Business groups in Portugal in the Estado Novo period (1930–1974): family, power and structural change

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the seven largest business groups in Portugal from the 1930s to the mid-1970s, a period in which they attained an unprecedented scale and scope. The analysis involves a comprehensive reconstruction of the groups' equity participations and corporate networks, using new sets of data. A few common features are found: these groups were based on family ownership and remained inward-looking, holding large equity participations in affiliate firms and segmenting them from more inclusive partnerships with other groups. But diversity should also be stressed: they displayed enormous plasticity in their dynamics of growth, combining exogenous and endogenous explanations. It is this plasticity that explains their resilience, capacity for adaptation, and ultimately their ubiquitous nature.

Keywords:

• Business groups
• Portugal
• strategy
• twentieth century

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for financial support (PTDC/HISHIS/099683/2008) and the two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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7. Martins, Grupos; Santos, “Desenvolvimento.”

8. For details on the database on Portuguese business groups: http://historia-empresarial.fe.unl.pt.

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24. This synthesis on the Champalimaud group is based on Campos, “The Champalimaud Group.”

25. For the information on the CUF group presented in the next paragraphs, see Silva, “Emergence.”

26. For similar strategies in developing countries, see Langlois, “Economic Institutions.”

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45. Leff, “Industrial Organization”; Langlois, “Economic Institutions.”

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49. Silva and Neves, “Business Coalitions.”

50. Morck, “The Riddle,” 596.