A Visit to the Baron

Ano: 2005 | Volume: 2 | Número: 2

Autores: Carlos Osmar Bertero, Tatiana Iwai

Palavras-chave: entrepreneurship, strategy, institutionalism

Resumo Inglês:

The towering figure of the Baron of Mauá holds an indisputable place in the economic development of Brazil.
His trajectory is widely analyzed not only because of his important achievements, but also because he became
the symbol of an entrepreneur, whose failure in business is often blamed on an institutional context that could
not understand his vision of development for the country and was hostile towards his industrialization projects
and modernization of Brazil. Nevertheless, if we review his trajectory, we will see that not only can his actions
in business be considered mistaken, if analyzed in the light of current concepts developed in the field of strategy,
but they were also close to the governmental policies of the time. Therefore, to a certain extent, Mauá was a
prisoner of the Brazilian institutional context of his day. The aim of this article is to review the position that
Mauá, as a classic-style entrepreneur, was opposed to the institutional order of his day and, for that reason,
would have been punished. We will actually see that on the one hand, he was opposed to it, and on the other he
also trusted it and came to depend on it.