Latin American multinationals: A historical and theoretical approach*

The authors like to acknowledge CESA, Bancoldex, Proexport, Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP), Coinvertir, and Seguroexpo for their financial and logistic support.

Among the so‐called multinationals from the South, Latin American multinationals are outstanding for being pioneers. Their history goes even back to the end of the 19th century. In this article, we sketch a brief history of Latin American multinationals, but we concentrate on their development and growing importance since the 1980s within the context of economic reforms and globalization. We then apply a theoretical and typological perspective in order to characterize these multinational companies and to identify the elements that will condition their future behavior and development

Keywords:

• Multinational enterprise
• Latin America
• South
• theory

Notes

Former Alternate Ambassador of Colombia with the United Nations (New York), and Former Director of the International Relations Department at the Universidad Javeriana.

Please send all correspondence to Philippe De Lombaerde, UNU/CRIS, c/o College of Europe, Dijver 11, B‐8000 Brugge, Belgium, Email: [email protected], Phone: [phone].

The authors like to acknowledge CESA, Bancoldex, Proexport, Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP), Coinvertir, and Seguroexpo for their financial and logistic support.