2010 06 abel del río cortina[1] (3)

International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(13): 486-507 (2010)

CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 © InternationalJournal.org

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Associative Dynamics in the Construction and Evolution of Entrepreneurial Networks in Cartagena City (1860-1960). Abel Del Río Cortina, Fundación Universitaria Tecnológico Comfenalco, Colombia. Jorge Del Río Cortina, Fundación Universitaria Tecnológico Comfenalco, Colombia. Abstract: The following paper is constructed with the intention of analyzing the considerations that settled the background for the creation and development of entrepreneurial relationships in Cartagena city (1860-1960), taken as a basis the theoretical support developed by Veblen in its book: “The theory of the leisure class”(Veblen, 1899), giving at the same time, a different perspective to historical information derived from the application of social network analysis, and geographic visualization tools to studies of entrepreneurial networks. Keywords: Associative Dynamics, Entrepreneurial Networks, Social Network Analysis. 1. Introduction Industry and commerce in the city of Cartagena de Indias had a time of great prosperity in the period 1860-1960. The farmers of the department of Bolívar had a distinguished role in the development of the city and the region, driving a diversification process, visualized in their investment risk and high capacity for leadership. In the text "Notebooks of Economic and Business History" its author, Maria Teresa Ripoll Lemaitre, highlights:

"...In the early twentieth century some farmers used the surplus of their economic activity to invest in innovative industries that involved more risk, more capital, and harnessing new technologies. In the choice and implementation of these plants, (a refinery, an industrial refrigeration system for meat, and a sugar mill company, among others), there were applied very important experiences of these economic actors product of their frequent trips abroad, particularly to Mexico, Cuba and the U.S. ...". (Ripoll, 2007, pp.85)

Entrepreneurs have a power to produce change that comes from society, a power shaped from ancient times through the social strength from the barbarians in evolution toward feudalism and other forms of supremacy; in first instance, subject to the force of arms, and later, taking the path of ideological domination. There is historical evidence of a past that offered favorable conditions for the economic development of Cartagena de Indias, a city that powered a region endowed with natural advantages, suitable for international trade and large scale industrial production.



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In this paper, there are taken into account different considerations in order to rebuild the historic scenario of that period. As a starting point, it is reviewed the social distinction made by Veblen1 (1899), in its work “The theory of the leisure class”; later, the information about Del Castillo family business group is analyzed throughout the application of the software for social network analysis (Netdraw)2; a cartographic approach derived from the different locations of the operations of Del Castillo family group is constructed using the software for Map construction (Map Maker)3

; and, finally, some political events are taken into account in order to get a better idea about the conditions that influenced the different decisions of the actors involved in the process of creation and evolution of business networks. In this way, it is shown an overview of the processes that gave rise to business networks in the Colombian Caribbean region with active participation of preeminent family groups into the construction of the imaginary of the nation, and their outstanding political, social and economic influence, getting focused on the different facts that serve as platform for the formation of the business tissue.

2. General considerations Carlos Dávila León de Guevara and Rory Miller, 1999, in the book "Business history in Latin America: The experience of seven countries" make an outlined about a series of gaps and uncertainties of historical enterprise construction processes and breaches related to the characteristics of the entrepreneurs from the early century, and even hint the lack of information about the real human aspects of those who dedicated themselves to doing business. Colombian Caribbean region is not aside from the phenomenon in terms of reductionism and deficiency of relevant benchmarks for analyzing economic development; the above situation, is not apart from individuals and initiatives that enable business network creation and consolidation, being in this way, Cartagena`s business environment taken for consideration as the proper entrepreneurial network scenery to analyze associative dynamics. Social networks, which have broad participation business networks, are sets of social or interpersonal relationships that bind individuals and organizations into "groups" as a result of direct and indirect "relationships", including actors through processes of interaction, communication, and exchange, emerging associative dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, and therefore, letting relational structures to be born, to which it is attributed the emergence of 1 Veblen, Thorstein, (Cato, Wis., July 30.1857-Menlo Park, id., August 3, 1929) Norwegian-American Sociologist and Economist, participant in the movement of institutional economists together with John R. Commons. Because of its emphasis on social matters as agents explaining economic phenomena is considered the founder of this movement. Veblen got graduated in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University and Ph.D. from Yale University. In 1899 it came his most famous work, “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, Veblen analyzed the economic structure of his time from the point of Darwinism, and rapped the ostentation that made constant gala on more favored social classes. 2 NetDraw is a program for drawing networks. It uses (or will use) several different algorithms for laying out nodes in 2-dimensional space (3D will come later). Netdraw reads UCINET system files, UCINET DL text files, and Pajek text files (.net, .clu and .vec). It can save data to Pajek and to Mage. It can save diagrams as EMF, WMF, BMP and JPG files. Retrieved 10th of October 2008 from http://www.analytictech.com/downloadnd.htm. 3 Map Maker is just one of several mapping and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) available for use with Microsoft Windows. Retrieved 09th of November 2009 from http://www.mapmaker.com/index.htm.

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systemic properties that can be identified from the study of the different participants. These emerging structures can help us understand, and consequently, predict, and even better, manage the results of human action. (Newman et al, 2006) According to Michael Porter, there is a variation on value chains of firms depending on the industry, reflecting their stories, strategies, and successes in strategy implementation or specific conditions (Porter, 1985). Not having accurate information on the evolution of organizations generates a significant gap affecting the economical sectors in a general way. From this perspective, social network analysis (SNA) is taken into account as a support scheme at the moment of getting further studies of different business initiatives. SNA is a methodology designed to connect the world of the involved actors (individuals, organizations, nations, etc. with the emerging social structures that result from the relationships established by the players. Thus, social network analysis should be viewed from a set of techniques with a shared methodological horizon. When viewing the dominant traditions in the social sciences, ways of building scientific explanation could be found, either from causal models, which generally have been applied to macro-social or economic structures, or from intentional models that have served to build micro explanations of nature, which have focused on individual behavior. SNA is a set of analytical techniques stayed for the formal study of the relations among actors and for the analysis of the social structures that arise from the recurrence of such relations. There is a special attention at the moment of working on the study of social structures throughout Network analysis, insisting less on why people do what they do and more on understanding the structural constraints of their actions. (Newman et al, 2006) The appearances in sociology and social anthropology of approaches that emphasize the emergence of macro-social structures from the interactions of individuals have responded to the need to connect the various levels of analysis. In this way, the effort to apply mathematics to intuitions previously expressed in metaphors was consolidated in the sixties, and since that period the graph theory was developed, being the substrate of network analysis evolution (Harary and Norman, 1953). The methodology of social network analysis has demonstrated a high growth within the social sciences, and so far has been applied in areas as diverse as health, psychology, business organization and electronic communication. Although casual mapping and other cognitive mapping techniques usually require more dedication and time than other research methods, they have been widely used for the advancement and development of analysis in managerial and organizational cognition (eg, Eden and Spender, 1998; Hodgkinson and Thomas , 1997; Porac and Thomas, 1989); to the point, its influence has spread to the applications of most sub-fields of study in management and organization, including applications related to information technologies (Nelson, Nadkarni, Narayanan, and Ghods, 2000; Swan and Newell, 1995). In general, SNA intends to analyze the ways in which individuals or organizations are connected or linked in order to determine the overall network structure, establishing groups and defining the position of particular individuals or organizations, getting deeper in the social structures that underlie the knowledge or information flows, exchanges, or power. This interaction could have a significant impact on the behavior of actors, and results in identifiable structures and verifiable learning processes. The social network analysis also shows how the social structure of



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relationships around the individuals, groups, or organizations affects the beliefs and conduct of the different actors. Causative forces are implicit in the social structure, being network analysis composed by a set of methods to detect and measure the magnitude of these forces. Getting back to the barbarians, Thorstein Veblen highlights:

"…The difference in mass, in physiological character, and in temperament may be slight among the members of the primitive group; it appears, in fact, to be relatively slight and inconsequential in some of the more archaic communities with which we are acquainted — as for instance the tribes of the Andamans. But so soon as a differentiation of function has well begun on the lines marked out by this difference in physique and animus, the original difference between the sexes will itself widen. A cumulative process of selective adaptation to the new distribution of employments will set in, especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier virtues. The habitual pursuit of large game requires more of the manly qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore scarcely fail to hasten and widen the differentiation of functions between the sexes. And so soon as the group comes into hostile contact with other groups, the divergence of function will take on the developed form of a distinction between exploit and industry… "(Veblen, 1899, pp.16)

It is also relevant to take into account geospatial technologies as a source of information about the position of the different economic actors at the moment of analyzing relations among them, implying an explicit spatial and temporal context (De Smith et al. 2007). Geospatial technologies have grown to include a wide range of tools, being many of them actively used in the evaluation of urban risks and analysis of decisions concerning the location of production lines, such as clusters, technology parks, supply centers, industrial complexes, factories, and logistic complexes, etc. These geospatial tools and technologies are used to identify the "dangers" or to establish the parameters of "risk." that are associated with a specific territory; they could be used as a source for the location of unattractive areas for the development of certain productive activities combined with the proper paths to manage human settlements; finally, these geospatial technologies can serve, among many applications, to integrate mechanisms that can generate business location analysis in terms of accessibility to customers, raw materials, and different supply chains and distribution actors through tools and models based on mapping, which, in turn, generate the visualization of the location of the various actors in the supply chain. (Gallup et al, 1999) Since the late 1960s, geospatial information systems (GIS) have undergone significant changes in functionality and expectations about analysis of territorial development. In the way, information has been the cornerstone of decision making process, the development of tools that enable better visualization of different scenarios of population and business location has been



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required. At the beginning these tools took special consideration for two essential questions about economic location, where and What, generating at the same time a third question: Where is what?. This make it possible to analyze the location of production units and flows of resources locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally enabling the development of improved paths for the management of resource flows in accordance with economic logic. Traditionally, for hundreds of years the two concepts involved in the location of elements in specific areas have maintained a direct relationship with the display of unknown territories and shipping connections within the parameters of altitude and latitude, being, such an approximation, carried out manually through maps that involve the use of pens, radiographers, rulers, markers, and acetate sheets, and that conjugate the dedication and knowledge of the experts with the difficulties in terms of time, data analysis, and care gotten by a handcraft project. The new mapped data analysis scenario has become an essential part of understanding and management of geographic space. In this new scenario, the use of maps has implications for the interpretation of mapping data, being more extensive than the physical description of geographical space, thus combining, overlapping cartographic layers with different specific information for each layer, and in turn, characterizing and communicating complex spatial relationships. (De Smith et al, 2007) Starting a development project - in an unknown place and context - involves certain hurdles, being one of the most critical the lack of information about the existing social system or network, e.g. the structure and characteristics of the relationships formed with individuals or institutions within a specific environment. Researchers must necessarily understand this system to identify who will interact and how the interaction will be done, and it is also necessary to understand the relationships between the different actors. When working in unfamiliar social structures, there is a high risk of making wrong decisions, so it is important to invest some time to identify key players and understand the social relations between them. Similarly, alliances with partners in good acceptance in the sector increase the chances of success for any project. At the time of collecting historical information the researcher should delve into the characteristics that led to the association of different actors, contextualizing the associative dynamics within the ideological, political, economic, and social frames according to the period being analyzed. In this regard, Velez Daníez, Martinez Camargo and Del Castillo, are three family groups that highly represent business networks, being the relationships fostered for these family groups, at local, regional, national and international level, considered within this research, as relevant information when analyzing the dynamic associations that placed the city of Cartagena at the heart of national development. There was a time of significant interconnected networks of trade and production that drafted the strategic city of Cartagena as the regional and national industrialization epicenter, with a permanent international contact throughout importation and exportation processes, as well as, foreign training and abroad educational contact of the different family members in order to promote a competitive advantage primarily based on the barriers that international relations offered at that period. 2.1 Entrepreneurial networks Capitalist elite from Cartagena city was composed by a selected group of entrepreneurs who joined together in various businesses. In this research, it is given special attention to the links and participation of great impact and risk, of some entrepreneurial family groups, represented by



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Colombian Sugar Co. (1906), under which the sugar mill Central Colombia was created, in the direction of businessmen Carlos and Fernando Velez Daniez, meeting a series of entrepreneurial family groups, that include Martínez Camargo, Del Castillo, Pombo, Piñeres, Varela, Román, De la Espriella, Lemaitre, León, and Zubiría, among others; Cartagena Oil Refining Company (1909), a pioneer of oil refining, in charge of Diego Martinez Camargo, farmer entrepreneur, friend and partner with Del Castillo's family, being Rafael del Castillo its second largest shareholder; Cartagena Oil Operating Company (1913); and finally, Dique Channel Dredging Company (1919), a common initiative supported by most of the above family groups in order to provide proper transportation for the commercialization of goods. (Fig. 1) All of these relations were generated as a consequence of close links based on trust, but above all, based on social acceptance and entrepreneurial success (Fig. 2). These results, meant in turn, wealth that ought to be shown in a lush and unlimited way, supported as a product of divine qualities, lineage, and ancestry.

"…With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. In an industrial community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste... "(Veblen, 1899, pp.117)

This conspicuous consumption is perceived in the boundless expenditures, and the luxury innumerable properties acquired for the family groups, the constant trips abroad, the meetings and banquets, and the trend to locate the children, the future of the family, in different educational institutes in the U.S. or England. An aristocrat living style, developed for the founders of the family groups as a strategy to impress potential partners, investors, and countrymen, is implemented as a way of life detached from the reality of business and finance by the heirs of those families who welcome luxury, spending, and conspicuous consumption, applying these practices without regarding to their original motivations. The testimony of one of the granddaughters of Jose Joaquin Pombo gives some indications referring to the magnitude of the wealth generated into the family groups of the Colombian Caribbean region:

"...From her childhood in her grandmother's house in Paris, She especially remembered the cook, a Cordon Bleu chef, and the driver of gloves, which were part of the servants of the house. When she returned to Cartagena with her grandmother and her widowed mother, they brought all the furniture, for the house, in Pie de la Popa neighborhood, purchased in Europe (tapestries, rugs, crystal chandeliers, dishes, etc.) and manufactured pieces specifically to suit the spaces of the house. The sons and daughters of Susana Mercedes and Ana Maria Pombo León were educated in colleges and universities in the U.S., which prompted the chance of residence of these families to San Francisco (California) for ten years ... "(Ripoll, 2007, pp. 216)



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Figure 1.Interconnected enterprises product of Cartagena City associative dynamics (1860-

1960)4

4 In Figure 1, there are represented different family groups involved in four business initiatives relevant for the development of the Colombian Caribbean Region: Colombian Sugar Co., Ltd. (1906), Cartagena Oil Refining Company (1909), Cartagena Oil operating Company (1913), and finally, Dique Channel Dredging Company (1919), having Del Castillo family group as a participant in the four business initiatives. The figure is built by network analysis software Netdraw (Bogartti, SP, 2002) developed by Harvard, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena”(Ripoll, 2007, pp. 75, pp. 125, pp. 127, pp. 244).



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Figure 2.Interconnected Family groups5

From Colonial times, a strong commercial and cultural activity has characterized the city of Cartagena de Indias, being it visible in the different constructions with a great number of houses with architectural components arranged for that purpose. Pompous buildings, with large internal gardens and a large number of rooms and courtyards, which served as warehouses to keep goods and merchandise, evolving from the time of the colony through the contact with different cultures in a combination of a homesick feeling from the various places of origin of the traders and adventurers who formed the wall city, the stone yard.

5 In Figure 2, there are represented the main family groups involved in four business initiatives relevant for the development of the Colombian Caribbean region: Colombian Sugar Co., Ltd. (1906), Cartagena Oil Refining Company (1909), Cartagena Oil operating Company (1913), and finally, Dique Channel Dredging Company (1919), Being these family groups: Del Castillo, Vélez and Martínez. The figure is built by network analysis software Netdraw (Bogartti, SP, 2002) developed by Harvard, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena” (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 75, pp. 125, pp. 127, pp. 244).



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"... The combination of different architectural expressions with their own cultural influences due to the extensive trade between the islands and the Caribbean Coast resulted through a slow evolution, eclectic architecture, with very sharp features, especially in housing. So, it is very common to find the same type in Jamaica than in Haiti, or in cities and towns in the Colombian Caribbean coast. This architecture, resulting from various ingredients, such as: materials, climate, national builders and imported stylistic influences, may seem, at times, similar to the one constructed in the metropolis, however, an approach to their buildings shows its own identity architecture, never seen in Europe or North America… "(Samudio, 2001)

This trade, and cultural exchange, allowed the establishment of a different thought about investments for community purposes, being significant the private investment in governmental initiatives through the purchase of stocks of municipal public service companies. Within these initiatives there are cited the Telephone Company of Cartagena, the aqueduct of Matute (in charge of the Water Works Cartagena, Colombia Ltd), a power plant, and the foundation of the Chamber of Commerce (Consisting of thirty entities, with a participation of 18 trade associations, traders, and representatives of Union Bank, Bolívar Bank and Industrial Bank). It is remarkable, the participation in infrastructure projects for construction and upgrading of roads, having the Dique Channel Dredging Company (1919) as a good example of these practices, being part of the initiative, business family groups, such as: Velez Daniez, Del Castillo, Jasper, Pombo, Martinez Camargo, Piñeres, Mainero, Segovia, Meluk, Covo, Dager, De Zubiria, Roman Gomez, De la Espriella, Gallo, Pasos, Posso, Gutierrez Varela, Frías and Rodriguez. (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 202-203) The business contact process generated in Colombian Caribbean Region during the period (1860-1960), resulted in the consolidation of relationships of trust and dependence in charge of family business groups motivated for a will to improve living conditions in order to impact the environment and maintain a respectable position in society. This process can be seen in the case of the Family Del Castillo (Fig. 3), a family group involved in the four enterprises that are the main source of information of this research, providing light about the dimensions of the entrepreneurial vision from the perspective of association, coming to manage offices in New York by the year 1913, in junction with the country from branches and contacts in the cities of Medellin, Bogotá, Ibague, Manízales, Cucuta, Calí, Barranquilla and Santa Marta, maintaining operations in Cartagena and in the regional markets of Sinú, Bolívar and Atrato; Furthermore, establishing businesses in Central America and the Caribbean, in various destinations such as: Panamá, Cuba, Salvador, Dominican Republic, Haití, Puerto Rico and the British West Indies. It is stressed, the establishment of offices and agents in Venezuela, Ecuador and Philippines (Fig. 4). (Ripoll, 2007, pp.146-147)



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Figure 3.Del Castillo family group investment position6

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Traders of prestigious, creators of Del Castillo trading house, Del Castillo family history, is dated back to the arrival of Captain Nicolas Del Castillo Hoyos in the mid-18th century from Alicante to Cartagena de Indias in the position of captain of infantry and commander of the Pardos battalion, getting part of its influence from military power, being Rafael Del Castillo Del Castillo its founder, in 1861. Family ties are crucial for strategic consolidation of family groups holding influence in all spheres of society; so, in 1776, there is the union between the Cartagenera Manuela de Rada y la Torre at a prestigious social position, and Captain Nicholas Del Castillo Hoyos, holding an esteemed position through the time due to the participation of the family in various events of war that allowed to strengthen its reputation among business elites that had an impact on the regional and national political life, being some of these issues, the war of independence, the formation of the new republic and the war of thousand days. (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 134) 6 In figure 3, there is shown the investment position of Del Castillo family group among the four business initiatives that are taken as main source of information to analyze associative dynamics in Cartagena city 1860-1960. In order to determine the position of the family group, the stocks were taken as the parameter to measure the corresponding investment; and, in this way, Colombian sugar corporation created in 1906 represented the lowest rate with 25 stocks in 1953, according to the book: “El licenciado Serpentin”, (Lemaitre Roman, 1955); this amount of stocks was the 0,009 percent in terms of participation, followed by Cartagena oil operating company created in 1913, having 675 stocks in the year 1928, representing 2,30 percent, Dique channel dredging company is the next one, with 5,08 percent, and finally, on the top of the investment position there is Cartagena oil refining company with 17,65 percent, being Del Castillo family group its second shareholder, having 90 of the 510 stocks according to the Newspaper “El Porvenir”, May 5, 1909. The figure is built by network analysis software Netdraw (Bogartti, SP, 2002) developed by Harvard, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena”(Ripoll, 2007, pp 75, pp 125, pp 127, pp 244).



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Figure 4.Del Castillo family group branches and operations 19137

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It is noted the great capacity of risk of the founder of the trading house, being it appreciated on the formation of the capital used in the trip to Saint Thomas in order to expand his store through the acquisition of British textiles and other foreign goods. The composition of this initial capital is cited to be $9093.49 pesos which consisted of only $80 pesos from own savings; the rest was taken under a loan from friends and relatives to be paid monthly in easy quotas. (Ripoll, 2007, pp.135) Other indicator of risk capacity is represented by the conditions of Cartagena city when expanding the family business, and foundation of the trading house. By the year 1815, the city was living one of the worst periods of economic recession in nineteenth century. Having its 7 In figure 4, there are the different local, regional, national and international points of influence of Del Castillo family group by the year 1913. Cartagena City is represented by a purple circle that is repeated as starting point in the different positions, taken into account the distance between the city and the places of influence as the main path of net construction. All of these relations are better seen when considering geographic visualization tools; and in the case of this research, it has been applied the software Map Maker. The figure is built by network analysis software Netdraw (Bogartti, SP, 2002) developed by Harvard, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena”. (Ripoll, 2007, pp.137)



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population diminished, the city was almost destroyed becoming literally a ghost town with its palaces and public buildings in ruin, being decimated by several famines and cholera outbreak. Furthermore, policies of isolationism from country central elites doomed the sectors with export potential to poverty, and only, after 1880s the process of recovering was restarted because before this period it was stopped as a result of national economic and political instability. Despite these conditions, the commercial operations prospered quickly through the expansion of customers since the beginning of the trading house by the year 1861. The strategy allowed the establishment of a regional commercial network, gathering travelers, shopkeepers, and traders in different towns and villages, such as Bocachica, Barú, Pasacaballos, Turbaco, Arjona, San Estanislao, and Calamar from local influence (Fig. 5), and Magangué, Sincelejo, Tolú, Loríca, Cereté, and Colosó, among other cities and villages from regional influence (Fig. 6), and by the banks of Atrato river to Quibdo from national location, getting a particular position as a business familily group that has international operations focused on the Caribbean zone (Fig. 7) (Ripoll, 2007, pp.137) The flow of trade relations, materialized on different connections of local, regional, national and international location, evolves towards the formation of industrialization and collaborative movements in order to improve the conditions of the region throughout political unions that gather economic interests under consolidation paths. In this way, a partnership named The Coast League, constituted by the departments of Colombian Caribbean Coast in the 19th century (Bolívar, Atlántico and Magdalena), took place in order to get opposition to the scope of central power, being its first meeting under President Marco Fidel Suarez, in 1919. The major concerns of this organization were reflected in a memorandum addressed to the House of Representatives of the Congress, being it product of a consensus document addressing key points, such as: protection of Magdalena River, regulation of oil exploration, the situation concerning the exploitation of sea salt, and the generation of a process of political and administrative decentralization. This alliance got leaders and entrepreneurs from the Colombian Caribbean Coast together in order to satisfy the interests of the area. The construction of Bocas de Ceniza was supported by all members of the Coast League, in spite of the fact, it specially favored Barranquilla city and Atlántico department; Another project, widely endured, was the dredging of the Dique Channel, and in fact, a formal protest was given against the Minister of treasury when expressed its refusal against the works of the channel. (Posada Carbo, 1985)



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Figure 5. Local geospatial position of Del Castillo family group by the year 19138

8 In Figure 5, it could be appreciated the local scenery in which Del Castillo family business group took place by the year 1913. There are six locations taken as local and regional points that are: Turbaco, Arjona, Dique Channel, Sincerin, San Estanislao and Calamar. Bocachica, Barú and Pasacaballos are just taken into the Local scenery. The figure is built by geospatial visualization software Map Maker (Dupley, 1995) developed by Map Maker Ltd, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena” (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 137).

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Figure 6.Regional geospatial position of Del Castillo family group by the year 19139

9 In Figure 6, It could be appreciated the evolution of Colombian political map in the way, nowadays this territory is divided in three departments, being these: Bolívar, Sucre and Córdoba. The figure is built by geospatial visualization software Map Maker (Dupley, 1995) developed by Map Maker Ltd, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena” (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 137).

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Figure 7.International geospatial position of Del Castillo family group by the year 191310

At the moment of thinking about entrepreneurial networks it is necessary to get familiar with the particularities of the territory, social conditions and political map evolution of the sceneries where these networks took place. Colombian political map was transformed because different circumstances derived from internal divisions and regional interests. In 1830, internal political and territorial divisions conduced to the withdrawal of Venezuela and the present territory of Ecuador; Cundinamarca adopted the name New Granada, being this way until 1856 when it became the Grenadine Confederation; In 1863, after a two-year civil engagement, The United States of Colombia was created lasting until 1886 when the country got the name of Republic of Colombia. The internal divisions and particular interests led to various conflicts that ended in civil wars, being the most significant the civil war of the thousand days (1899-1902).

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10 In Figure 7, it is shown the international position of Del Castillo family group, having as something relevant the furthest place located in Philippines and the concentration of the operations in the Caribbean zone (Panama City, Saint Thomas, Santo Domingo, Puerto Principe, San Juan, Habana, San Salvador, New York and Caracas). The figure is built by geospatial visualization software Map Maker (Dupley, 1995) developed by Map Maker Ltd, and the information applied for the construction of the figure is taken from the organizations shareholding files, having as a frame of reference, the text: “Empresarios Centenaristas en Cartagena” (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 137).



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"...During those three years of tragedy the shipment companies did not stop their operations in a total way. There was some external commerce to be moved and the owners of the vessels could not get away from all of the incomes. Thus, most of the vessels continue navigating, even though it was surrounded by problems and danger (…) The companies suffered the loss of various vessels, the retirement of great number of captains and crew that were moving to combat, the delay on their trips, riots, and a thousand of other problems…"(Poveda, 1998)

The civil war of the thousand days, in which Del Castillo family group had a relevant participation with the shipment of arms for the government of Colombia (Ripoll, 2007, pp. 143), joined with the United States aims to influence Latin America throughout strategic positions in the Caribbean zone, led to the breakup of the Department of Panama in 1903 and its establishment as a nation. The main interest of the United States, making reference to Panama at that time, was the commercial position that it implied because the maritime communication between the two oceans gotten by the Panama channel construction, being the works, in charge of the United States. Seven years after the culmination of the channel, in 1921, the United States paid Colombia $US 25,000,000 as a compensation because President Roosevelt´s role in the events of 1903. (Santos, 2004) In 1928, there was a tragic event product of labor conflicts because some conditions affecting the workers union from Magdalena. In the words of the novel, Gabriel García Marquez:

"...The banana events - Garcia Marquez said - are perhaps my earliest memory. They were so legendary that when I wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude I wanted to know the real facts and the true number of deaths. There was a talk of a massacre, an apocalyptic massacre. Nothing is sure, but there can't have been many deaths. But even three or five deaths in those circumstances at that time (...) would have been a great catastrophe. It was a problem for me (...) when I discovered it wasn't a spectacular slaughter. In a book where things are magnified, like One Hundred Years of Solitude (...) I needed to fill a whole railway with corpses. I couldn't stick to historical reality. I couldn't say they were three, or seven, or 17 deaths. They wouldn't even fill a tiny wagon. So I decided on 3,000 dead because that filled the dimension of the book I was writing. The legend has now been adopted as history …"(Posada Carbo, 1998)11

11 In 1990, the novel Gabriel Garcia Marquez concedes a Television interview to British Channel 4 developed in a program named My Macondo, Directed by Dal Weldon. The interview was conducted by the journalist Julio Roca who decides to ask some deeper questions about the real Macondo, and in this dialogue, the memory of the banana events appear as they were collected in the previous works product of the research when writing one hundred years of solitude (1967).



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From September 1, 1932 to May 24, 1933, a war involving the Amazonas Department and its capital Leticia took place, having as main causes the dissatisfaction with the Salomón-Lozano Treaty and the imposition of heavy taxes on sugar. It started with an internal insurrection in Peru and developed to an international armed conflict. (League of Nations, 1933) Getting forward with the events of high influence, there is a period that marked the life of Colombia and that had a great impact in Colombian Caribbean region evolution, a period known as “The violence”. Between the late 1940s and the early 1950s there was the beginning of an internal bloody struggle. Its cause is mainly attributed to tensions between the two leading political parties, getting into its worst moment after April 9, 1948, when the Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated. Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, was affected by riots that spread throughout the country and claimed the lives of lots of civilians and innocent people. The violence from these riots spread throughout the country and claimed the lives of at least 180,000 Colombians. From 1953 to 1964 the violence between the two political parties decreased, first when Gustavo Rojas Pinilla deposed the President of Colombia in a coup d'état and negotiated with the guerrillas, and then under the military junta of General Gabriel París Gordillo. (Díaz, 1985) Another important feature, when analyzing business tissue shaping in the Colombian Caribbean coast, consists on smuggling. This activity of flow of capital and goods, is directly related to a number of aspects, such as shortages of adequate roads, lack of appropriate controls and incentives to the establishment and development of commercial enterprises, and most of all, the discouragement from the central government about industry initiatives at certain periods in the history of Colombian Caribbean region, as well as, the easy access of overseas vessels from surrounding islands. Smuggling is an activity of great attraction that has its origins in the colonial period, mainly due to continuous wars supported by the Spanish crown with France and England, and the cutoff of goods flow due to military interventions, as it is noted by the trader, Jose Ignacio de Pombo, referring to the consequences in terms of foreign trade to New Granada, in the 1796-1802 war with England:

"...When the communication with the metropolis was cut off, as a result of this war and the enemy's superiority, there became a scarcity of all sorts of effects and fruits from Europe, not having taken any extraordinary means to meet this need, and being exposed to a thousand commons difficulties and risks at legal trade, interest of profit and assurances offered by trading with the enemy excited contraband... "(Pombo, 1800)

This activity generates the location of populations in dusty areas of inhospitable nature, allowing settlement through trails, and contact with vessels arranged in strategic locations particularly in the area of present Guajira department, being Rioacha and Valledupar cities, crucial points for illegal operations, recognizing, at the same time, the networks surrounding these movements developed in Santa Marta, Cartagena, and rich populations of Sinú region. From this scenario, it is explained the existence of populations under harsh conditions, in places without the least attractive views, where at first glance, there is not any possibility for human development. The smuggling routes, merit populations that do not exist in the map, unimportant, discreet, and



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silence people living in places that gives the impression of being ghost towns, but with great nightlife caravan of armed men ready to take advantage of their location for the entry of illegal trade. In the colonial, independence and republic periods, the movements of merchandise were gotten on mules, and later, in cars with powerful lamps. These are everyday realities, being nothing more than a myth, as expressed by Gabriel García Márquez in his book " The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother” (García Marquez, 1972) This form of accumulation of capital, movement of goods, and development of routes with their respective relationships and interrelations of networks, surpasses illegal activities that remain today, a legacy of usages which have occurred since the structure of the nation. The development of a nation, region or locality is associated with the competitiveness of the enterprises situated in different economic sectors, fostering the consolidation of socio-economic structures locally, regionally and nationally, consistent with the challenges of a globalized world to be dynamic agents of business relationships that allow the strengthening of infrastructural power, giving a flow of resources to the state represented in taxes, and contributing to employment generation, facilitating in turn, consumption, investment and savings. The above dissertation is supported on three key areas that must be reviewed: foreign trade, as an engine driving the transformation and growth of commerce; technical development, seen as the linchpin of the new forms of production to increase productivity; and active policies of income distribution, that encourage better use of resources, thereby improving the income and empowering the domestic market. In the words of Jose Guillermo García Isaza, in its paper: “External insertion, transformation and development in the periphery”, 2006:

"...The organic articulation to the commercial, technical, and productive dynamic of capitalist markets, frames the structural evolution that the peripheral economies undertake in processes of modernization and productive diversification, through which they can integrate the population into the dynamics of technical progress, productivity gains, and increasing incomes. Growth is based on processes of structural change (productive transformation and equity), which broaden and improve productive capacity and make it possible to reduce the productive and technical gap with the center…"(Garcia Izasa, 2006, pp. 57).

Colombian Caribbean economic boom occurred in the period (1860-1960), and was cut short in a general form, with the marked exception of Barranquilla city12

12 Barranquilla becomes the main port of Colombian Caribbean region since the 1870s due to movement of goods which attract a considerable number of families from Cartagena, Santa Marta and from abroad. It also presents an accelerated growth of industrial activity in the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1928 there are 81 industrial settlements established in the city. Since its inception, Barranquilla is a tolerant city, where entrepreneurs from different backgrounds find refuge and opportunity for development, generating initiatives on export and import trade, maintaining inland and maritime navigation, livestock and industrial activity. Some examples of this diversity are: Obregon textile mill in 1909, Cervecería Barranquilla in 1913 Dugand Bank in 1917, Scadta aviation company in 1919 and El Prado construction company in 1920. (Viloria, 2000)

. This historic moment, loomed Cartagena city as a major center of industrial activity, a focus of development for an entrepreneur



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lineage, with factories, industries and well-known firms that were gradually declining due to the change in market conditions, emergence of different competitors, and other facts, such as: dependence on exports of raw materials without value added, imports of luxury items with non, or very little component of productive transformation, overflowing regional debt, lack of structural planning, and the starting development of native industry in the city, being these, facts, that affected the sustainability of the development process generated in that frame of time. Colombian Caribbean region witnessed the evolution of family business groups sustaining the development of partnerships under shared responsibility, risk, and profit, with a strong trend of capital reinvestment and participation in various scenarios through investment processes into family and friends entrepreneurial initiatives. Natural resistance to change, was one of the most important facts that stopped the great process of industrialization and development managed by the city of Cartagena, playing a key role in the stagnation of Caribbean family groups companies, limiting the improvement of the conditions of the region and domestic industry, that got behind the national factories at the end of the 40s. Organizations such as: Bavaria, Carvajal, or Corona, being of family composition got into new scenarios to maintain and develop operations with competitive standards on continuous improvement, developing monitoring mechanisms to family involvement that are evident in Carvajal group and its ethical code. The transformation of the economic structure of domestic industry needed the adequacy of processes and guidelines; however, Cartageneros businessmen tended to maintain the old fashioned parameters that had been favorable, protecting the family-run organizations regardless, in many cases, the degree of readiness and managerial skills that must be applied into a competitive environment. The current stalemate of the Colombian Caribbean region, and particularly, of Cartagena city, seems to be product of the new associative dynamics, with a strong centralized governmental power influence; the new dynamics got beyond individual benefits and advantages; These individual paths have been sustained as ancestry frameworks, sheltered by the hegemonic lineage of the oversea conquerors that are still preserved as precious treasures rusted by the time already gone. It is necessary to start envisioning a new future and not to cross streets evoking the past as it would be said, by the great poet, Luis Carlos López13

.

13 Lopez, Luis Carlos, poet who is famous for his depictions of the people and life of his native city. Except for short periods during which he served in minor consular posts in Munich and Baltimore, López spent his entire life in Cartagena. His acute observations of the provincial society in which he lived have made him one of the most respected regional writers in South American literature. His major works are De mi villorio (1908; “Of My Village”), Posturas dificiles (1909; “Difficult Situations”), and Por el atajo (1928; “For the Short-Cut”). Britannia Enciclopedy, Access: 09-11-09, location: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1354136/Luis-Carlos-Lopez



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