The Strategies of the Spanish cotton textile companies before the Civil War: the road to longevity

This study, based on family business theories, offers an innovative vision of the Spanish cotton industry. It proves that Spanish cotton companies, just like their European counterparts, implemented a strategy that was consistent with their nature as family businesses and went beyond the economic-institutional frames within which they developed. The article identifies this strategy as `conservative, because its main objectives were longevity and family control and because it was based on a high percentage of own resources, low levels of indebtedness and organic growth, thus sacrificing profitability for the sake of security.Universidad Pablo de OlavidePostprin

1898: The "Fin de Siècle" Crisis

The year 1898 was the year of the disaster. In two naval battles—one in the Caribbean and the other in the Pacific—the Spanish fleet was destroyed and Spain lost its remaining colonies: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The defeat, which brought an end to the nation’s imperial status, had a profound impact on the fabric of the country. It led to an identity crisis, with the awareness that the nation was politically weak and economically backward. The year 1898 is also a turning point because the defeat did not in fact lead to the collapse of the economy. In the decade and a half before World War I, the Spanish economy grew rapidly in response to a “regeneration” drive and a favourable international economic environmen

Centrality and investment strategies at the beginning of industrialisation in mid-nineteenth-century Catalonia

We apply social networks analysis to the study of an important database on investment and companies' share in the Catalonia (Spain) of the nineteenth century. In contrast with most of the existing related literature, usually addressing power relationships across administration boards, we focus on the structure of interactions among individual investors and firms. Centrality analysis uncovers interesting roles played by certain economic sectors (e.g. textile and financial). Furthermore, the diverse composition (in terms of economic activity) of communities in the network (subgroups more densely connected internally than with the rest of the network) reveals a high investment diversification, which nicely agrees with a known characteristic of traditional Catalan business strategies.social networks analysis, investment strategies, Barcelona, nineteenth century, centrality, structural communities,