Business Groups around the World: An Introduction

BARBERO MARIA INES; PUIG NURIA

BUSINESS HISTORY

Taylor and Francis

Año: 2016 vol. 58 p. 6 - 29

0007-6791

Why does big business tend to organise as business groups in so many countries, and why are many of these groups so resilient? For almost half a century, this question has concerned development economists, economic sociologists and management scholars,who have produced a substantial literature on business groups. It should not be surprising,therefore, that the relatively recent and growing interest among historians in such groups istaking the form of a dialogue, as challenging as it is intellectually stimulating, with othersocial sciences. What do the perspective and tools of history add to the study of groups?How does new knowledge, both theoretical and empirical, on business groups contributeto business history scholarship? These are the questions at the heart of this special issue.With our introductory comments and the six articles that follow, we aim to fuel an interdisciplinary dialogue so as to achieve a better understanding of the origin,organisation and socio-economic role of business groups in the long-term and in a varietyof contexts.