Introduction

In the midst of the globalization that has taken center stage at the dawn of the twenty-first century, business and economic developments at the local, regional, and national levels in emergent economies, such as those of Latin America, offer fertile ground for comparative perspectives in business history.1 For its part, the Business History Review, with this issue, completes the third of three volumes on business history in Latin America. The first one appeared in the winter of 1965; the second, in the winter of 1985.

Here we are presented with four articles, on Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, and a historiographical essay. The articles on Argentina and Brazil cover the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth, while those on Colombia and Mexico take up events that occurred between 1880 and 1915. Two of the authors, Maria In�s Barbero and Norma S. Lanciotti, are from Argentina; two others, Aurora G�mez-Galvarriato and Aldo Musacchio, are from Mexico; and Marcelo Bucheli is Colombian.

Before going into detail on the articles and their relation to matters of current interest in Latin American business history, I will offer readers some perspective on how the Review addressed the subject in the past. At the outset, I will advance a broad view of the development of business history as an academic field in Latin America since 1985.

In the 1965 compendium, James P. Baughman noted, in his introductory essay on recent trends in the field, that until that point in writings by "Latin Americanists" (American and European social scientists specializing in Latin America), "business events" had been pushed out of the picture or cast as antagonists in dramas featuring landlords, workers, or diplomats.2 The articles that followed indicated that this situation was beginning to change, as the authors addressed a variety of businesses over a range of periods, looking, for example, at the marketing of tobacco in Venezuela and the role of the indigo merchant in Central America, both in the late colonial period; foreign and domestic enterprise in Colombia in the nineteenth century; and the public-power industry in Mexico in the twentieth century. With just one exception, the authors were American historians, a situation that remained unchanged twenty years later.

In the 1985 collection, the focus was on the nineteenth century in Latin America. The subjects were trade, exemplified by export commodities such as tobacco and guano; mining that had been capitalized by the British and Americans; the entrepreneurial history of a Mexican businessman at the end of the century; archival sources; and a critique of Latin American dependency theory. Two studies revisited Mexico, while two more looked at Argentina and Peru, countries not represented in the 1965 issue. Additionally, in his essay on the events that had taken place in the field between 1965 and 1985, H. V. Nelles pointed out, "On [other] subjects such as trade, investment, transportation, and energy policies, readers of this journal have been kept up to date on major work in articles and book reviews."3 A nascent interest in these subjects was noted in an article on archival sources, which was a historiographical compilation of publications about transportation and mining. However, industrialization, industrial companies, and industrialists had not yet become subjects of Latin American business histories published in the United States.

Business history published in Spanish by researchers native to Latin America first began to appear in the 1970s on a broad spectrum of themes. The titles of these studies were widely scattered through disparate bibliographies of economic history, social history, contemporary economic development based on historical perspective, and historical sociology. Prior to the 1980s, business history was not identified as a field in its own right in any Latin American country. Perhaps more than in other parts of the world, business history in its infancy set down roots across a wide field of disciplinary backgrounds.

The mid-1980s represented a milestone. Beginning then, and increasingly over the next twenty years, Latin American business history has come into its own as a branch of study. The volume and quality of research and publications demonstrate an important advance in this young and growing field, which is becoming more institutionalized. The advance has not taken place uniformly in all twenty-one countries of the region. It has occurred in Mexico and in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay, but there has been no parallel development in Central America, the Caribbean, or in two of the region's most strategic economies, Chile and Venezuela. Although the rhythms, focus, and modalities of research vary, the countries in which the field shows the most promise are, in descending order, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia.

It is noteworthy that the same countries are the subjects of the four articles presented here; Peru and Venezuela, subjects that were covered in 1965 and 1985, however, are absent. One important departure from the earlier coverage is that all the authors represented here are from Latin America. The new strength of this group does not diminish the importance of foreign business historians (mostly American and British) who specialize in Latin America, as they continue to make an impressive contribution. Nevertheless, it is important to note that much of the business historiography produced in Latin America is unknown outside the region, because it is only published in Spanish-language journals and books. This factor, together with the weakness of the research and academic systems in these countries, accounts for the invisible status of many Latin American economic and business historians in the international arena.

The contributors to the current issue present a different profile. They, along with a handful of other Latin American scholars, are well known in the international business history community. Most of them belong to a new generation of scholars who are leading research in new directions, and they reflect the growing presence of women in research. These two circumstances, as well as the advances in the institutionalization of the field, bode well for the future of Latin American business history.

The historiographical essay provides a context for the rest of the articles. The author, Mar�a In�s Barbero, a pioneer in the field in Argentina, identifies the major themes, influences, approaches, outcomes, trends, and research agenda of the new specialty (e.g., professional associations, specialized journals, and conferences). Her examination of these developments is broadly based on the Spanish-language output and on surveys of the literature by country over the past ten years. This is a significant departure from the essays by Baugham in 1965 and by Nelles in 1985. Unlike earlier literature surveys published in BHR, hers derives from the south, rather than from the north of the U.S.-Mexican border. Barbero offers an optimistic vision of the potential contribution of Latin American business history to comparative histories of business and enterprise in emerging nations. Readers of her essay will discover what could be called the "(unexpected) comparative advantages" offered by research on the history of business in late-developing countries.

In contrast to the chronology of events in countries where business history is more developed, such as the United States and Great Britain, it is more difficult to discern a dominant paradigm in the evolution of Latin American business history. Furthermore, there is no evidence that there even are dominant themes in Latin American business history as it exists today. Nor are there heated controversies, such as the arguments about imperialism and dependent development that raised hackles in the 1960s and 1970s, or the recent debates among U.S. and European business historians over the work of the late Alfred Chandler.

Absent a strong agenda, in order to appreciate fully the merits of the new research direction, as represented in the other four articles, it is more appropriate to speak of "recurrent" and "new" themes and their potential for future development in the field than to refer to "dominant" themes. It bears mentioning that foreign investment, which is examined in this issue, has been a recurrent theme, and it receives further scrutiny here. Two articles deal with the subject: Bucheli describes the negotiations that took place between British entrepreneur Weetman Pearson and the Colombian government in the 1910s; and Lanciotti compares the experiences of two foreign power companies, the U.S.-based American and Foreign Power Company and the Belgian SOFINA, in Argentina between 1890 and 1956. The other two articles address new themes: G�mez-Galvarriato examines the modernization of Mexican textile production and distribution between 1880 and 1910 and the impact of a particular group of French immigrants on the sector, in this case, the Barcelonettes. Musacchio traces one strand of financial history in Brazil, specifically the relation between institutional conditions, as reflected in investor protections that were written into corporate bylaws in order to attract small investors, and the development of equity markets in Brazil at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Several recurrent themes in Latin American business history are not addressed in these pages: entrepreneurial history; histories of regional business elites; the history of agro-export commodities; and sectoral histories (principally mining and transportation). Among the new and promising topics not covered is the critical role that has been played by family-business conglomerates in the region.

These innovative articles represent a step forward in the pattern of Latin American business-history research. First, they are more analytical and explicitly grounded in new theoretical orientations. The change in direction will be apparent to scholars from other parts of the world who are interested in comparative research.

Second, even when they address the overarching recurrent themes in Latin America, such as foreign investment, these authors offer fresh perspectives and tackle new issues. An example is Lanciotti's article. Her topic is one that has recently emerged in the international literature on foreign direct investment: the strategies of electric-power companies. In taking it up, she uncovers differences in time of entry, investment patterns, corporate management, and financial strategies that affect the performances of a U.S.-capitalized company and a Belgian-capitalized firm in the Argentinean power-generation sector. G�mez-Galvarriato, in her article, has adopted an innovative approach to Latin America, not only because she is one of the first to examine the appearance of the managerial business enterprise in a particular sector, in this case, the textile industry, but also because she discovers, in Mexico, an organizational hybrid that combines Chandlerian and traditional forms. Her analysis of companies controlled by a group of immigrant entrepreneurs creatively combines social networks, culture, and entrepreneurship.

Third, most of these articles represent a revisionist position. For example, in his treatment of Brazil, Musacchio questions assertions in the literature that equity markets are more developed in countries that have passed federal legislation to protect shareholders. He argues that, at the level at which firms operate, it is possible to formulate corporate bylaws that protect the small shareholder in order to mitigate an adverse institutional environment. For his part, Bucheli contests current ideas among students of international business negotiations about the bargaining power of multinationals (in this case, a British oil company), a host government (Colombia), and governments other than the host country (the United States). Based on new archival evidence, he argues that the collapse of negotiations between the company and Colombia occurred not only because the United States had a crucial role in torpedoing the process, but also because the multinational negotiators underestimated the likelihood of such a threat. Other factors involved the history of U.S.-Colombia relations and the transfer of hegemonic power from Great Britain to the United States that was occurring at the time. Finally, Lanciotti demonstrates that the weak regulatory power of the Argentinean government vis-�-vis public electric utilities and insufficient foreign investment after 1930 explain the structure and limits of the electric-power system that were evident during World War II. Her explanation diverges from the common wisdom that attributes Argentina's energy deficit to the policies of a specific government at mid-century.

All in all, this issue of the Review represents a significant chapter in Latin American business history, one that will be referenced and savored by colleagues in the field and by interested observers, both now and over the course of the next twenty years. Before that time is up, we hope the journal will publish yet another issue devoted to Latin American business history.

[Author Affiliation]

CARLOS D�VILA is professor of business history and head of the research group Historia y Empresariado at the School of Management, Universidad de los Andes, Bogot�, Colombia.

[Author Affiliation]

Carlos D�vila is professor of business history and head of the research group Historia y Empresariado in the School of Management at Universidad de los Andes, Bogot�, Colombia. He has held visiting research appointments at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. Among his current research interests are the origins of entrepreneurship in Colombia and the growth of Colombian conglomerates from 1970 to 2000. He edited Empresas y empresarios en la historia de Colombia: Siglos XIX (2003) and (with Rory Miller) Business History in Latin America: The Experience of Seven Countries (1999). His article "Historia empresarial en Am�rica Latina" was published in Historia empresarial: Pasado, presente y retos de futuro, edited by C. Erro (2003).