This book is already established as the basic and most thorough guide for the social scientist studying the world of the Mexican businessman. The study, based on 200 interviews in 1969, focuses on social factors of economic growth. Part One of the book stresses environmental forces: state intervention as a nurturing force, foreign investment as a challenging force, and “familism” as a traditional force. Part Two presents a portrait of the Mexican entrepreneur, focusing on ethnic and class variables affecting their “breadth of vision and experience” and their perceptions of the Mexican power structure, prestige, and participation in society. The volume also contains extensive appendices on methodology, bibliographic materials, and fifty fascinating case portraits.
The field work (200 interviews with Mexican industrialists) was conducted in 1969, and the manuscript was completed a year later. This period represented a declining phase in the interest of entrepreneurship and its relation to economic growth, as it became more evident with the 1970s that “development” often increased poverty, that the Mexican “miracle” was showing severe signs of strain, and as attention shifted to the impact of multinational corporations (rather than local entrepreneurs) on economic and social development. Although interest in Derossi’s subject has become somewhat eclipsed, her work is an important contribution to our understanding of the sociology and psychology of economic development.
