In the shadow of Americanisation: The origins and evolution of management education and training in Argentina (1940s–1960s)

Abstract

This article examines the development of educational programs for developing managers in Argentina from the 1940s to the 1960s. Research on management education during this period has tended to be US-European focused and has looked at the impact of American models. In Argentina, new institutions began to emerge in the 1940s. This process gained momentum in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s. Several US actors supported the institutionalisation of management education. This paper analyses the relationship between American influence and national actors in two cases: business education within the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas (FCE, Faculty of Economic Science) at the University of Buenos Aires, and executive education at the Instituto para el Desarrollo de Ejecutivos en la Argentina (IDEA, Argentine Institute for Executives Development). Rather than being clones of US models, they reflected a national re-interpretation of the overall US idea of the development of institutions for the education and training of people in managerial positions.

Keywords:

• Management education
• management development
• Americanisation
• Latin America
• Argentina

Acknowledgements

We want to express our gratitude to the editor and anonymous referees of this journal for their valuable comments and suggestions. We are thankful to Carlos Dávila for providing valuable suggestions as a commentator on the paper, and also to our colleagues and session attendees. Furthermore, we wish to extend our thanks to Prof. Eduardo Scarano from the Universidad de Buenos Aires for sharing primary sources for our research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The journals and magazines reviewed during the research are: Asociación Cristiana de Dirigentes de Empresa (ACDE). Buenos Aires, Year 1970, Competencia Revista de Economía y Negocio, Years 1967–1970, Revista Mercado, Year 1970, Revista Noticias de Idea, Years 1965–1970 and Revista Panorama de la Economía, 1957 and 1970.

2 The horizontal stage traditionally refers to the first (easy) stage, which is to take over an existing market for consumer goods from the foreign supplier. The second stage is to extend production backward to intermediate goods, capital goods, and raw materials.

3 The annual inflation rate for the period 1949–1962 was 26%, while between 1963 and 1973 it rose to 29%, ranking among the highest internationally (Ferreres, 2010).

4 Until the mid-twentieth century the percentage of population with university studies was very low in Argentina, Buchbinder, Historia de las Universidades. In 1947 there were almost 52,000 university students, but by 1955 there were 143,000. This policy was favored by the suppression of university tuition fees, which until then had been obligatory, and of admission exams.

5 Argentinian higher education was characterized by an interest in liberal profession and in training professionals, following the Napoleonic model. In 1961, the professions of engineers, accountants, and lawyers occupied 30% of the management positions in industrial companies with more than 100 employees (Oteiza, 1974, p. 83). See also Centro de Investigaciones Económicas (1964).

6 FAA732B, reel 118, CIOS, Organized effort to advance the art and science of managing: Country report, 1960, Argentina, p. 1.

7 We analysed the contents of this journal (a monthly publication) between 1938 and 1945.

8 The board of directors was composed of Juan Bayetto as President, Jacobo Wainer as Vice President, and Emilio Buttinni as Secretary (Revista de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Year XXII, No. 160, November 1934). At the university level, most discussions were concerned with the public administration. For example, Dr Wainer, in 1932, promoted the creation of the first Institute of Public Administration at the School of Economics of the University of Buenos Aires.

9 According to an overview from 1966 financed by the Ford Foundation (Towl & Hetherston, 1966), 38 US professors had visited Argentina to teach business. Only two made their first visit before 1940. Among the others the distribution of first visit is: 1955: 1, 1959: 1, 1960: 2, 1961: 3, 1962: 10, 1963: 6; 1964: 6, 1965: 6, and 1966: 1.

10 See Advanced Management (October 1, 1957), 22(10), 26.

11 See, for example, and Bryson (1961).

12 Lauterbach (1962, 1966) characterized Latin American management as having three broad features: (1) the weight of family ownership (which restricted the market for professional managers); (2) the scarce specialization of large enterprises (because of their high productive diversification); and (3) despite the interest in assimilating or imitating foreign patterns in technical training methods, entrepreneurs, as a group, were weak and had little involvement in debates about development and change.

13 HBS/DIA/1, Hansen Report 1963, Supplementary Report to Program and Policy Committee, December 9, 1959, from the Task Force Committee.

14 International Cooperation Administration (ICA), Office of Statistics and Reports. FY 1959 projects. By country and field of activity; see https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACB732.pdf (accessed August 5, 2021).

15 Frondizi had studied at Harvard and had passed through the universities of Pennsylvania and Columbia. His brother, Arturo Frondizi, became President of Argentina, serving from 1958 to 1962. According to Feld (2019), the reform plan contained many of the elements of these American university models without losing sight of local traditions, such as student participation in university governance.

16 The new degree was approved in October 1958 and applied in the 1959 academic year. According to Szlechter (2013), the new program followed a model that “linked the functional activities and the elements of the company’s management focusing on the functional areas of specialization: production, marketing, finance, personnel, among others.” The professors involved were Juan Llamazares, Fausto Toranzos, Rosa Cusminsky, and Enrique Reig.

17 The agreement stipulated the following: (1) the provision of technical advice and assistance to the strengthening of the subject matter, (2) the provision of a series of seminars to be conducted by American professors on relatively short assignments, with the objective of broadening the training of the faculty and students of the local school of business administration as well as stimulating the interest in management of businessmen and public administrators, (3) assistance in the development of an effective library in the field of business administration, and other related points (Edelberg, 1966, p. 36–37).

18 The Superior Council of the UBA approved the agreement to finance the exchange of professors, graduates, and scholarship holders in relation to the bachelor’s degree in administration and, to a lesser extent, certain subjects in the economics program. The expenses generated by this exchange would be paid by the FCE with funds provided by CAFADE (except for the Argentinian professors financed by the UBA). Comisión Nacional para la Administración del Fondo del Desarrollo (1961): Cafade dos años de labor 1959–1961, Presidencia de la Nación.

19 Historically, Argentina’s higher education system was based on the French tradition, which allowed for institutional autonomy. The University Reform of 1918 resulted in a tripartite university governance system of alumni, students, and professors. In the 1950s, the administrative authorities at the university were exercised at two levels, the faculties ruled by boards and the Central University Council above them. The period 1957–1966 was one of the few when, in practice, the universities operated entirely autonomously. Most students attended part time, and most of the professors worked only part time (Dupre, 2001).

20 These 38 scholars taught economics (14), business administration (9), finance (6), marketing 4, management (4) International business (3), operation research (1), business history (1), business & government (1) and agriculture development (1). Some taught more than one discipline.

21 FCE Resolution 1284, 10 April 1961.

22 FAA732B, reel 118, CIOS, Organized effort to advance the art and science of managing: Country report, 1960, Argentina, p. 5.

23 SGSB [Stanford Graduate School of Business Bulletin] Bulletin (1967, Spring), 78–79; ICAME Alumni Directory, box 24, SC1226.

24 Dean’s Office Report, Years 1960–1962, FCE, UBA, Buenos Aires.

25 FCE Resolution 1481, 29 March 1965.

26 From Revista Panorama de la Economía, November 1957.

27 The first members were|Arturo Acevedo, Dr. Jorge L. Aguilar, Dr. Pablo Bardin, Dr. Renato Bisignani, Dr. Oscar Braun Menéndez, Dr. Bruno Colagrande, Ing. Guido di Tella, Dr. Rodolfo R. Fábregas, Dr. Alfredo Fortabat, Dr. Ernesto E. Gallacher, Dr. Guillermo Kraft, Dr. Alfredo Lisdero, Ing. Juan Llamazares, Dr. Roberto Llauró, Dr. Rodolfo Magnasco, Dr. Isidoro Martínez, Dr. Manuel Masllorens, Dr. Oscar Padilla, Dr. Federico a Peña, Dr. Enrique Puricelli, Dr. Luis Rojas and Dr. Thomas J Williams. Dean’s Office Report, Years 1960–1962, FCE, UBA, Buenos Aires.

28 These figures were equivalent to $50,000 and $9,000, respectively, at the 1965 exchange rate. Source: Lawrence H. Officer, “Exchange Rates Between the United States Dollar and Forty-one Currencies,”, MeasuringWorth, 2023. URL: http://www.measuringworth.com/exchangeglobal/.

29 FCE Resolution 1315, 26 October 1964.

30 Although there were institutes and other educative centers, they were not authorized to grant degrees.

31 The main activity was an evening course in general management of 60 two-hour classes; see FAA732B, reel 118, CIOS, Organized effort to advance the art and science of managing: Country report, Argentina, p. 5.

32 ILO, Centro de productividad de la Argentina – expansión de los servicios de formación de personal dirigente, especialistas, encargados y personal calificado (Ginebra, 1968).

33 Industrial development in Argentina. Report to the International Cooperation Administration. Contract ICAC-1866, Arthur D. Little, Inc. August 25, 1961, downloaded August 2, 2021, from https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNARE440.pdf.

34 From the late 1950s, the Ford Foundation also expressed the urgent need to support the social sciences in Argentina (Calandra, 2019) and played a crucial role in institutionalizing, professionalizing, and internationalizing the social sciences in the country. A relevant local partner for promoting research in science and the humanities was the Torcuato Di Tella Institute in Buenos Aires, created in 1958 by the economist Guido Di Tella and his brother Torcuato Di Tella, a sociologist, with the goal of further developing and reinforcing cultural and scientific creativity in Argentina. For a discussion of the development of economic sciences and the role of the Di Tella Foundation, see Plotkin and Neiburg (2003).

35 Carmichael, W. D. (1963, November 1). Education in the field of development and administration in Argentina and Chile”: A report based on a consultant assignment in July and August 1963., especially p. 6, FAA739A, Box 7, folder 117. According to Berger and Blugerman, during the early 1960s, the Foundation recognized neither private nor public campuses as stable partners and preferred to cooperate with an independent center, which represented “a paradigm of pluralism” (Berger & Blugerman, 2017, p. 9, cited in Calandra, 2019).

36 Request for Grant Action, August 4, 1964, p. 3, FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

37 Request for Grant Action OD-1954, August 4, 1964; FFA 732D, reel 2145, PA64-466.

38 Request for Grant Action, August 4, 1964, FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

39 Edelberg graduated from UBA with a degree in industrial engineering and holds an MBA from the University of California (Berkeley). He graduated as a Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard University, where he was the first graduate with this degree from a Spanish-speaking country. He was Director of the Economic Research Center of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella (Buenos Aires) and Organizer and first Director of the School of Management of IDEA. After the 1976 military coup in Argentina, he became a Professor at the INCAE (Costa Rica).

40 IDEA, Memoria y Balance General, Ejercicio cerrado al 31 de diciembre de 1966. Buenos Aires, 1967.

41 Except for Miller (2015), who analyses the policies followed by subsidiaries of British companies in Argentina to recruit and develop executives in the mid-twentieth century, there is no detailed study of top executive recruitment patterns in Argentina for the period after 1930 and until the 1970s. See Szlechter, (2014) for a sociological perspective on changes in the managerial community in Argentina since the 1960s.

42 University autonomy was revoked yet again, entry level restrictions were abolished, and teaching hours were spread further through the day and evening (Dupre, 2001).

43 IDEA studied the examples of the Escuela Superior de Negocios de Lima (ESAN), advised by Stanford, and the Institut Pour l’Etude des Méthodes de Direction de l’Entreprise (IMEDE) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Other examples considered included the Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Management in São Paulo (advised by Michigan State University). The report also referred to the programs of the Universidad de Chile, the Universidad del Valle, the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, and the project then being executed by the INCAE (Instituto Centro Americano de Administración de Empresas), in Costa Rica, which was advised by the HBS.

44 Darrel F. Fienupp, Inter-office memorandum on 64-466 to Harry E. Wilhelm, FF, New York, January 28, 1969; FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

45 Guillermo S. Edelberg, Director, IDEA School of Management, to John E. Nagel, FF, September 6, 1968, FFA, December 18, 1968, FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466; see also HBS/DIA, box 1, Committee on International Activities, 1966–1970, Division of International Activities. Annual report 1967–1968, June 1968.

46 The professors were Dr Adolfo Canitrot, Dr Guillermo Edelberg, Dr Roberto Martinez Nogueira, Cont. Luis Lizondo Borda, Dr Ricardo Halperin, and Dr Pedro Vulovic. Darrel F. Fienupp, Inter-office memorandum on 64-466 to Harry E. Wilhelm, FF, New York, January 28, 1969; FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

47 Report on the feasibility project for the creation of an Institute for the Development of Executives in Argentina, F.G. Garcia, April 4, 1968, FFA 739C, Box 369, file 008764.

48 Guillermo S. Edelberg, Director, IDEA School of Management, to John E. Nagel, FF, September 6, 1968, FFA, December 18, 1968, FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466; see also HBS/DIA, box 1, Committee on International Activities, 1966–1970, Division of International Activities. Annual report 1967–1968, June 1968.

49 David R. Gunn to Peter Hakim, Ford Foundation Inter-Office Memorandum, May 7, 1973, p.1; FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

50 Nita Manitzas to Mrs Mantinazto William D. Carmichael, Inter-office memorandum on IDEA, June 3, 1971, FFA732D, reel 2145.

51 Peter Hakim to William D. Carmichael, Recommendation for closing grant (IDEA), May 7, 1973, page 2; FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

52 Two of the three were offered better-paid jobs in industry. The third seemed to stay in the US. Darrel F. Fienupp, Inter-office memorandum on 64-466 to Harry E. Wilhelm, FF, New York, January 28, 1969; FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

53 Ph/it to David R. Gunn, memorandum to FF on PA64-466, May 7, 1973, FFA732D, reel 2145, PA 64-466.

54 Speech given in Buenos Aires on March 21, 1969. The business community and higher education (translation). From 1960 to 1964, Graves as an HBS professor had been appointed to the position of acting president of the business school IMEDE in Switzerland. After that, he traveled to Latin America and Africa. Later, he went to Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he worked at ICAME, a program to train future business school professors from developing countries, before returning to the HBS in 1967. See HBS/DIA, box 1, Faculty committee meeting, 10 December 1968, and Towl and Hetherston (1966).

55 From his point of view, not all academic systems were flexible, and he associated some of the difficulties with the rigidity of the academic system. He cited the Swiss business schools IMEDE in Lausanne and CEI in Geneva as examples.

56 The first business school was implemented in 1978 when the Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas (ESEADE) was created, and the master’s degree in economics and business administration was launched. Extracted from this site https://www.universia.net/br/universidades/fundacion-escuela-superior-de-economia-y-administracion-de-empresas.00106.html (Consulted October 17, 2022).

57 IDEA changed again its name in 1993 to Instituto para el Desarrollo Empresarial de la Argentina (Argentine Businessmen’ Development Institute). Within IDEA, in 1967, the Argentine Business Council was formed, integrating a select group of businessmen with high lobbying capacity in their own economic and political interests. There were critical views on IDEA’s role during military regimes from Onganía’s administration onward. For example, all Ministers of Economics ever since have explained their policies at IDEA. In addition, during the dictatorship, high-ranking military officers were invited to IDEA, including General Viola, who lectured on “The Fight against Terrorism” in 1977.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrea Lluch

Andrea Lluch Researcher at the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET IEHSOLP). She is also an Associate Professor and a member of the History, Business, and Entrepreneurship Research Group (GHE) at the School of Management, University of Los Andes - Colombia. She was former president of the Argentine Economic History Association and the Business History Conference. Some of her latest publications include” Embracing Complexity and Diversity in Business History: A Latin American Perspective”, Enterprise & Society, 2022, “Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets: Female Entrepreneurs in Colombia since 1990”, Business History Review (with Carlos Dávila) and “Women may be climbing on board, but not in first class: A long-term study of the factors affecting women’s board participation in Argentina and Chile (1923–2010)”, Business History, 2022 (with Erica Salvaj).

Rolv Petter Amdam

Rolv Petter Amdam Professor of business history at BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo. He was the Alfred D. Chandler jr. Visiting Fellow in International Business History at Harvard Business School (2015), and SCANCOR fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard (2017). His recent publications include “The untold story: Teaching cases and the rise of International Business as a new academic field”, Journal of International Business Studies, online 2023 (with Gabriel Benito & Birgitte Grøgaard), “Making managers in Latin America: The emergence of executive education in Central America, Peru, and Colombia”, Enterprise & Society, 2021 (with Carlos Dávila), “Opening the black box of international strategy formation: How Harvard Business School became a multinational enterprise”, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2022, (with Gabriel Benito), and “Temporality and the first foreign direct investment”, Journal of World Business, 2022 (with Gabriel Benito).