This article intends to analyze how the issue of elite is used on the studies on businessmen in Brazil and to contribute to building an effective approach of them as elite. We can find some gaps and inaccuracies on these studies. The use of the term elite is not always accompanied by the development of its theoretical and methodological implications. And some studies that use methods of study of elites for analyze businessmen tend to associate it, precariously, to the treatment of other issues such as the social class. In this sense, we propose a distinction between business elite, the leaders of representative organizations of businessmen, and economic elite, the leaders of big companies. We intend to contribute both to greater accuracy of the analytical categories and for the construction of more effective hypotheses and methods for the study of businessmen. At the same time, we propose that the peculiarities and similarities of these two groups that compose the elite of businessmen is handled primarily, but not exclusively or isolated, from the question of politics and political institutions, in particular their values and ways of political action.
businessmen; entrepreneurs; elites; economic elite; business elite