From Financial to Managerial Capitalism. The slow adaptation of Spanish corporate elite

In the last century, Spanish society and economy have endured considerable social and economic transformations which have also affected the corporate elite. Has the professionalization of managers of large companies broke away from old practices of crony capitalism? We have analysed the profiles of managers and executives of the biggest limited liability companies in Spain from 1917 to present day in order to answer this question. Prosoprographic method applied to different social capital fields of managers allows for a better understanding of how the Spanish corporate elite evolved. The latter entails an increase of managerial skills, through training and cosmopolitan capital; nonetheless, progress in managerial capitalism has not put an end to typical aspects of crony capitalism, which was attributed to most of the twentieth century and the new business elite has uplifted a new “entrenchment” in the last decades to put their interests before those of the country as a whole.