Contemporary Portuguese Business Elites

Elites Políticas e Económicas do Portugal Contemporâneo

Maria da Conceição Coelho de Meireles Pereira

Antonieta Maria Sousa Lima

• Elites empresariais
• Poder
• Portugal Contemporâneo

• Antonieta Lima
• Maria da Conceição Marques
• Vasco Salazar Soares

• Jorge Remondes de Sousa
• António José da Silva Andrade
• João Pedro Dinis Araújo de Sousa
• Maria de Lurdes Torres
• Alexandra Sofia Tavares Almeida dos Santos
• José Carlos de Sousa Martins

This Research Group, observing the theme of the CEPESE Strategic Plan for 2015-2020 - Portugal within a world on the move: comparative analysis and digital environments - and within the thematic line Sociabilities and powers: political and economic elites in Portugal, aims to build a massive digital database with the identification of Portuguese business elites. The “Company”, understood as a complex organization that encompasses knowledge, techniques and values, has been playing a predominant role, along with its protagonists, entrepreneurs. This scope is articulated with the multidisciplinarity of knowledge and functions that enhance growth and development. Therefore, the business history - with little tradition in our country - not only includes the trajectory of individual companies and their entrepreneurs, but also of the respective business systems. Hence the relevance of studying business paths, their identity and culture, which is why, on the one hand, the characterization of business elites in Northern Portugal is intended, and on the other hand, the identification of factors of success (and also of failure) ) that marked the trajectory and thinking of these business elites. In a first phase, the analysis focuses on the Entre Douro e Vouga (EDV) sub-region with relevance in the industrial sector; later the research will be extended to other regions of the North of Portugal. It is intended to investigate the interactions and dynamics between the political elite and the business elite of the North of the country, a factor that emphasizes the relevance, originality and impact of the proposed program that assumes the specialization strategy in the region of the country in which this R&D is inserted and aims to transfer knowledge.

This Research Group will be coordinated by a researcher who will have the mission, together with the assistant coordinator, to organize the development of the research to be carried out by the body of researchers to which individual but articulated tasks will be committed. It will count on the support of the CEPESE transversal group specialized in ICT applied to Social Sciences and Humanities, which will produce the databases and other computer tools necessary for the strategic objectives and methodological and scientific challenges of the research group. For the elaboration of research centered on business elites, it is predominantly the responsibility of specialists in the field of Management (domain of assistant coordinator specialization). In addition to the integrated members, several employees will be associated with the research, whose contributions will be properly planned and integrated into the project and the group's global objectives, in order to enhance their skills and capabilities. The diversity of scientific training of the members involved reflects the multidisciplinary nature of the projects and actions to be developed by this group. The work to be carried out by the integrated researchers and by the collaborators will observe an initial planning, subject to schedules and reviewed annually, which will stipulate a production according to agreed objectives . Thus, the Entrepreneurial Elites of Contemporary Portugal project (directed by Antonieta Lima) covers the period 2015-2020. It aims to implement a responsible and effective work culture, frequent communication, mutual assistance and productive dialogue. Regular joint or sectoral meetings are foreseen, in any case conducted by the coordinator or by the assistant coordinator and, only in case of impediment by a researcher appointed by them. In these meetings, small reports of activities carried out and to be carried out, identification of problems and constraints, reflection on measures to overcome difficulties and improvement of the research process, definition of means, feasibility and relevance of individual or collaborative scientific production will be produced.It intends to privilege the dialogue and exchange of experiences with national researchers, as well as internationalization will be taken into account, promoting contact and exchange with researchers foreign research networks, mainly Spanish, a national reality that best allows the desired comparative analysis of phenomena under study. The results of these projects will be poured into seminars, workshops and exhibitions as well as works published in books, articles from scientific journals, seminar minutes and catalogs in order to guarantee the transfer of knowledge, at different levels. In addition, in collaboration with the Academy of Entrepreneurship of Isvouga, whose project is the responsibility of a collaborator of this Research Group (Alexandra Santos), it intends to carry out training actions..