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The trajectories of internationalisation followed by family firms can be viewed from several theoretical approaches: phases and models of the internationalisation process; international entrepreneurship, the sociological perspective and family business theory. A historical perspective of internationalised family firms, allowing for the integration of the abovementioned approaches, is useful to obtain a deep understanding of the internationalisation process of different sectors and of different countries. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the facilitating and restricting factors during the internationalisation path of family firms, whilst considering the influence in their competitive advantages, of ownership structure, management attitudes and other intangible assets, as well as external factors to the firms, like location. The research involved a long run analysis (of more than one century) of two firms which operate in the cork business in Spain and Portugal: Mundet & C.ª, Lda and Corticeira Amorim. One of these companies - Mundet - was closed down in the 1980s and the other – Corticeira Amorim – became, and still is, the leading firm worldwide in the cork industry. A detailed comparison of these two histories - one of failure, and the other of success - permits an accurate identification of the determinants of successful internationalisation. In fact, this comparison is useful for understanding several characteristics of both firms, some of which are similar and others which are different, allowing to test several hypotheses within the context of the theoretical approach of the internationalisation of family firms. This methodological option can be justify by several aspects. Firstly, both are family firms operating in the same business and both were concentrated on the foreign market since their conception. Secondly, both their histories encompass most of the 20th Century and both faced similar national and international constraints, which were overcome, as they both ended up becoming the leading firms in the cork business, although at different periods of time. Thirdly, their choices of location were different and, although in both cases they benefitted from agglomeration forces during certain phases of the business, location was an important determinant of the opposing destinies of these two emblematic cork family firms from Iberia.

O sector corticeiro português é muito interessante para o estudo da problemática da concentração geográfica das actividades económicas. Acresce a este interesse o facto de Portugal se apresentar na actualidade como o maior produtor, transformador e exportador de cortiça, sendo esta das mais importantes componentes da chamada fileira florestal.

This paper is about the relative economic performance of clustered and non-clustered companies in the different phases of the cluster life cycle. It starts with the explanation of a puzzling localization behaviour, namely that most of the Portuguese cork manufacturing firms are concentrated in Santa Maria da Feira, a small county in the north of the country, whereas the bulk of the cork is produced in the south (Alentejo and Ribatejo). The historical roots and past and path dependence of the trajectory of this cluster are examined, as well as the identification of its life cycle phases. A comparative analysis of the economic performance of firms localized in Santa Maria da Feira and in other regions of the country is then made, using labour productivity data for a long time span of several decades. This exercise is a quantitative illustration of the crucial importance of history for the understanding of cluster dynamics, as well as many other (evolutionary) economic phenomena.

In the early decades of the contemporary world economy, Portugal had to perform twice difficult stabilization processes: during the 1890s as a consequence of the collapse of external and public debt payments, and during the 1920s in the wake of the First World War. This paper will analyse these Portuguese situations: the 1890s stabilization based on leaving the gold standard monetary system and on partial default of the external public debt payments led to a period of economic stagnation, which lasted until the First World War, in spite of the good international background provided by the so called belle époque; the 1920s stabilization based on a very tough fiscal adjustment opened the way to an interwar period of slight growth , in spite of the unfavourable international background provided by the problems of the 1920s and the Great Depression during the 1930s (although it was not enough to sustain the liberal republican regime, which was replaced by a military dictatorship, and later an authoritarian right-wing regime).

During the second half of the twentieth century, the Spanish cork industry had lost its hegemonic position to Portugal, in the world market of manufactured cork. In this work we intend to demonstrate that one of the most important explanations of the consolidation of this country’s leadership in the cork business lies in the formation and development of the industrial cork district of Aveiro (Santa Maria da Feira) in the north of Portugal. It was there where the growth of the Portuguese stopper industry took place and with this, the decisive orientation of this nation towards the manufacture of natural cork, substituting the traditional Portuguese trade in cork planks. We argue that the legislation that established the control of the industrial investment in Portugal, the so-called Industrial Conditioning (Condicionamento Industrial) did not restrict the opening of small cottage industries in the north, that fact being a determining reinforcement of the competitiveness of Aveiro in the world stopper trade. Another measure of major importance was the wage regulation covering this industry, being responsible for the wage differential favourable to the north comparing with the south and the centre of the country. Finally, we highlight the role of a big company (Amorim&Irmãos) in the formation and development of this industrial district, which became a leader firm in this sector at a world-wide level. Key words: Cork, “New State”, Portugal, Spain, Industrial District. JEL classification : N4, N5, N74, N8, N9, R32, L52.

En la segunda mitad del siglo XX, la industria corchera española perdió su posición hegemónica en el mercado mundial de las manufacturas corcheras en beneficio de la portuguesa. En la investigación iniciada pretendemos demostrar que una de las claves de la consolidación del liderazgo portugués en este negocio radica en la formación y desarrollo del distrito industrial corchero de Aveiro en el norte de Portugal, en el que se plasmó la expansión de la industria lusa del tapón de corcho, y con ella, la decisiva orientación de la nación hacia la transformación del corcho natural, en detrimento de su tradicional vocación preparadora. Se argumenta que la legislación reguladora de la inversión privada en Portugal (el llamado Condicionamento Industrial) fue tolerante con la apertura de pequeños establecimientos "caseros" en el norte del país, siendo este hecho un refuerzo determinante de la capacidad competitiva de la industria taponera aveirense (y portuguesa) en el mercado mundial. A esta intervención estatal se unió la regulación de los salarios de la industria corchera, que estableció un diferencial salarial favorable al norte frente al resto del país. Asimismo, se pone de manifiesto la participación de una gran empresa (Amorim&Irmãos) en la formación y desarrollo de este distrito industrial, la cual acabó por convertirse en la primera a nivel mundial en el sector. During the second half of the twentieth century, the Spanish cork industry lost its hegemonic position to Portugal in the world market of manufactured cork. In this work we intend to demonstrate that one of the most important explanations for the consolidation of Portuguese leadership in the cork business lies in the formation and development of the industrial cork district of Aveiro (Santa Maria da Feira) in the north of Portugal. It was there that the growth of the Portuguese cork stopper industry took place and with this, the decisive national shift in orientation towards the manufacture of natural cork, substituting the traditional Portuguese trade in planks. We argue that the legislation that established control of industrial investment in Portugal - the so-called Industrial Conditioning (Condicionamento Industrial) - did not restrict the opening of small cottage industries in the north, thus reinforcing the competitiveness of Aveiro in the world stopper trade. Another measure of major importance was the wage regulation covering this industry, which was responsible for the favorable wage differential for the north in comparison with the south and the centre of the country. Finally, we highlight the role played by a big company (Amorim&Irmãos) in the formation and development of this industrial district. This company became a leading firm in the sector world-wide.