Francesca Sanna
PhD Thesis in History and Civilization, Université de Paris, Supervised by Mathieu Arnoux and Manuela Martini, defended on the 18th december 2020.
Type: Dissertations

 

Jury

Mathieu Arnoux, Professeur, Université de Paris, Directeur de thèse

Manuela Martini, Professeure, Université Lyon 2 Lumières, Co-directrice de thèse

Judith Rainhorn, Professeure, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, Rapporteur

Blanche Segrestin, Professeure, Mines ParisTech, Rapporteur

Gérard Chastagnaret, Professeur Émérite, Université Aix-Marseille, Examinateur

Christophe Goupil, Professeur, Université de Paris, Examinateur

Abstract 

Between the mid-19th century and the 1950s, the Mediterranean mining basin participated in the combined development of mining and railways, one of the most dynamic phenomena of contemporary industry. In this context, especially from 1850 onwards, we observe a mining rush, in which companies of all sizes and players from various backgrounds were involved in mining operations. The Peñarroya Mining and Metallurgical Company (SMMP) is one of the leading European multinationals in this sector and the first Mediterranean multinational specialised in the extraction of non-ferrous minerals. The SMMP implemented its structure by restructuring a network of existing companies, which sometimes become real subsidiaries. The SMMP built a complex and multipolar industrial and financial architecture, which connected the fragments of the Mediterranean mining basin. Those interconnections, converted into industrial circuits, transformed and propelled the flow of mining resources into the metallurgical verticalisation and, eventually, into the market. To this extent, management was the key to guarantee the control of the resources and the continuity of the technical processes within the administration of the productive space. Rationalisation and scientific management was used by the SMMP to develop its managerial structure. Throughout the history of the SMMP, this thesis focuses, both in a global and micro-analytical perspective, on the Mediterranean mining area as a laboratory of managerial tools. In a sort of a spatial history of the Company, scientific management asserts itself as a historical object to question the economic, technical and social transformations of the contemporary Mediterranean.

Keywords : Mediterranean, Mining Industry, Peñarroya, rationalization