Small firms and networks in capital intensive industries: The case of Spanish steel wire manufacturing

Abstract

This article uses an interdisciplinary approach to gain a better understanding of the organization of the Spanish industry in a long-term perspective. Sociological concepts about networks, and studies about family firms from management and business history literatures, are combined to illuminate the dominance of family ownership in capital intensive industries. Popp, Toms and Wilson's work on the spatialization of resource distribution and resource dependence has been used to understand the dominance of small family firms co-ordinated by networks in the particular case study of the Spanish steel wire manufactures. The article also has important implications for questioning Casson's interpretation about the difficulties dynastic family firms may have in science-wire rod industries.