; Frank, André Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Faletto, Enzo, Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina (Mexico City, 1971)Google Scholar.

8 A synthesis on Mexico can be found in Cerutti, “Estudios regionales e historia empresarial en México (1840–1920).“ For the Colombian case, see Dávila, “Estado de los estudios sobre la historia empresarial en Colombia,” and Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia. Cerutti, Mario and Vellinga, Menno, eds., Burguesias e industria en América Latina y Europa Meridional (Madrid, 1989)Google Scholar, cover different countries. Some of the most representative works for Mexico are Cardoso, Ciro, ed., Formación y desarrollo de la burguesía en México (Mexico City, 1978)Google Scholar; Cerutti, Mario, Burguesía y capitalismo en Monterrey (1850–1910) (Mexico City, 1983)Google Scholar; and Gamboa, Leticia, Los empresarios de ayer (Puebla, 1985)Google Scholar. Regarding Colombia, see Ocampo, José Antonio, Colombia y la economía mundial, 1830–1910 (Bogotá, 1984)Google Scholar; Brew, Roger, El desarrollo económico de Antioquia desde la independencia hasta 1920 (Bogotá, 1977)Google Scholar; Twinam, Ann, Miners, Merchants, and Farmers in Colonial Colombia (Austin, 1985)Google Scholar; de Guevara, Carlos Dávila L., El empresariado colombiano: Una perspectiva histórica (Bogotá, 1986)Google Scholar; Palacios, Marco, El café en Colombia, 1850–1970: Una historia económica, política y social (Bogotá, 1979)Google Scholar; and Mayor, Alberto, Etica, trabajo y productividad en Antioquia: Una interpretación sociológica sobre la influencia de la Escuela National de Minas en la vida, costumbres e industrializactión regionales (Bogotá, 1984)Google Scholar.

9 Suzigan, Wilson, Industria brasileira: Origem e desenvolvimento (São Paulo, 1986)Google Scholar; de Mello, João Manuel Cardoso, O capitalismo tardio (São Paulo, 1982)Google Scholar. See also Lewis, “Historia empresarial brasileña, 0.1850–1945.“

10 Peña, Milcíades, Industria, burguesía industrial y liberación nacional (Buenos Aires, 1974)Google Scholar; Sábato, Jorge Federico, La clase dominante en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1980)Google Scholar.

11 Cornblit, Oscar, “Inmigrantes y empresarios en la política argentina,” in Los fragmentos del poder, ed. Di Telia, Torcuato and Donghi, Tulio Halperín (Buenos Aires, 1969)Google Scholar.

12 See for example Cerutti, Mario, Empresarios españoles y sociedad capitalista en México (1840–1920) (Colombres, 1995)Google Scholar; and Dávila, Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia. Another country where immigration was very important is Uruguay. See Curi, Alcides Beretta and Etcheverry, Ana Garcia, Los burgueses inmigrantes (Montevideo, 1995)Google Scholar.

13 Ocampo, Colombia y la economía mundial, 1830–1910; Steven Topik, “Burguesía y Estado en Brasil durante la Antigua República,” Siglo XIXs, no. 9 (1990): 123–47; Florescano, Enrique, ed., Orígenes y desarrollo de la burguesía en América Latina, 1700–1955 (Mexico City, 1985)Google Scholar; Beato, Guillermo, ed., Grupos sociales dominantes: México y Argentina (Siglos XIX–XX) (Córdoba, 1993)Google Scholar. For a critical position on this point of view, see Pereira, Luis Carlos Bresser, “Empresarios, suas origens e as interpretaçoes do Brasil,” in História de Emprêsas e Desenvolvimento Econômico, ed. Szmrecsányi, Tamás and Maranhão, Ricardo (São Paulo, 1996)Google Scholar; and María Inés Barbero and Fernando Rocchi, “Empresas, empresarios y asociaciones empresarias,” in Academia Nacional de la Historia, Nueva Historia de la Natión Argentina (Buenos Aires, 2002)Google Scholar.

14 Stein, Stanley, Vassouras, a Brazilian Coffee Country, 1850–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957)Google Scholar, and The Brazilian Cotton Manufacture: Textile Enterprise in an Underdeveloped Area (Cambridge, Mass., 1957)Google Scholar; Dean, Warren, Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System, 1820–1920 (Stanford, 1976)Google Scholar; Eisenberg, Peter L., The Sugar Industry in Pernambuco: Modernization without Change, 1840–1910 (Berkeley, 1974)Google Scholar, and “A mentalidade dos fazendeiros no congreso agricola de 1878,” in Modos de produçao e realidade brasileira, ed. Lapa, Jose Roberto do Amaral (Petropolis, 1980)Google Scholar; Lewis, Colin, Public Policy and Private Initiative: Railway Building in São Paulo, 1860–1889 (London, 1991)Google Scholar; de Saes, Flavio A. Marques, As ferrovias de São Paulo, 1870–1940 (São Paulo, 1981)Google Scholar, and Creditos e bancos no desenuolvimento da economia paulista, 1850–1930 (São Paulo, 1986)Google Scholar; Levy, Maria Bárbara, Historia da Bolsa de Valores do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1977)Google Scholar; Giroletti, Domingos and Herminio, Antonio, A compañiá e a rodovia Uniao e Industria e o desenvolvimento de Juiz de Fora, 1850–1900 (Belo Horizonte, 1980)Google Scholar; Reichel, Heloisa, A industrial textil do Rio Grande do Sul, 1910–1930 (Porto Alegre, 1980)Google Scholar. See also Lewis, “Historia empresarial brasileña, c.1850–1945.“

15 Deas, Malcolm, “A Colombian Coffee State: Santa Bárbara, Cundinamarca, 1870–1912” in Land and Labour in Latin America, ed. Duncan, Kenneth and Rutledge, Ian (Cambridge, U.K., 1973)Google Scholar; Palacios, El café en Colombia, 1850–1970; Safford, Commerce and Enterprise in Central Colombia; White, Judith, Historia de una ignominia (Bogotá, 1978)Google Scholar; Le Grand, Catherine, “Campesinos y asalariados en la zona bananera de Santa Marta, 1900–1935,” in Anuario de Historia Social y de la Cultura (Bogotá, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Dávila, “Estado de los estudios sobre la historia empresarial en Colombia.”

16 Dávila, ed., Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia.

17 Beato, Guillermo, “La casa Martínez del Río: Del comercio colonial a la industria fabril, 1829–1864,” in Formación y desarrollo de la burguesía en Mexico, ed. Cardoso, Ciro (Mexico City, 1978)Google Scholar; Gamboa, Leticia, Los empresarios de ayer (Puebla, 1985)Google Scholar. See also Cerutti, “Estudios regionales e historia empresarial en México (1840–1920).”

18 Cerutti, Burguesía y capitalismo en Monterrey (1850–1910).

19 Miguez, Eduardo, Las tierras de los ingleses en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1985)Google Scholar; Gravil, Roger, “British Retail Trade in Argentina, 1900–1940,” Inter-American Economic Affairs 29, no. 2 (1970): 326Google Scholar; Reber, British Mercantile Houses in Buenos Aires, 1810–1880; Jones, Charles, “British Financial Institutions in Argentina, 1860–1914,” Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1973Google Scholar; Wright, Winthrop, British-owned Railways in Argentina: Their Effect on the Growth of Economic Nationalism, 1857–1948 (Austin, 1973)Google Scholar; Lewis, Colin, British Railways in Argentina: A Case Study of Foreign Investment (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Smith, Peter, Carne y político en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1968)Google Scholar; Guy, Argentina Sugar Politics; Fleming, William, “The Cultural Determinants of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development: A Case Study of Mendoza Province, Argentina, 1861–1914,” Journal of Economic History 39, no. 1 (1979): 211–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Barbero, “La historia de empresas en la Argentina.”

20 Miller, “Business History in Latin America: An Introduction.”

21 Coatsworth, “Structures, Endowments and Institutions in the Economic History of Latin America.”

22 Marichal, Carlos, “La Importancia de los Archives de Empresas en la Época Contemporánea: El Caso Mexicano,” Boletín Virtual de la Red de Historia de Empresas l (2004)Google Scholar. See also Marichal, , “Avarices de la historia económica en México,” in América Latina en la Historia Económica: Boletín de Fuentes 9 (1998): 7784CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The import-substitution model is an economic strategy adopted by Latin American countries at different points between the 1930s and the 1970s that rested on two pillars—a closed economy and a strong state role—designed to encourage national industrial growth in order to reduce their need to import manufactured goods.

24 Retreat does not mean disappearance.

25 Important contributions are those from Stephen Haber, Industry and Underdevelopment; Dye, Alan, Cuban Sugar in the Age of Mass Production: Technology and the Economics of the Sugar Central, 1899–1929 (Stanford, 1998)Google Scholar; Summerhill, William, Order Against Progress (Stanford, 2003)Google Scholar; Aldo Musacchio and Ian Read, “Bankers, Industrialists, and Their Cliques: Elite Networks in Mexico and Brazil during Early Industrialization,” Harvard Business School Working Paper, (2006); and Maurer, Noel, The Power and the Money: The Mexican Financial System, 1876–1932 (Stanford, 2002)Google Scholar.

26 In Mexico, paradigmatic cases are Mina Real del Monte, Banco Banamex, and Fundidora de Monterrey. See Marichal, “La Importancia de los Archivos de Empresas en la Época Contemporánea.” Many scholars used the Banco Banamex files as the main source for their research projects and their Ph.D. theses. In Brazil the most important experience was the classification of the archive of “The Light”—Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited. A wide array of research projects have used this archive. See Soares, Luzia, De Paula, Dirce, and Poleti, Iraci, “A formaiçao do grupo Light: Apontamentos para a sua história administrative,” in América Latina en la Historia Económica: Boletín de Fuentes 8 (1997): 5569CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Mexican journal América Latina en la Historia Económica, edited by the Instituto Mora of Mexico City, published several articles during the 1990s on sources for historians in different Latin American countries. This information is available at the Instituto Mora Web site (www.institutomora.edu.mx).

27 Reber, Vera Blinn, “Archival Sources for Latin American Business History,” Business History Review 59 (Winter 1985): 670–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, “Business History in Latin America: An Introduction”; Le Grand, Catherine and Corso, Adriana, “Los archivos notariales como fuente históricaAnuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura 31 (2004): 159208Google Scholar.

28 Dávila, “La historia empresarial en America Latina.”

29 de Guevara, Carlos Dávila L., “La presencia de la historia empresarial de América Latina en los journals internacionales (2000–2004): Balance, temáticas y perspectivas,” in Los estudios de empresas y empresarios: Una perspectiva international, ed. Basabe, Jorge and Hernández, Marcela (Mexico City, 2007)Google Scholar.

30 The issue of Enterprise and Society, edited by Tamás Szmrecsányi an d Steven Topik, was published in 2004. It includes articles from American an d Latin American scholars (Anne Hanley, Julio Moreno, Maria Teresa Ribeiro de Oliveira, and Gabriela Recio).

31 María Inés Barbero (from Argentina) is part of the editorial board of the Business History Review, and Enterprise and Society. Andrea Lluch (from Argentina) is associate editor of Enterprise and Society. Arturo Grunstein (from Mexico) is part of the editorial board of Enterprise and Society.

32 Some collective works that reflect the state of the art of Mexican business history are: Cerutti, Mario and Marichal, Carlos, eds., Historia de las grandes empresas en México (Mexico City, 1997)Google Scholar; Cerutti, Mario and Marichal, Carlos, eds., La banca regional en México (1870–1930) (Mexico City, 2003)Google Scholar; Cerutti, Mario, Marichal, Carlos et al. , Del mercado protegido al mercado global: Monterrey, 1925–2000 (Mexico City, 2003)Google Scholar; Basave, Jorge and Hernández, Marcela, eds., Los estudios de empresarios y empresas: Una perspectiva internacional (Mexico City, 2007)Google Scholar. For more information about recent contributions, see Marichal, “Historia de las empresas e historia económica en México.”

33 Gamboa, Los empresarios de ayer; Cerutti, Mario and Vellinga, Menno, eds., Burguesias e industria en América Latina y Europa Meridional (Madrid, 1989)Google Scholar. See also several is-sues of the journal Sigh XIX from 1990 to 1994.

34 Ficker, Sandra Kuntz, Empresa extranjera y mercado interno: El Ferrocarril Central Mexicano (1880–1907) (Mexico City, 1995)Google Scholar; Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, “El desempeño de la Fundidora de Hierro y Acero de Monterrey durante el Porfiriato,” in Historia de las grandes empresas en México, ed. Cerutti and Marichal.

35 In 1988 the first Confêrencia Internacional de História de Empresas took place in Niteroi (Rio de Janeiro), and since 1993 conferences on business history have been organized in the context of the periodical conferences on economic history. Papers were published in several books: Szmrecsányi and Maranhão, eds., História de Emprêsas e Desenvoluimento Econômico; II Congresso Brasileiro de História Economica e 3a Conferencia Internacional de História de Empresas, Anais (Niteroi, 1997)Google Scholar. More recently, they were published on CD-ROM. A multidisciplinary workshop on businessmen an d firms has taken place every two years since 1998 at different Brazilian universities, and the papers are published in edited volumes. See Kirschner, Ana Maria and Gomes, Eduardo, eds., Empresa, empresários e sociedade (Rio de Janeiro, 1999)Google Scholar; Kirschner, Ana Maria, Gomes, Eduardo, and Cappellin, Paola, eds., Empresa, empresrios e globalizaçao (Rio de Janeiro, 2002)Google Scholar; Gros, Denise et al. , Empresas e grupos empresariais: Atores sociais em transformação (Juiz de Fora, 2005)Google Scholar.

36 Armando Dalla Costa has adopted some Chandlerian concepts, while other authors, such as Flavio Saes, have discussed them in an explicit way. See Costa, Armando Dalla, “A Sadia e o pionerismo industrial na agroindustria brasileira,” História Econômica & História de Empresas 1 (1998): 109–44Google Scholar, and de Saes, Flavio A. Marques, “História de Empresas e História Econômica do Brasil,” Anais da 4a Conferencia International de História de Empresas (Curitiba, 1999)Google Scholar, CD-ROM.

37 References and contributions can be found in the historiographical article from Colin Lewis, “Historia empresarial brasileña, c.1850–1945,” in the collective books cited in note 37 and in the CD-ROMs published since 1999 containing the papers presented at the Brazilian Economic and Business History Conferences (many of them can be consulted on-line at http://www.abphe.org.br/eventos.html). See also a recent book edited by Costa, Armando Dalla, Fernandes, Adriana Sbicca, and Szmrecsányi, Tamás, Empresas, empresários e desenvolvimento econômico no Brasil (São Paulo, 2008)Google Scholar.

38 Luis Carlos Bresser Pereira, “Empresarios, suas origens e as interpretaçoes do Brasil,” in História de Emprêsas e Desenvolvimento Econômico, ed. Szmrecsányi an d Maranhão; Birchal, Sérgio de Oliveira, Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (London, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Sérgio de Oliveira Birchal, “O modelo empresarial brasileiro,” in Anais da 4a Conferencia International de História de Empresas (Curitiba, 1999)Google Scholar; Eulália Lahmeyer Lobo, “Características dos empresarios do setor privado no Brasil,” II Congresso Brasileiro de História Economica e 3a Conferencia Internacional de História de Empresas, Anais (Niteroi, 1997)Google Scholar.

40 Dávila, ed., Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia.

41 Dávila, El empresariado colombiano and “Estado de los estudios sobre la historia empresarial en Colombia.” A recent book from Marcelo Bucheli on the United Fruit Company in Colombia is a relevant contribution, since it is a case study about the strategy of the firm and its impact on the local economy from an innovative perspective. See Bucheli, Marcelo, Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000 (New York, 2005)Google Scholar.

42 The CEHDE is run by María Inés Barbero. An antecedent was the Centro de Estudios Económicos sobre la Empresa y el Desarrollo, created in 1998 at the Universidad de Buenos Aires by María Inés Barbero, Raúl García Heras, Jorge Gilbert, Jorge Schvarzer, and other scholars.

43 The more critical points of view can be found in Azpiazu, Daniel, Khavisse, Miguel, and Basualdo, Eduardo, El nuevo poder económico (Buenos Aires, 1986)Google Scholar; Schvarzer, Jorge, Empresarios del pasado (Buenos Aires, 1991)Google Scholar, and La industria que supimos conseguir (Buenos Aires, 1996)Google Scholar; and Notcheff, Hugo, “Los senderos perdidos del desarrollo: Elite económica y restricciones al desarrollo en la Argentina,” in El desarrollo ausente, ed. Azpiazu, Daniel and Notcheff, Hugo (Buenos Aires, 1994)Google Scholar. Examples of more shaded analysis are Barbero and Rocchi, “Empresas, empresarios y asociaciones empresarias,” and Barbero, “La historia de empresas en la Argentina.” The journals in which the controversy took place since the 1990s are Ciclos 7 (1994)Google Scholar; Ciclos 8 (1995)Google Scholar; Ciclos 10 (1996)Google Scholar; Entrepasados 10 (1996)Google Scholar; Anuario IEHS 13 (1998)Google Scholar; Desarrollo Económico 159 (2000)Google Scholar; Desarrollo Económico 161 (2001)Google Scholar.

44 Some examples are Gutierrez, Leandro and Korol, Juan Carlos, “Historia de empresas y crecimiento industrial en la Argentina: El caso de la Fábrica Argentina de Alpargatas,” Desarrollo Económico 28, no. 111 (1988): 401–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rocchi, Fernando, “La Bagley di Buenos Aires: Una fabbrica di biscotti alla conquista del mercato interno (1877–1930),” Ventesimo Secolo 4 (1994)Google Scholar; Mateu, Ana María, “Aproximación a la empresa Arizu: Algunas estrategias de la conformación e incremento del patrimonio societario y familiar, 1884–1920Quinto Sol 6 (2002): 107–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Campins, Mónica and Pfeiffer, Ana, “El peronismo, la productión de penicilina y los Laboratorios Massone: ¿Problema tecnológico o político?Ciclos 27 (2004): 123–51Google Scholar; Barbero, María Inés and Ceva, Mariela, “Estrategia, estructuras y redes sociales: El caso de Algodonera Flandria (1924–1950),” História Econômica & História de Empresas 7, no. 2 (2004): 81112Google Scholar; Regalsky, Andrés, Las inversiones francesas en la Argentina (1880–1914) (Caseros, 2002)Google Scholar; Lluch, Andrea, “Comercio y crédito agrario: Un estudio de las prácticas y lógicas crediticias de los comerciantes de campaña a comienzos del siglo XX,” Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana Dr. Emilio Ravignani 29 (2007): 5183Google Scholar and “Americans in Argentina: Trade and Investment Strategies of U.S. Companies (1890–1930),” Business History Review (forthcoming); Lanciotti, Norma, “Las estrategias del empresariado inmigrante frente a la expansión del mercado inmobiliario: Rosario, 1870–1914,” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 55 (2004): 463–90Google Scholar, and Empresas autónomas y grupos de inversión: Las empresas del grupo Morrison en Rosario, Argentina (1890–1930),” Investigaciones de Historia Económica 8 (2007): 109–40Google Scholar. More information can be found in Barbero, “La historia de empresas en la Argentina” and García Heras, Historia empresarial e historia económica en Argentina.

45 Barbero, María Inés, “Mercados, redes sociales y estrategias empresariales en los orígenes de los grupos económicos: De la Compañia General de Fósforos al Grupo Fabril (1889–1929),” Estudios Migratorios Latinoamericanos 44 (2000): 119–45Google Scholar; Sergio López, “Integración y especialización como estrategias empresariales: El caso de la Cervecería Quilmes (1890–1990),” Master's thesis, Universidad de San Andrés, 2001; Gilbert, Jorge, “Entre la expansion y la crisis de la economia argentina: Ernesto Tornquist y Cia,” Ciclos 25–26 (2004): 6592Google Scholar; Gutiérrez, Carlos, “Atractivos y paradojas del éxito tecno-industrial en la periferia: El caso de una empresa transnational argentina de ingeniería,” Ciclos 25–26 (2004): 145–75Google Scholar; Castro, Claudio, “De la industrializatión tardía europea a la sustitución de importaciones latinoamericana: Agostino Rocca y los primeros años de la organizatión Techint, 1946–1954,” Ciclos 25–26 (2004): 119–44Google Scholar.

46 Barbero, María Inés and Ceva, Mariela, “El catolicismo social como estrategia empresarial: El caso de Algodonera Flandria (1924–1955),” Anuario IEHS 12 (1997): 269–89Google Scholar; Bragoni, Beatriz, Los hijos de la revolución: Familia, negocios y poder en Mendoza en el siglo XIX (Buenos Aires, 1999)Google Scholar; Lobato, Mirta, La vida en las fábricas (Buenos Aires, 2001)Google Scholar.

47 Barbero, María Inés, “Argentina: Industrial Growth an d Enterprise Organization, 1880S–1980S,” in Big Business and the Wealth of Nations, ed. Chandler, Alfred, Amatori, Franco, and Hikino, Takashi (Cambridge, U.K., 1997)Google Scholar; Schvarzer, Jorge, “Grandes grupos económicos en la Argentina: Formas de propiedad y lógicas de expansion,” in Más allá de la estabilidad, ed. Bustos, Pablo (Buenos Aires, 1995)Google Scholar; Barbero, and Rocchi, , “Empresas, empresarios y asociaciones empresarias”; Rougier, Marcelo, Industria, finanzas e instituciones en la Argentina: La experiencia del Banco Nacional de Desarrollo, 1967–1976 (Bernal, 2004)Google Scholar; Salerno, Elena, Los comienzos del Estado empresario: La Administratión General de los Ferrocarriles del Estado (1910–1928) (Buenos Aires, 2003)Google Scholar; Belini, Claudio, “DINIE y los límites de la política industrial peronista (1947–1955),” Desarrollo Económico 161 (2001): 97119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Two collective volumes have been published recently: Schvarzer, Jorge, Gómez, Teresita, and Rougier, Marcelo, eds., La empresa ayer y hoy: Nueves investigaciones y debates (Buenos Aires, 2007)Google Scholar, and Rougier, Marcelo, ed., Políticas de promotión y estrategias empresariales en la industria argentina (1950–1980) (Buenos Aires, 2007)Google Scholar. Another collection of case studies of small and medium-sized firms, edited by María Inés Barbero and Vicente Donato, is forthcoming.

49 Schvarzer, Jorge, Bunge y Born: Crecimiento y diversificación de un grupo económico (Buenos Aires, 1989)Google Scholar; Heras, Raúl García, Transportes, negocios y política: La compañia Anglo Argentina de Tranvías, 1876–1981 (Buenos Aires, 1994)Google Scholar; Kosacoff, Bernardo, Forteza, Jorge, and Barbero, María Inés, Going Global from Latin America: The Arcor Case (Buenos Aires, 2002)Google Scholar; Rougier, Marcelo and Schvarzer, Jorge, Las grandes empresas no mueren de pie: El ocaso de SLAM (Buenos Aires, 2006)Google Scholar.

50 Greenhill, Robert and Miller, Rory, “British Trading Companies in South America after 1914,” in The Multinational Traders, ed. Jones, Geoffrey (London, 1998)Google Scholar.

51 Chapman, Stanley, “British-Based Investment Groups before 1914,” Economic History Review 38, no. 2 (1985): 230–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilkins, Mira, “The Free-Standing Company, 1870–1914: An Important Type of British Foreign Direct Investment,” Economic History Review 41, no. 2 (1988): 259–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 See Geoffrey Jones's works British Multinational Banking, 1830–1990 (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar; The Evolution of the International Business (London, 1996)Google Scholar; and Merchants to Multinationals (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; also Jones, ed., The Multinational Traders; Teichova, Alice, Lévy-Leboyer, Maurice, and Nussbaum, Helga, eds., Historical Studies in International Corporate Business (Cambridge, U.K., 1986)Google Scholar.

53 See for example Clayton, Lawrence, Grace: W. R. Grace & Co., the Formative Years, 1850–1930 (Ottawa, 1985)Google Scholar; Greenhill, Robert, “Investment Group, Free Standing Company, or Multinational? Brazilian Warrant, 1909–52,” Business History 37, no. 1 (1995): 86111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenhill and Miller, “British Trading Companies in South America after 1914”; Jones, Charles, “Institutional Forms of British Foreign Direct Investment in South America,” Business History 39, no. 2 (1997): 2141CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mayo, John, British Merchant Houses and Chilean Development, 1851–1886s (Boulder, 1987)Google Scholar; McDowall, Duncan, The Light: Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company Limited, 1899–1945 (Toronto, 1988)Google Scholar; Armstrong, Christopher and Nelles, H. V., Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896–1930 (Toronto, 1988)Google Scholar; Eakin, Marshall, British Enterprise in Brazil: The St. John d'el Rey Mining Company and the Morro Velho Gold Mine, 1830–1960 (Durham, 1989)Google Scholar; Shapiro, Helen, Engines of Growth (Cambridge, U.K., 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Triner, Gail, Banking and Economic Development: Brazil, 1889–1930 (New York, 2000)Google Scholar.

54 See, for example, Jacob-Wendler, Gerhart, Deutsche Elektroindustrie in Lateinamerika: Siemens und AEG (1890–1914) (Stuttgart, 1982)Google Scholar; George Young, “Los bancos alemanes y la inversión directa alemana en América Latina, 1880–1930,” and Mauro, Fréderic, “Las empresas francesas y América Latina, 1850–1930,” both in Las inversiones extranjeras en América Latina ed. Marichal, Carlos (Mexico City, 1995)Google Scholar; Durán, Juan José, Multinacionales españolas en Iberoamérica: Valor estratégico (Madrid, 1999)Google Scholar.

55 Chile is the exception, at least when it comes to growth rates.

56 Altenburg, Tilman and Meyer-Stamer, Jörg, “How to Promote Clusters: Policy Experiences from Latin America,” World Development 27, no. 9 (1999): 1693–713CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rabellotti, Roberta, “Recovery of a Mexican Cluster: Devaluation Bonanza or Collective Efficiency?World Development 27, no. 9 (1999): 1571–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schmitz, Hubert, “Global Competition and Local Co-operation: Success and Failure in the Sinos Valley, Brazil,” World Development 27, no. 9 (1999): 1627–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Zeitlin, Jonathan, “Districts industriels et flexibilité de la production hier, aujourd'hui et demain,” in La mobilisation du territoire: Les districts industriels en Europe Occidentale, XVIIe–XXe siècle, ed. Lescure, Michel (Paris, 2006)Google Scholar.