Empresariado en Colombia: perspectiva histórica y regional by Carlos Dávila Ladrón de Guevara (review)

This book by Carlos Dávila is a revised, enlarged, and improved edition of a work first published in 1986. It has three well-defined sections: the first one presents a literature review, the second one reflects the author’s theoretical contribution to the topic, and the third one, which is divided into two subsections, includes a case study.

Chapter 1 is not a mere compilation but a superb work on the progress of business history in Colombia that delves into its origins and encompasses its whole trajectory. Thus, the initial relation between business and economic history in Colombia—as evident as in other countries, including Spain—is discussed, together with the fact that the very beginnings of Colombian business history are associated with the efforts on non-Colombian researchers. In this state-of-the-art study, Dávila describes the ideological and political changes that the discipline has undergone over time, the access of Colombian academicians to the studies on business management and the issue that is at the core of the author’s interests: the development of entrepreneurial history in his country. Carlos Dávila himself declares that his aim is to elucidate and ponder the origin and consolidation of the entrepreneurial class in the long term and in a specific region.

According to this purpose, Chapter 2, which is probably the most interesting one due to its singularity, presents the author’s contribution to the study of this topic through the elaboration of a theoretical model called EAHE (esquema analítico para estudiar a los empresarios desde una perspectiva histórica) or “analytical scheme to study entrepreneurs from a historical perspective.” The objective of this model is to provide researchers with an analytical tool that may help them find their way when conducting empirical studies on entrepreneurial history. Through this model of analysis the author acknowledges and stresses the relevance of the entrepreneur, in contrast with the usual focus on the business itself. He also defends the role played by entrepreneurs in economic development.

This model considers six dimensions of the entrepreneur taken from various disciplines, such as economics, sociology, and psychology, and linked to certain ideas drawn from historical studies on specific businessmen or women. The six dimensions are: (1) the economic, political, and social context, (2) the economic behaviour; (3) the socioeconomic profile; (4) the relations with the political sphere and the State; (5) the mentality and lifestyle; and (6) economic development, the State and the market. At the same time, each dimension includes several elements, each with its own specific weight. The combination of the six dimensions allows an integral understanding of the entrepreneur in relation to his or her nature and functions within the economic scene.

As any other theoretical model, the EAHE refers neither to a specific time or society nor to a specific type of entrepreneur. Dávila’s model may be applied to both successful and unsuccessful businesspersons, and, in order to use it, no consensus is required on the role of the entrepreneurs in economic development or the time and society in which they lived.

The third section of the book, and the longest one, is devoted to the study of specific cases, both in the region of Antioquia and in the region of Bogotá plateau area and the Cauca valley.

Chapters 3–6 focus on the case of Antioquian entrepreneurs in a long chronological period that stretches from 1760 to 1920. Resorting to such a long time period allows Dávila to review the genesis of the entrepreneurial class in the region at the end of the Spanish colonial period. In those decades, the activities of the Antioquian entrepreneurs were strongly related to gold mining and, as pointed out by Dávila, those were the years in which the economic bases of this entrepreneurial class were set, since the entrepreneurs enjoyed enough...