Key Terms in Business and Industry
Holding Companies
A holding company is a financial entity that controls various companies, owning all or a significant part of their actions.
Research, Development, and Innovation (R&D&I)
R&D&I encompasses investments in the industry, including:
- Basic Research: Work to develop new knowledge.
- Applied Research: Work to apply new knowledge to a practical purpose.
- Systems and Services.
- Innovation: Improving competitiveness.
Endogenous Industrialization
Endogenous industrialization is the process of attracting industries to areas that leverage their competitive advantages and resources. It sometimes arises from indigenous initiatives that build an entrepreneurial tradition in agriculture, services, labor, local raw materials, and good communication. It has been facilitated by the decentralization of production and the segmentation of tasks between different institutions. Integrated networks of SMEs arise in supply chains, sometimes even very broad or specific, dedicated to supporting each other and producing the specialization of certain areas, known as industrial districts.
INI (Instituto Nacional de Industria)
INI, the Instituto Nacional de Industria, was a body created in 1941 and organized as a public company. It promoted strategic sectors after the Civil War, which needed heavy investment and were unprofitable, thus not attracting private investment. It was dissolved in 1995, and some of its companies were privatized.
Latifundio
A latifundio is a large property (over 100 hectares). In Spain, these properties account for more than half of the land, owned by only 0.8% of owners. They are predominant in Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, and the Balearic Islands. Their origin lies in the land distribution during the Reconquest and was consolidated with the seizures of the nineteenth century. They are characterized by the supposed disinterestedness of the owner, extensive cultivation, low yields, and the employment of large numbers of laborers. Currently, many have become capitalist enterprises with high yields.
Smallholder
A smallholder refers to small holdings (under 10 hectares), which account for only 10.5% of the land and are owned by 52.3% of owners. They are predominant in the northern peninsula, Valencia, and the Canary Islands. They tend to disappear but are still favored by part-time farming. Some small owners or sharecropping lease plots, which makes the average farm size greater than the average size of holdings.
Monoculture
Monoculture is a type of productive specialization in an agrarian region, namely the predominance of one or several related crops. It is often typical of extensive agriculture highly integrated into commercial channels.
Pipeline
A pipeline is a conduit for the carriage of crude oil and petroleum products. It uses gravity and pumping techniques and is often provided underground. It goes from coastal areas to consumption centers, resulting in lower transport costs than other methods.
Openfield or Open Fields
Openfield or open fields is a type of agricultural landscape in which there are no physical boundaries between plots. It is characteristic of concentrated bending areas where there was traditionally a collective organization of farming.
CAP (Common Agricultural Policy)
CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy, was adopted by Spain upon joining the EU in 1986. It has allowed access to a huge market for Spanish products but has also forced an increase in competitiveness, quality, and yields, for which producers have received substantial EU aid. It tends to compensate divorced from production, so that it more attuned to the needs of the market and not create a surplus.
Technology Park
A technology park is a private entrepreneurship that consists of building modern and functional buildings with low densities on the outskirts of an urban agglomeration to generate new technologies and experiment with prototypes. They are often near a university or technical institute, working with companies. Their purpose is to provide small and medium production units with high quality and productivity in an environment friendly to stimulate research and innovation.