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ABSTRACT Based upon the theory of "Flexible Specialization" this article reconsiders some central assumptions of the historiography of industrialization (e.g. centralization of work, de-skilling of workers). Furthermore,... more
ABSTRACT Based upon the theory of "Flexible Specialization" this article reconsiders some central assumptions of the historiography of industrialization (e.g. centralization of work, de-skilling of workers). Furthermore, the example of the engineering workshop within the big iron and steel company JHH broadens the theory in two respects: Firstly, it questions the focus of "Flexible Specialization" research on small firms within decentralised industrial districts. Secondly, it offers insight into the everyday working and power relations at stake. With the help of electronic network visualization relatively stable working groups have been reconstructed from the workshop's payroll who autonomously manage and fulfil the highly specialized tasks. The case study therefore exemplifies management methods and working-relations in the context of a flexible production system.
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Electric vehicles have been "the next big trend" for more than 100 years. The first commercially viable electric car was available in the 1890s but failed to become the dominant design. The case chronicles the development of the... more
Electric vehicles have been "the next big trend" for more than 100 years. The first commercially viable electric car was available in the 1890s but failed to become the dominant design. The case chronicles the development of the Electric Vehicle Company (EVC), founded in 1896, which by the turn of the century was the largest manufacturer and user of electric vehicles in the United States. Students evaluate the competition between the three different available engine technologies (gas, electric and steam) and their value propositions. Applying the Business Model Canvas, they explore the misfit between the immature technology and the ambitious sales strategy of EVC. The case guides students in designing a turnaround plan, which addresses many of the challenges that electric car companies, such as Tesla, struggle with today
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etwa seit der industriellen revolution mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ausbruch des ersten Weltkrieges intensivierten sich internationale Verflechtungen wie nie zuvor. Dampfgetriebene transportmittel, neue Kommunikationsmedien wie der... more
etwa seit der industriellen revolution mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ausbruch des ersten Weltkrieges intensivierten sich internationale Verflechtungen wie nie zuvor. Dampfgetriebene transportmittel, neue Kommunikationsmedien wie der elektrische telegraph und günstige politisch-rechtliche rahmenbedingungen ließen Auslandsinvestitionen massiv ansteigen. globale Handelsströme umspannten und vernetzten die Welt. Zu den ersten mechanischen Konsumprodukten, die vom Westen in alle Welt exportiert wurden, zählte das grammophon. indien war hierbei keine Ausnahme und wurde von Herstellern und Händlern frühzeitig als vielversprechender markt identifiziert. Der prozess, durch den westliche technologien nach indien kamen, ist vielfach beschrieben worden, häufig als transfer oder Diffusion von West nach ost und in enger Verbindung mit dem britischen imperialismus. Die Funktion und die identität von gütern bleiben jedoch nicht über grenzen und räume hinweg stabil. Dies gilt insbesondere in sogenannten „creative industries“ (caves), wie beispielsweise dem geschäft mit musikalischen tonträgern, das in enger Verbindung mit dem grammophon-Handel stand. es ist vielfach darauf hingewiesen worden, dass Wirtschaftsgüter keine universelle Bedeutung besitzen, jenseits ihres sozialen, kulturel-
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The period from Western industrialization to World War I has aptly been described as that of the “fi rst global economy” because international trade expanded rapidly during that time.1 While there is a lot of uncertainty about the amount... more
The period from Western industrialization to World War I has aptly been described as that of the “fi rst global economy” because international trade expanded rapidly during that time.1 While there is a lot of uncertainty about the amount and composition of foreign investments, scholars agree that the share of trade in world output rose steadily until 1913. According to an estimate by John Dunning, about one-third of total world foreign investment took the form of direct foreign investments in 1913, because multinational companies not only exported to foreign countries but also owned assets and exerted management control there.2 Setting this number in relation to world output suggests a level of economic integration that was not reached again until the 1990s.3
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Conference at the GHI Washington, December 9–11, 2010. Co-sponsored by the GHI and the graduate program “Generations in Modern History,” University of Gottingen. Conveners: Hartmut Berghoff (GHI), Bernd Weisbrod (Gottingen), Uff a Jensen... more
Conference at the GHI Washington, December 9–11, 2010. Co-sponsored by the GHI and the graduate program “Generations in Modern History,” University of Gottingen. Conveners: Hartmut Berghoff (GHI), Bernd Weisbrod (Gottingen), Uff a Jensen (Max-Planck-Institut fur Bildungsforschung, Berlin), Christina Lubinski (GHI/Harvard). Participants: Astrid Baerwolf (Gottingen), Volker Benkert (Arizona State), Olof Brunninge (Jonkoping International Business School), Elwood Carlson (Florida State), Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, CUNY), Karl H. Fussl (Technical University of Berlin), Gary Cross (Pennsylvania State), Kirsten Gerland (Gottingen), Hope M. Harrison (George Washington University), Jochen Hung (Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, London), Jan Logemann (GHI), Ondrej Matejka (Institute of Contemporary History, Prague), Daniel Morat (Free University of Berlin), Maria Fernandez Moya (University of Barcelona), Lutz Niethammer (University of Jena), Miriam Rurup (GHI), Dirk Schumann (Got...
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Introduction Family firms constitute the backbone of the entrepreneurial landscape in Europe. They have been the cornerstone of traditional and modern business in this continent for centuries, something which has been well recorded in... more
Introduction Family firms constitute the backbone of the entrepreneurial landscape in Europe. They have been the cornerstone of traditional and modern business in this continent for centuries, something which has been well recorded in public and private registers since at least since the early stages of capitalism in early modern times. Why is the family firm an institution able to survive and to compete in global capitalism? Consultants often analyze endogenous factors that take place in the continuity of family firms throughout generations, like leadership, succession planning, or the professionalization of management. Economists try to compare differences in terms of performance or financial resources needed for growth and expansion with non family firms. Historians, particularly business historians, more frequently try to take into account the external institutional conditions that may provide opportunities or
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Electric vehicles have been "the next big trend" for more than 100 years. The first commercially viable electric car was available in the 1890s but failed to become the dominant design. The case chronicles the development of the... more
Electric vehicles have been "the next big trend" for more than 100 years. The first commercially viable electric car was available in the 1890s but failed to become the dominant design. The case chronicles the development of the Electric Vehicle Company (EVC), founded in 1896, which by the turn of the century was the largest manufacturer and user of electric vehicles in the United States. Students evaluate the competition between the three different available engine technologies (gas, electric and steam) and their value propositions. Applying the Business Model Canvas, they explore the misfit between the immature technology and the ambitious sales strategy of EVC. The case guides students in designing a turnaround plan, which addresses many of the challenges that electric car companies, such as Tesla, struggle with today.
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This case examines the management of home and host country risk by Beiersdorf during the interwar years. It can be used both in business history courses and more generally to teach political risk management by multinational corporations.... more
This case examines the management of home and host country risk by Beiersdorf during the interwar years. It can be used both in business history courses and more generally to teach political risk management by multinational corporations. Beiersdorf, a German personal products company, expanded globally before 1914, but had its foreign factories and intellectual property expropriated during World War 1. After 1919 ceo Willy Jacobson rebuilt the international business, and sought to protect it by "cloaking" the ultimate ownership. Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler, as German Chancellor in 1933, Beiersdorf and Jacobson personally also came under attack by the anti-Semitic Nazi regime in its home country. The case can be used as a vehicle to understand the rise of both host and home country risk by companies during the interwar years, and more generally to explore the strategies which firms can follow to attempt to manage such risks.Learning Objective:Examines corporat...
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Industriegesellschaft und Kulturtransfer: Die deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert [Industrial Society and Cultural Transfer: German-American Relations in the Twentieth Century]. By Volker Berghahn. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2010. 314 pp. Figures, tables, notes, index....more
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Family business scholars have argued that succession entails all actions and events that occur between generations to transfer ownership and/or management. Building on this definition, I focus explicitly on the period prior to the... more
Family business scholars have argued that succession entails all actions and events that occur between generations to transfer ownership and/or management. Building on this definition, I focus explicitly on the period prior to the successor’s entering the business. I borrow the concept of “anticipatory socialization” from organizational sociologists and argue that this period has unique characteristics in multi-generational family firms mainly because of the close link between the successor’s choice of occupation and his or her choice of organization. In an explorative historical case study I investigate the unique features of anticipatory socialization in family firms. My findings include a detailed description of the information channels and social capital transfers during that period as well as an assessment of the role of narrations, symbolic objects, and formal and informal education. In the last part of the paper, I link these findings to Pierre Bourdieu’s capital theory, whic...
Considerations about the legitimacy of futures trading have been ubiquitous in the highly integrated world economy since the late nineteenth century. This article compares two national debates in Germany and British India from the 1880s... more
Considerations about the legitimacy of futures trading have been ubiquitous in the highly integrated world economy since the late nineteenth century. This article compares two national debates in Germany and British India from the 1880s to the 1930s. Despite significant differences in the cultural and economic contexts of the two countries and in the emergence of futures trading, there are interesting similarities. In both countries, individual futures exchanges were organized and controlled by small privileged groups of traders. These minorities were glued together by social ties, de facto controlling (or profiting from) access to futures markets and facing criticism because of their privileged position. While contemporaries and historians often focus on futures trading as trading without intent to deliver, the historical analysis in this article shows that an equally important issue was the conflict over distribution and power between more and less privileged interest groups and t...
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While most research on family business longevity focuses on how internal corporate governance issue impact resilience, the aim of this article is to foreground the relevance of external environmental factors, and to do so in an... more
While most research on family business longevity focuses on how internal corporate governance issue impact resilience, the aim of this article is to foreground the relevance of external environmental factors, and to do so in an internationally comparative perspective. By historically comparing the largest family businesses in Germany and Spain in the twentieth century, we find that they differ significantly in age and ask how external factors help us better understand these variances. After analysing the institutional framework of the two countries during the second part of the 20th century, we explore the strategic responses developed in reaction to that framework by four of the largest family businesses in the two countries. With this, we strive to capture the interdependent nature of internal decision-making processes and external environmental changes, ultimately arguing for a more holistic understanding of family business resilience over time.
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Research on entrepreneurship remains fragmented in business history. A lack of conceptual clarity inhibits comparisons between studies and dialogue among scholars. To address these issues, we propose to reinvent entrepreneurial history as... more
Research on entrepreneurship remains fragmented in business history. A lack of conceptual clarity inhibits comparisons between studies and dialogue among scholars. To address these issues, we propose to reinvent entrepreneurial history as a research field. We define “new entrepreneurial history” as the study of the creative processes that propel economic change. Rather than putting actors, hierarchies, or institutions at the center of the analysis, we focus explicitly on three distinct entrepreneurial processes as primary objects of study: envisioning and valuing opportunities, allocating and reconfiguring resources, and legitimizing novelty. The article elaborates on the historiography, premises, and potential contributions of new entrepreneurial history.
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Research has made great strides in understanding how and why organizational actors use the past. So far, scholars have largely focused the level of analysis on the organization, without exploring the intertwined nature of historical... more
Research has made great strides in understanding how and why organizational actors use the past. So far, scholars have largely focused the level of analysis on the organization, without exploring the intertwined nature of historical claim-making with the organizational field or society at large. This article extends the status quo by conceptualizing the role of context for organizational uses-of-the-past. It identifies three key aspects of context that shape how history contributes to the social construction of reality: the existence of multiple audiences, the landscape of pre-existing historical narratives and the experience of social practices giving credibility to historical claims. By analysing the historical case of German business in colonial India, the paper makes three broader claims that could move research toward a more contextualized conception of the uses-of-the-past: (i) historical claims are validated in a continuous dialogue with multiple audiences; (ii) they revise p...
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During the first global economy, roughly from Western industrialization to World War I, the gramophone, much like other consumer goods, circulated relatively freely around the world. This paper compares the market in India and China... more
During the first global economy, roughly from Western industrialization to World War I, the gramophone, much like other consumer goods, circulated relatively freely around the world. This paper compares the market in India and China asking how gramophone companies established themselves there and focuses on the interaction between Western businesspeople and local partners. The article first shows how agents started exploring strategies for “localizing” music and, second, how in both countries their interaction with local partners was first shaped by curiosity and commercial interest, and later by traditionalism and nationalism, the latter of which paradoxically both inhibited and enabled Western business. Based on diaries, corporate files, trade journals, and consular reports, the paper shows that the highly localized and politicized demand for music made access to local knowledge a crucial competitive advantage.
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Between family heritage and global market. Changes in ownership and management of large West-German family firms (1060-2008) Large family firms fall b e t w e e n t w o theoretical accounts. T h e y neither f o l l o w the d e v e l o p m... more
Between family heritage and global market. Changes in ownership and management of large West-German family firms (1060-2008) Large family firms fall b e t w e e n t w o theoretical accounts. T h e y neither f o l l o w the d e v e l o p m e n t path described by A l f r e d D . C h a n d l e r nor d o t h e y resemble smalland m e d i u m sized M i t t e l stand firms, w h i c h Gary Herr ige l h ighl ighted as a successful alternative. T h i s is the reason w h y thus far there has b e e n little research about t h e m b e y o n d indiv idual case studies. T h i s article focuses o n large family firms in G e r m a n y d u r i n g the s e c o n d hal f o f the twent ie th century. Based on a regional ly focused sample o f 310 businesses, the author offers insights into their o w n e r s h i p and m a n a g e m e n t in i960, and asks h o w the firms d e v e l o p e d until 2008. T h e major i ty o f large family firms had surprisingly h o m o g e n o u s characteristics, such as concentrated l o n g t e r m family o w n e r s h i p , f e w shareholders, and family m a n a g e m e n t . T h i s structure was successful w i t h i n the historical c o n t e x t o f the 1960s but c a m e u n d e r attack dur ing the crisis-ridden d e c ades that f o l l o w e d . B y tracing these changes, the paper simultaneously s h o w s that the theoretical d i c h o t o m y o f family and managerial firm is misleading. Instead o f interpret ing the family firm as a static organizat ion, the focus should shift to the family influence, w h i c h evolves w i t h t ime and wi th the e v o l u t i o n o f m a c r o e c o n o m i c and political environments .
ABSTRACT In contrast to widespread assessments that family enterprises lack sufficient resources and capabilities to go global, many family companies are competing successfully in an increasingly globalized business environment.... more
ABSTRACT In contrast to widespread assessments that family enterprises lack sufficient resources and capabilities to go global, many family companies are competing successfully in an increasingly globalized business environment. Worldwide, a large number of thriving multinationals are still family-owned and/or under family control. While there is abundant literature on the phenomenon of globalization from many different disciplines, neither the literature on multinationals nor the growing field of family business studies have systematically investigated family multinationals yet. This volume is one of the first to deal explicitly with family multinationals and the role of the family in internationalization. It situates itself at the crossroads of internationalization studies on the one hand and family business research on the other. Why do families continue to play such a large role in some of the most prominent firms in emerging and mature economies? How did they manage to maintain ownership control, yet divest of unrelated business ventures? How did they internationalize yet maintain control? This book identifies the idiosyncratic strategies and structures of family multinationals in different countries and at different points in time. A comparative historical and case study approach allows us to explore the role of the family through the firms’ various internationalization pathways and understand long-term developments and path dependencies.
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Much of international business literature has dealt with the costs of engaging in business abroad. Recently, several authors have called into question the basic assumptions of the “liability of foreignness” argument. They plead for a more... more
Much of international business literature has dealt with the costs of engaging in business abroad. Recently, several authors have called into question the basic assumptions of the “liability of foreignness” argument. They plead for a more nuanced look at nationality beyond the dichotomy of foreign vis-à-vis local firms and raise doubts about the assumption that more distance necessarily translates into higher costs. This article adds to this criticism with a historical analysis of German multinational enterprises in preindependence India. The case proves (1) the relevance of specific nationalities, (2) the importance of conflicting host and home country attitudes for understanding multinationals’ strategy, and (3) the possibility of spillover effects across national borders. Expanding on existing theory, the article makes a point in showing how malleable and contextual associations with nationality are, thus making a thorough historical analysis of commercial, political, and cultura...
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This article analyzes the German dye business in India before 1947 as an example of expanding German-Indian commercial relationships. German dye manufacturers showed great interest in India's economic potential in the absence of... more
This article analyzes the German dye business in India before 1947 as an example of expanding German-Indian commercial relationships. German dye manufacturers showed great interest in India's economic potential in the absence of discriminatory tariffs, while Indian elites were interested in non-British Western partners, which could support their struggle for industrial self-reliance. This particular alignment of interests facilitated cooperation and shows that the so-called European experience is more diverse than research has shown so far. The analysis highlights global trading networks beyond the political boundaries of formal empire and offers an alternative perspective on Indian business history, which reveals more competition between multinationals of different origins and more strategic choices available to Indians.
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Familienunternehmen bilden eine stabile Säule der deutschen Unternehmenslandschaft. Dieses Buch analysiert ihre Charakteristika und Entwicklung seit den 1960er Jahren im Kontext der bundesrepublikanischen Wirtschafts- und... more
Familienunternehmen bilden eine stabile Säule der deutschen Unternehmenslandschaft. Dieses Buch analysiert ihre Charakteristika und Entwicklung seit den 1960er Jahren im Kontext der bundesrepublikanischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. Dabei zeigt sich, dass sich die Beziehungen zwischen Familien und Unternehmen seit den 1970er Jahren massiv veränderten. Dieser Wendepunkt sowie seine Ursachen und Konsequenzen stehen im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung.
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Internment in so-called “enemy countries” was a frequent occurrence in the 20th century and created significant obstacles for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This article focuses on German MNEs in India and shows how they addressed the... more
Internment in so-called “enemy countries” was a frequent occurrence in the 20th century and created significant obstacles for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This article focuses on German MNEs in India and shows how they addressed the formidable challenge of the internment of their employees in British camps during both WWI and WWII. We find that internment impacted business relationships in India well beyond its endpoint and that the WWI internment shaped the subsequent perception of and strategic response to the WWII experience. We show that internment aggravated existing staffing challenges, impacted the perception of racial lines of distinctions, and re-casted the category “European business.” While internment was perceived and managed as a political risk, the case also shows that it created unexpected networking opportunities, generating a tight community of German businesspeople in India.
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During the first global economy, roughly from Western industrialization to World War I, the gramophone, much like other consumer goods, circulated relatively freely around the world. This paper compares the market in India and China... more
During the first global economy, roughly from Western industrialization to World War I, the gramophone, much like other consumer goods, circulated relatively freely around the world. This paper compares the market in India and China asking how gramophone companies established themselves there and focuses on the interaction between Western businesspeople and local partners. The article first shows how agents started exploring strategies for " localizing " music and, second, how in both countries their interaction with local partners was first shaped by curiosity and commercial interest, and later by traditionalism and nationalism, the latter of which paradoxically both inhibited and enabled Western business. Based on diaries, corporate files, trade journals, and consular reports, the paper shows that the highly localized and politicized demand for music made access to local knowledge a crucial competitive advantage.