General Information
For more than four decades, the main activities of the group members have been teaching, research, and publications on Colombian business history. They offer degree-seeking (undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and PhD) and executive education courses in business history. The group has contributed to the consolidation of the academic community in business history in Latin America and Colombia. Likewise, it considers strategic to associate with the international academic community of Business History mainly through joint projects, publications in the main journals of the discipline, membership in its editorial committees, and participation in international conferences and events
The origins of the History and Entrepreneurship Group (GHE)
Date back to 1976, when teaching and research on Colombian business history began at the School of Management of the Universidad de los Andes. The GHE approaches the study of entrepreneurship’s role in Colombia’s economic development from a historical perspective. The business sector comprises different agents: entrepreneurs, companies, economic groups, business elites, business families and associations, or “guilds.” The GHE is composed of researchers from different disciplines (sociologists, historians, economists, and industrial engineers) belonging to the Management Area of the Faculty. Two of them (Marco Palacios and Carlos Dávila) have been Emeritus Researchers of Colciencias since November 2016. Dávila, in turn, has been Professor Emeritus of Uniandes since 2014. In 2022 the Business History Conference (BHC) awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award.
From its creation until 1990, the GHE was integrated by three professors of the Faculty, Enrique Ogliastri (Ph. D., Northwestern), Manuel Rodríguez (B. Litt., Oxford), and Carlos Dávila (Ph. D., Northwestern). Since 2000 it has been formed by Carlos Dávila, Luis Fernando Molina (M.A., Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellín), who joined the group in 2000, Marco Palacios (D. Phil, Oxford) since 2001, Beatriz Rodriguez-Satizabal (Ph.D. QMUL, 2020) since 2006, Xavier Durán (Ph.D., LSE) in 2010, Andrea Lluch (Ph.D., Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires) joined in 2015 and Carlos Eduardo Hernández (Ph. D., UCLA) in 2016. Martha Garavito (MBA, Uniandes) was part of the GHE from 2012 to 2020; Professor, Universidad del Pacífico/Uniandes, and Germán García Niño has been assistant to the GHE since 2020.
For more than four decades, the main activities of the members of the GHE have been teaching, researching, and publications on Colombian business history. They offer courses in business history at the undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and Ph.D. levels, as well as in continuing education (Programa Alta Gerencia) and the Specialization in Business Law. The GHE has contributed to the consolidation of the academic community in business history in Latin America and Colombia. It also considers it strategic to link with the international academic community of Business History, mainly through joint projects, publications in the prominent journals of the discipline, membership in their editorial committees, and participation in international congresses and events.
The GHE is one of the founding entities of the Ibero-American Group of Business Studies and Economic History, formed in 2006 by researchers affiliated with universities in Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Peru, and Colombia. As part of the International Distinguished Visiting Professors Program (Cátedra Corona), the GHE has invited fifteen British, American, Australian, Spanish, Mexican, and Argentine business historians since 1999. It holds an annual research colloquium that rotates among the five countries. The GHE, jointly with the Banco de la República, has organized the 2007 (Cartagena), 2012 (Bogota), and 2018 (Santa Marta) colloquia.
Research lines
- Origins and development of regional entrepreneurship in Colombia (1870-1970) (C. Dávila, M. Rodríguez)
- Role of immigrants in a “non-immigrants’ land” (1820-1940) (M. Rodríguez)
- Power, business elites and economic development in urban Colombia (1950-1975). (E. Ogliastri, C. Dávila)
- Company/organization history (1890-1990) (E. Ogliastri, C. Dávila)
- Observatory and periodical survey of Colombian and Latin American Business history (1990, 1996, 1997, 1999) (C. Dávila)
- 1 Observatory and periodical surveys of Colombian and Latin American business history (2003, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2020) (C. Dávila, A. Lluch)
- 2 Entrepreneurial history (C. Dávila, L. F. Molina, M. Garavito)
- Entrepreneurial biographies & biographical profiles in Colombian development (1850-2020)
- History of marketing pioneers in Colombia (1950–2010) [in association with G. Pérez and J.M. Ospina, UASM’s Marketing Studies Unit]
- 3 The XIXth century in Bogota: big business, social stratification and real state (M. Palacios)
- 4 Company/organization history (1950-2020). (L.F. Molina, C. Dávila)
- Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango –Central Bank library– (1957-2007) (L.F.Molina)
- FIMBRA – Fondo Mutuo de Inversiones del Banco de la República (1962-2002) (L.F. Molina)
- Ecopetrol –oil– (1951-2011) [in association with J. Benavides, C. Caballero, and C. Dávila] (X. Durán)
- 5 Business Groups. Strategy, structure, financing and organizational capabilities (1950-2020) (C. Dávila, B. Rodríguez)
- Fundación Social (1985–2010) [in association with J.C. Dávila, D. Schnarch, UASM’s Organization Studies Unit] (C. Dávila)
- Financing firms in emerging economies: from stand-alone to business groups. The case of Colombia, 1950-1980 (B. Rodríguez)
- 6 Big business in the Argentinean economy. Historical analysis of Argentinean capitalism in the XXth century [in association with N. Lanciotti, Universidad Nacional del Rosario, Argentina] (A. Lluch)
- 7 Transportation and entrepreneurship in Colombia: historical and modern perspectives (X. Durán, C. Hernández)
- 8 Trademarks, competitiveness and market development in South America (1890c–1930) [in association with T. da Silva Lopes, University of York, U.K.] (A. Lluch)
- 9 Management education in Colombia, the case of the School of Management, Universidad de los Andes (1973–2020) (L.F. Molina, C. Dávila)
