Aufsätze (Articles):

Harald Fuess, E. Meyer & Co. at the Eastern Frontiers of Capitalism: The Leading Western Merchant House in Korea, 1884 to 1914, S. 3–30

Florian Triebel, Gründe und sprich darüber. Unternehmensgründung und Kommunikation – das Beispiel BMW (1916 bis 1923), S. 31–3

Florian Schneider, Die Medici-Bank und ihre Struktur im Kontext ihrer Gegenwart, S. 64–83

Nicolai Hannig, Maschinenschäden. Versicherungen und die Prävention von Industrieunfällen um 1900, S. 84–106

ABSTRACTS:

Harald Fuess
E. Meyer & Co. at the Eastern Frontiers of Capitalism: The Leading Western Merchant House in Korea, 1884 to 1914
This study explores the history of an important multi-regional merchant house in Asian trade during the age of merchant capitalism. Previous scholarship in business history has shown that British overseas merchants played a significant international role as the industrial revolution unfolded facilitating an unprecedented intensity of circulation of goods, people and capital around the world. This article goes beyond the conventional British Empire viewpoint on European trade with Asia to expand our understanding of business history as a global history of connection also to previously neglect ed actors such as German mercantile enterprises and Asian countries such as Korea. After Great Britain’s opium wars with China and the establishment of the treaty port system of commercial relations, Western enterprises came to dominate overseas trade in Asia. By contrast, scholars have previously argued that Western merchants played a marginal role in Korea due to the lack of business appeal of a poor country with a small and volatile domestic market where mostly Japanese and Chinese traders took charge of exports and imports. This article explains the success of German-owned E. Meyer & Co. as a country specialist in Korea, revealing several features the enterprise shared with other multi-regional merchant partnerships such as a focus on the import of Western consumer and capital goods but also an engagement in shipping, finance, real estate, and mining. It also shows how for three decades the prosperity of the firm depended on turning an early mover advantage into lasting business ties with the Korean state and society to exploit its access to European finance and Western manufacturers. Despite the economic and political rivalries of Western and Eastern imperial powers over Korea the firm prospered also during the Japanese colonial period, which was partly due to its pioneering role in the creation of an incipient Korean consumer market.

Florian Triebel
Gründe und sprich darüber. Unternehmensgründung und Kommunikation – das Beispiel BMW (1916 bis 1923)
Setup a business and talk about. Business foundation and communication – the example BMW (1916 to 1923)
Communication matters. To secure a successful positioning in their markets, corporations have to spread news drawing attention to themselves, their brands, products and services. Particularly during the founding process of a firm, all aspects of communication are of great significance. Following this thesis, this contribution examines the first stages in the history of Baye rische Motoren Werke (BMW), focussing on the efforts made on external communication. Having initially been set up as supplier for the rising aeroplane industry during the Great War, BMW had to find new buisness models after the surrender of the Kaiserreich. During the founding and transformation processes, which finally turned BMW into a vehicle manufacturer in 1923, communication played an essential role responding to influences of the volatile external environment and reflecting the changing business strategies of BMW.

Florian Schneider
Die Medici-Bank und ihre Struktur im Kontext ihrer Gegenwart
The Medici-Bank and its structure in the context of its presence.
The article deals with the rise and fall of the medieval Medici-Bank in order to shed light on the emergence of a ‹modern› banking sector in Europe. Special attention is paid to the bank’s structure and organisation, which will be analysed in the tradition of the work and ideas of Karl Polanyi as being embedded in the specific historical institutions of medieval Europe. It will be shown that both the medieval banking sector and the structure and organisation of the Medici-Bank reflected the highly specific institutions and circumstances of their time and were in facthigh-end adaptations to them. It will furthermore be investigated in detail how such an organisation had to be shaped in order to overcome the economic difficulties of the 14th century. Finally, the organisation of the Medici-Bank will be discussed against the background of modern business organisation theory. Based on Alfred D. Chandler’s concepts, the Medici Bank can be identified as a very early multidivisional form of organisation.

Nicolai Hannig
Maschinenschäden Versicherungen und die Prävention von Industrieunfällen um 1900
Machine Damage. Insurances and Prevention of Industrial Accidents around 1900
Accidents are a constant companions of technology. At first glance, they do not seem to follow any rules, in fact they appear to be hardly fore seeable. This impression heightened when machines began working more and more autonomously while at the same time fewer people understood their operating modes. The search for preventive measures is and always has been affiliated with accidents, all the more so since the beginning of the industrialization. Technology played a paradox role in these developments: It triggered prosperity and wealth on the one hand, but created new risks on the other. Furthermore, technology was both the main cause for accidents and the producer of modern methods of prevention. It was only a matter of time until insurance companies reacted to these new danger by inventing specific products. This article examines how insurance companies shaped ways of dealing with technological dangers, and it investigates in which ways they managed to develope exceptional expertise, especially concerning machines. I argue that the insurance business gave a decisive impetus towards prevention of industrial accidents and mechanical breakdowns. During the advancing industrialization big companies, such as Allianz, Munich Re, or Swiss Re, became more and more professional in developing new techniques of prevention. They designed building regulations, set up requirements for preventive maintenance and cleaning, and carried out material testing. Particularly since the 1920s they experimented with psychotechnologies that should prevent certain damaging events before they occur. Their results became part of a concerted media policy. Later, in the inter-war period big insurance companies started to publish specialized journals in which they presented some of their own new approaches towards preventive measures. In this way, self-promotion and prevention merged almost unrecognizably.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

Simon Gonser, Der Kapitalismus entdeckt das Volk. Wie die deutschen Großbanken in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren zu ihrer privaten Kundschaft kamen (Jonathan Voges)

Klaus Kinkel (Hg.), Grenzenlose Lei(s)tung: Die deutsche Einheit und der Einsatz der Telekom beim Aufbau Ost (Eckhard Freyer)

Rainer Karlsch/Helmut Maier (Hrsg.), Studien zur Geschichte der Film fabrik Wolfen und der IG Farbenindustrie AG in Mitteldeutschland (Meral Avci)

Robert Meier, Vom Haslocher Eisen hammer zu Kurtz Ersa. Eine glühende Unternehmensgeschichte aus dem Spessart (Veronica Binda)

Michael Grabicki, Eine lange Reise. Die Geschichte der BASF in China von 1885 bis heute (Christian Marx)

Richard Bauer, Das Münchner Wäschehaus Rosner & Seidl 1873 bis 1988 (Roman Köster)

Mirosław Sikora, Die Waffenschmiede des «Dritten Reiches». Die deutsche Rüstungsindustrie in Oberschlesien während des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Christian Leitzbach)

Tim Schanetzky, «Kanonen statt Butter». Wirtschaft und Konsum im Dritten Reich (Alexander Donges)

Karsten Uhl, Humane Rationalisierung? Die Raumordnung der Fabrik im fordistischen Jahrhundert (Jonathan Voges)