Archiv für die Kategorie ‘Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte / Journal of Business History’

«Quo vadis, Homo harzburgensis?» Aufstieg und Niedergang des «Harzburger Modells»

«Quo vadis, Homo harzburgensis?». The rise and fall of the «Harzburg Model»

The article examines the different development lines of the German leadership approach called the ≪Harzburg Model≫ which dominated the 1960s. The prevailing German special path consisted in a combination of in-house education and off-the-job training instead of establishing own ≪business schools≫ as in the U.S. The 1956 founding of the ≪Akademie fur Fuhrungskrafte der Wirtschaft e. V.≫ under the direction of former Nazi state lawyer Reinhard Hoehn stands, so to speak, at the beginning of an exponential growth of German training providers, whereas the German market was significantly ruled by the Harzburg Academy until the early 1970s. The gradual implementation of ≪management by≫ techniques and the introduction of a systematic assessment practice in international companies led to a striking increase of American leadership role models in German boardrooms. At the same time, the Harzburg model was competing the American influenced DIB/SIB Model and in particular the systemically oriented St. Gallen Management Model. The increasing pressure for adaptation and success changed the management culture of large companies finally from a personality to an organizational setting, whereas in Germany hybrid management models were preferred until the 1990s.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 73-98
  • Authors
    • Daniel C. Schmid, SIB Schweizerisches Institut für Betriebsökonomie, Zürich

Kontrolldenken Vertikale Preisbindung, Hersteller-Händler-Beziehungen und die Transformation des Wettbewerbs im Markt für Fernsehgeräte zwischen den 1950er und 80er Jahren

Vertical price maintenance, producer-retailer-relations and the transformation of competition on the television market between the 1950s and the 80s

The article challenges the notion of a ≪watershed ≫ in Germany separating an old cartelized from a modern competitive economy based on the corporate acceptance of free competition. Instead, an idea of control over the uncertainty of markets persisted that can be analyzed from the perspective of new economic sociology. Corporate strategies of control were transformed, however, as a result of structural and institutional changes. This is exemplified by the strategies of producers of television sets between the 1950s and the 80s. The transformation of these strategies was threefold. In the 50s producers followed a strategy of control in a logic based on the traditional idea of a market order pushed through by horizontal ≪cartel≫ agreements. In the 60s the focus shifted to the market following an ≪Americanized≫ ideal of market research, image campaigns and a direct contact to and control of the consumer. From the late 60s on the primary focus of control lay in the close collaboration with the specialized trade expressed by a resurgence of resale price maintenance and distribution restraints. Each strategy resulted from the failure of the previous one. An analysis of the application of resale price maintenance and relations to wholesalers and retailers in the long run provides evidence for the underlying reasons why these strategies were pursued and why they failed.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 47-72
  • Authors
    • Sebastian Teupe, Universität Bielefeld

Business History Review (Abstracts)

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 119-126

Transnationales Unternehmertum: Wirtschaftssoziologische und institutionenökonomische Perspektiven

Transnational entrepreneurship: perspectives of economic sociology and institutional economics.

The phenomenon of transnational entrepreneurship refers to the transnational operations of migrant entrepreneurs. It may be viewed as a complement to the networking dynamics of large transnational companies, thus resembling a kind of «globalisation from below» (Portes). Most generally, transnational entrepreneurs com bine resource mobilization in their countries of origin and destination, which may be augmented by the resources of third countries. The corresponding factor movements of labor, capital and knowledge are framed by network relationships that combine local and transnational components and thus add multiple dimensions to the embeddedness of entrepreneurial activities in diverse social and institutional structures. Against this background, the question arises whether transnational entrepreneurship exhibits strategic qualities regarding the utilisation of socio-cultural resources, which would imply that transnational entrepreneurship gains an institutional logic of its own. The perspective of economic sociology provides rich insights on this matter of embeddedness by highlighting strategic motivation and network patterns of interaction. Institutional economics complements these insights by incorporating the matter of governance and strategic interests in transnational entrepreneurship.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 149-162
  • Authors
    • Alexander Ebner, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews), Mitteilungen (Announcements)

Joachim Scholtyseck, Der Aufstieg der Quandts. Eine deutsche Unternehmerdynastie

(Peter M. Quadflieg)

Karoline Krenn, Alle Macht den Banken? Zur Struktur personeller Netzwerke deutscher Unternehmen

am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Harald Wixforth)

S. Jonathan Wiesen, Creating the Nazi Marketplace. Commerce and Consumption in the Third

Reich (André Steiner)

Rüdiger Hachtmann, Das Wirtschaftsimperium der Deutschen Arbeitsfront 1933-1945

(Armin Müller)

Christian Marx, Paul Reusch und die Gutehoffnungshütte. Leitung eines deutschen Großunternehmens

(Benjamin Obermüller)

Welf Böttcher/Martin Thoemmes, Heinrich Dräger. Eine Biographie (Peter M. Quadflieg)

Michael Kamp, Dieter Spethmann. Ein Porträt (Werner Bührer)

Markus Speidel, Netzwerke, Koopera tionen und Management-Buy-Out. Die Geschichte des

Unternehmens Loewe zwischen 1962 und 1985 (Christian Marx)

Tim von Arnim, «Und dann werde ich das größte Zeitungshaus Europas bauen.» Der Unternehmer

Axel Springer (Jan-Otmar Hesse)

Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus/Mike Friedrichsen, Geschichte der Medienökonomie. Eine Einführung

in die traditionelle Medienwirtschaft von 1750 bis 2000 (Armin Müller)

Frank Bösch, Mediengeschichte. Vom asiatischen Buchdruck zum Fernsehen (Tobias Riedl)

Stefan Moitra, Tief im Westen. Ein Jahrhundert Steinkohleförderung am linken Niederrhein –

Von Friedrich Heinrich zum Bergwerk West (Matthias Gomoll)

Dittmar Dahlmann/Margrit Schulte Beerbühl (Hrsg.), Perspektive in der Fremde? Arbeitsmarkt und

Migration von der Frühen Neuzeit bis zur Gegenwart (Meral Avci)

Laurent Warlouzet, Le choix de la CEE par la France. L’Europe économique en débat de Mendès

France à de Gaulle (1955-1969) (Werner Bührer)

Maren Möhring, Fremdes Essen. Die Geschichte der ausländischen Gastronomie in der Bundesrepublik

Deutschland (Thomas Hermann)

Reiner Ruppmann, Schrittmacher des Autobahnzeitalters. Frankfurt und das Rhein-Main-

Gebiet (Hartmut Knittel)

Zur Rezension in der Geschäftsstelle eingegangene Bücher

Mitteilungen (Announcements)

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 234-258

Frontline Agents of Globalisation The German Merchant Community in Glasgow, 1840s to 1914

During the second half of the 19th century, a German business community of about 100 merchants and commercial clerks developed in Glasgow. Their trade networks extended not only to Germany but also to other countries. The main arguments and findings of this article include the following: the community was significantly larger than previously assumed; endogenous recruitment based on ethnic and family ties prevailed; migrants benefited from their specific human capital (training, languages, intercultural competence) to fill a (skills gap) in Britain; labour market competition at the junior career level was less pronounced than contemporaneous assessments suggested; naturalisation was undertaken mostly for pragmatic reasons; there were close ties at intra-ethnic level, but also with the local business elite.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 180-196
  • Authors
    • Stefan Manz, Aston University, Birmingham

Portugiesische Juden und Hamburger Zwei Ausprägungen migrantischen Unternehmertums in der Frühen Neuzeit

Portuguese Jews and People from Hamburg Two Manifestations of Migrant Entrepreneurship in Early Modern Europe

Since Hermann Kellenbenz’s seminal work «Sephardim an der unteren Elbe» (1958) it is widely known that a group of Portuguese Jews fleeing from the Inquisition settled in Hamburg in the 17th century. As Kellenbenz pointed out they played an important role in the town’s business life, particularly in trade with the Iberian Peninsula. The merchants from Hamburg who went to Portugal around the same time have attracted far less attention, although their number and their economic success at least equalled those of their Portuguese counterparts. In contrast to the Portuguese Jews in Hamburg, the Hamburg merchants in Portugal were able to integrate and assimilate rapidly, learning the language of the country, adopting the religious denomination of the local population, and marrying native women. The reasons for the divergent behaviour are to be found in differing motives for migration as well as differing attitudes of the local authorities and societies. While the merchants from Portugal in Hamburg were discriminated against considerably with regard to their social, political, and economic rights and possibilities, the merchants from Hamburg in Portugal profited from a privileged position and high social prestige.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 163-179
  • Authors
    • Jorun Poettering, Historisches Seminar der LMU München

Carl von Siemens: Vom «Prussky Ingener» zum transnationalen Unternehmer?

Carl von Siemens: From «Prussky Ingener» to transnational entrepreneur?

This article focuses on Carl von Siemens, the youngest of three brothers and the driving force behind the internationalization of Siemens & Halske. In 1852, he founded the Berlin-based firm’s first foreign subsidiary in Paris. In the following decades, Carl von Siemens established St. Petersburg as the firm’s «financial home», as his older brother Werner called it. In the 1870s, he turned the company’s subsidiary Siemens Brothers in London into a global player in submarine telegraphy. When Siemens & Halske went public in 1897, Carl von Siemens, by then a Russian citizen, became chairman of the supervisory board of one of the world’s largest electrotechnical corporations. I argue that as an immigrant entrepreneur in Russia and England Carl von Siemens was able to mobilize resources specific to transnational migrants, including economic, social and cultural capital, that were crucial to the firm’s rapid growth. In the beginning of his time in Russia, he was identified as a German patriot and benefited from being known as a «Prussky Ingener». After having lived abroad for over four decades, however, his identity became more complex and hybrid, shaping his transnational entrepreneurship and strategic vision of Siemens & Halske as a global player.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 197-213
  • Authors
    • Martin Lutz, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Unternehmer und Migration. Einleitung

Entrepreneurs and Immigration. Introduction

This introductory essay sketches the emerging field of research on entrepreneurial migration. It stresses the importance of the topic and summarizes the main findings and shortcomings of the research conducted so far. It then draws attention to points of connection between re – search on entrepreneurial migration and other scholarly fields, including not only migration history and business history but also the social and cultural history of the middle classes (Bürgertumsforschung), the history of technology, and the history of everyday life. It lists some of the main questions about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of being a migrant and entrepreneur at the same time. Finally the essay introduces the individual contribution of this issue.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 141-148
  • Authors
    • Hartmut Berghoff, Deutsches Historisches Institut Washington; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
    • Andreas Fahrmeir, Deutsches Historisches Institut Washington; Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Migrantenunternehmer in Deutschland am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts: Marktstrategien im Kontext ethnischer und individueller Ressourcen

Immigrant entrepreneurs in Germany at the beginning of the 21st century: market strategies in the context of ethnic and individual resources

In today’s knowledge-based economy individual resources like human capital are one of the main driving forces to boost entrepreneurship. However, to date ethnic entrepreneurship research has paid much more attention to ethnic resources and ethnic markets, assuming that the use of group resources may compensate for a lack of educational achievement. Our article, therefore, analyzes the relevance and the interplay of both ethnic and individual resources and the resulting strategies of immigrant entrepreneurs in various markets. Based on official data and a survey we have conducted, our findings characterize contemporary ethnic entrepreneurship in Germany and its range of market strategies. It can be shown that only a minority of immigrant entrepreneurs exclusively rely on ethnic resources or on ethnic markets. That parallels trends in retail and food service activities which are becoming less important whereas the significance of knowledge-intensive services is increasing. This does not mean that highly educated immigrant entrepreneurs generally abstain from using ethnic resources. On the contrary, if better educated, they are better able to employ ethnic resources when exploiting distinct business opportunities. Overall, the combination of ethnic and human capital turns out to be a promising market strategy.

  • Content Type Journal Article
  • Pages 214-233
  • Authors
    • René Leicht, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung, Universität Mannheim
    • Lena Werner, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung, Universität Mannheim