Aufsätze (Articles)

Hartmut Berghoff/Andres Fahrmeir, Unternehmer und Migration. Einleitung, S. 141–148.

Alexander Ebner, Transnationales Unternehmertum: Wirtschaftssoziologische und institutionenökonomische Perspektiven, S. 149–162.

Jorun Poettering, Portugiesische Juden und Hamburger. Zwei Ausprägungen migrantischen Unternehmertums in der Frühen Neuzeit, S. 163–179.

Stefan Manz, Frontline Agents of Globalisation. The German Merchant Community in Glasgow, 1840s to 1914, S. 180–196.

Martin Lutz, Carl von Siemens: Vom „Prussky Ingener“ zum transnationalen Unternehmer?, S. 197–213.

René Leicht/Lena Werner, Migrantenunternehmer in Deutschland am Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts: Marktstrategien im Kontext ethnischer und individueller Ressourcen, S. 214–233.

ABSTRACTS:

Hartmut Berghoff/Andreas Fahrmeir
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 research 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.

Alexander Ebner
Transnational entrepeneurship: perspectives of economic sociology an 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 combine 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 the aspect of strategic motivation and network patterns of interaction. Institutional economics complements these insights by taking on the matter of governance and strategic interests in transnational entrepreneurship.

Jorun Poettering
Portuguese Jews and People from Hamburg. Two Manifestations of Migrant Entrepreneur-ship in Early Modern Europe
Since Hermann Kellenbenz’ 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 denom-ination 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 consid-erably 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.

Stefan Manz
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 assess-ments suggested; naturalisation was under-taken mostly for pragmatic reasons; there were close ties at intra-ethnic level, but also with the local business elite.

Martin Lutz
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.

René Leicht/Lena Werner
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 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, the better educated, the more they are 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.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

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, Kooperationen 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 Medionökonomie. 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/Magrit 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)