Familia, redes y alianzas en la gran empresa espa？ola: el holding Comillas (1857-1890)

regarding the colonial beginnings (and international, later on) of the major spanish business corporation by the end of the xix century, comillas group, this paper inquires upon the use of the "network" concept applied to the evolution of said corporation (the shipping company compa？ía transatlántica; the factory of mechanic constructions arsenal civil de barcelona; the mining firm sociedad hullera espa？ola and the compa？ía general de tabacos de filipinas). the concept of "network" is used here in two different senses: (1) as an independent organization of companies which provided services to a central company; and (2) as a series of interpersonal relationships tied by the promoters of such companies which, in some cases, operated within different institutional and geographically remote contexts. finally, it aims at examining to what extent such personal networks resulted in important cost savings as regards information and negotiations for the studied firms