Regional Shifts and National Trajectories: Differences in the Context and Strategies of Business Groups

Abstract

In this chapter we present an analysis of the 67 principal diversified business groups in Central America. The aim is to advance towards the hypotheses that were discussed in Chapter 2 in relation to the strategies that DBGs in the region are adopting in order to face the increasing competition from foreign multinationals: (a) that in an internationally integrated economy, DBGs from developing countries will be subordinated to the MNCs and incorporated within their circuits of accumulation; (b) that they will rather attempt to differentiate themselves from the MNCs by shifting sector focus (or alternatively move towards further specialization); and (c) that they will expand internationally themselves. As noted in Chapter 2, these are not mutually exclusive hypotheses, and some are indeed complementary: This chapter will investigate how different groups present varied combinations of these strategies, and how this combination differs across the countries in the region.