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The Role of Military Managers in State-Owned Companies in Argentina. Astilleros y Fábricas Navales del Estado (1953–1986)

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Reassessing the Role of Management in the Golden Age

Part of the book series: Central Issues in Contemporary Economic Theory and Policy ((CICETP))

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Abstract

Our purpose is to analyze—focusing on the profiles of the top management—the State influence in the Argentine industrialization through the creation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) in strategic sectors, as a key factor in economic policy since the Second World War until the 1980s. The main argument is that the professionalization of the senior officers in Argentine Armed Forces influenced the creation and the trajectory of SOEs in strategic sectors. We focus on a case study, the State-owned shipyard—Astilleros y Fábricas Navales del Estado—created by the decision of the Navy in the early 1950s.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The strategic sectors are those which, by nature (effects of supply), strongly influence the economic, technological and industrial development of the country. They included energy industries (oil and gas), iron and steel, nuclear, chemical (heavy and petrochemical chemistry) and defense (shipbuilding, armaments industry, aeronautics and space industry) as well as those related to information and telecommunication technologies (Beyreuther 2011).

  2. 2.

    Between 2003 and 2015, the following companies and public services, among the most important, were restatized: mail service, radio spectrum, pension funds, railways, energy, water and sanitation, and Argentina Satelital, Aerolínes Argentina, Enarsa and YPF.

  3. 3.

    Enrique Mosconi was a civil engineer trained as a military engineer in Prussia. He was the General Director of the military arsenals from 1914 until 1918, and in 1920, he was the Director of the War Arsenal of the Army, “Esteban de Luca”. In 1922, he assumed the direction of YPF.

  4. 4.

    Manuel Nicolas Savio graduated from the Military College as Second Lieutenant in 1910. Between 1917 and 1929 he taught technical subjects at the Military College, at the Army War College and at the School of Mechanics. In 1930, he reorganized the Superior Military College and on that basis organized the EST, the Army technical college with the aim of training military engineers.

  5. 5.

    Manera E., Navy Officers’ Service Records (Box 247), Navy’s Historic Archive.

  6. 6.

    To replace the lack of cranes and presses, many materials were carried, literally, by hand or on shoulder (González Climent 1973, p. 132).

  7. 7.

    The president of the Directory Board had to be a senior officer of the Navy and also had to include at least two other members of high rank of the Navy (Decree no. 10627/1953, article 4th).

  8. 8.

    The organizational chart was established by the decree no. 16385/1959.

  9. 9.

    Antonio Marín studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a scholarship of the Argentine Navy. He graduated as a naval and mechanical engineer in 1940. Back in Argentina, he participated with Edmundo Manera in creating the Naval Engineering career at University of Buenos Aires. Marín took part in the first team of engineers of AFNE and designed the flagship of the Argentina Navy.

  10. 10.

    The most important debtors were the following public companies: Empresa Líneas Marítimas Argentinas (ELMA) YPF and Yacimientos Carboníferos Fiscales.

  11. 11.

    In the first half of the twentieth century, naval engineers studied in foreign universities. In 1943, the Navy Corps of Engineers was composed of only 18 professionals who were graduated mostly in the United States, Italy and Britain (Gonzalez Climent 1973, p. 144).

  12. 12.

    The Bachelor’s Degree in Naval Engineering had a duration of six years as other engineering at the University of Buenos Aires.

  13. 13.

    Since then Manera joined the National Committee of the Bermejo River. Subsequently, he was the president of the Professional Council of Naval Engineering, chairman of the Naval Technical Division in the Argentine Centre of Engineers and member of the Institute of Argentine Merchant Marine (Manera E., Navy Officers’ Service Records, Box 247, Navy’s Historic Archive). He designed, in 1961, the first naval experimental center that now bears his name. This tunnel of 70 meters long is currently the only laboratory in the country and the third in the region.

  14. 14.

    The shipbuilding industry differs from the mass production due to the characteristics of its products, based on projects, with a high unit cost, that is to say, manufactured by unity or in a very limited quantity, “custom-made” (Hobday 1998, 2000; Davies and Hobday 2005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Cintia Russo

  2. Instituto de Geografia, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Cintia Russo

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  1. Cintia Russo
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Humanities and Society, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy

    Daniela Felisini

Appendix

Appendix

Table 1 Argentina, SOEs/GDP (1950–1975) (%)
Full size table
Table 2 AFNE, employment
Full size table
Table 3 Major naval productions, AFNE 1953–2012
Full size table
Table 4 AFNE, productive diversification (%/total turnover)
Full size table

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Russo, C. (2017). The Role of Military Managers in State-Owned Companies in Argentina. Astilleros y Fábricas Navales del Estado (1953–1986). In: Felisini, D. (eds) Reassessing the Role of Management in the Golden Age. Central Issues in Contemporary Economic Theory and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48722-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48722-9_8

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