Global lobbies for a global economy: The creation of the Spanish Institute of Family Firms in international perspective

Abstract

Globalisation has encouraged the creation of global lobbies which promote the interests of their associated members in international institutions. However, despite their increased importance in the global economy, scholarly literature has so far offered scarce data or analysis about these lobbies. This article examines the creation of global lobbies for large family firms over the last two decades, and the strong connection established in this period between collective action, education and internationalisation in the strategies of such firms. The establishment of the Spanish Institute of Family Firms is considered to be an early European adaptation of pioneering North American lobbies and a model for other European and Latin American associations of large family firms.

Keywords:

• family enterprise
• lobby
• Spanish Institute of Family Firms
• globalisation

Acknowledgements

Paloma Fernández Pérez, ICREA Acadèmia 2008 researcher, and member of the Centre d'Estudis Antoni de Capmany en Economia i Història Econòmica, acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Research Projects SEJ2005-02788 and ECO2008-00398/ECON. Nuria Puig acknowledges financial support from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Research Project SEJ2006-15151. Both authors acknowledge the generous information on the formation of the Instituto de la Empresa Familiar and the association of family firms in Spain and Europe provided by conversations with: entrepreneur Antoni Puig; with the first director of the IEF, Alfredo Pastor, and the second and current director, Fernando Casado; and with the present holder of the family firm chair of the Barcelona business school IESE, Josep Tàpies. Also to Paola Bozzo Fernández for her assistance in the design of the database and tables of centres connected with the FFI. Preliminary versions of this study were presented at the European Business History Association conference held in Bergen in August 2008, and in the working papers series of the on-line edition of the Boletín de la Red de Estudios de Historias de Empresas of the Asociación Argentina de Historia Económica (Boletín 9, December 2008). We greatly appreciate comments received in the Bergen conference from attendants and Andrea Colli, and Maria Inés Barbero and Andrea Lluch's interest in the original working paper.

Notes

1. The lobby Conseil de Cooperation Économique, created in 2003 under the leadership of Andrea Canino (close to former Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Massimo D'Alema), has associated the 53 largest firms of Spain, France, Portugal and Italy (plus 150 large firms which are not members but contribute with ideas to Canino's reports). The Conseil organises interviews with the presidents and high-ranking bureaucrats of these four countries and others of the European Union, and creates reports on key strategic economic issues.

2. We greatly acknowledge the comments and suggestions about the discussion on definitions received by Carole Howarth, Mary B. Rose, Mike Parsons and Eleanor Hamilton.

3. A complete list of founding members and first founding board, with information on activities and goals, is available from the FFI website.

4. Family firms were not the first concern of IMI in its first years. On this, and on the second director of IMI, see http://www.unige.ch/ses/istec/EBHA2007/papers/Boyns.pdf

5. Interview with Antoni Puig, Barcelona, 5 June 2008.

6. http://www.imd.ch/about/pressroom/pressreleases/Three-family-foundations-receive-global-awards-for-philanthropy.cfm. Press release 22 September 2006.

7. Unpublished paper by Paloma Fernández Pérez and Aurelia Hernández presented at the European Business History Association, held in Bergen, August 2008.

8. Spaniards still have a more than significant presence in 2008 in the directorate of the GEEF: Mariano Puig as Honorary President, Jesús Casado of IEF Madrid as Secretary- General, and Alfonso Libano of Cobega representing the IEF as one of the GEEF's three Vice-Presidents. See http://www.geef.org/structure.php. Particularly interesting in this action of lobbying is the note prepared for the 10th Anniversary of the European Group of Family Firms Meeting in Lisbon on 28–29 October, 2007, at the initiative of the President of the EU Commission, the ‘GEEF Lisbon Statement’, co-authored by Antonio Borges (Goldman Sachs) and Ludo Van der Heyden (INSEAD), available through the GEEF website mentioned above.

9. http://www.aidaf.it/

10. Website FBN, accessed June 30 2008.

11. A few relevant studies are: Fraile, 1991; Sellés, 2000; and Sánchez Recio & Tascón, eds., 2003. A relatively recent overview of past literature on lobbies and pressure groups throughout the history of Spain (including works by Tedde de Lorca, Tortella, Fraile, Gómez Mendoza, Martin Rodríguez, García Delgado and Roldán, Aceña and Comín, Fanjul and Marvall) can be found in Simón Fernández, 1997, pp. 98–106. Cabrera and Rey have also published significant studies on the relationship between politics and business in Spanish history, though in general these two authors tend to argue that the links have not been as close as suggested by the scholars analyzed in Simón Fernández, 1997.

12. For the following we greatly rely on documents of the private archive of perfume manufacturer Antoni Puig, and on several interviews held by the authors with Antoni Puig from 2003 through 2008.