Aufsätze
Jürgen Kocka Management in der Industrialisierung. Die Entstehung und der klassischen Muster
Manfred Pohl Zwischen Weihrauch und Wissenschaft? Zum Standort der Unternehmensgeschichte - eine Replik auf Toni Pierenkemper
Rudolf Boch Unternehmernachfolge in Deutschland. Ein historischer Rückblick
Andrea Neugebauer "Frauen, welche ein Hauswesen zu versorgen haben, werden nicht genommen". Frauenarbeit in den Opelwerken von 1880 bis 1945
Stefan Laube Hilfskasse statt Versicherung. Die NSDAP und das "Wagnis" Machtergreifung (1926-1933)
Robin Pearson Ein Wachstumsrätsel: Feuerversicherung und die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung Großbritanniens 1700-1850
Martin Fiedler Die 100 größten Unternehmen von 1938 — ein Nachtrag
Abstracts
Jürgen Kocka Management in der Industrialisierung. Die Entstehung und Entwicklung der klassischen Muster
This article surveys the genesis and development of modern management from the late eighteenth century to the interwar period, with a short glance on recent changes. It is argued that, in the period of industrialization, something like a "classical pattern" emerged, which has become history, in the meantime. The stress is on practical problems and problem solutions within the enterprises, not so much on the management literature and theories which started to appear in the late nineteenth century. The article is mainly based on German evidence.
Manfred Pohl Zwischen Weihrauch und Wissenschaft? Zum Standort der modernen Unternehmensgeschichte - eine Replik auf Toni Pierenkemper
With regard to the recent boom in German business history it is necessary to have a broad discussion on the subject, the methods and aims of this recently intensified discipline. Triggered off by the stimulating article by Pierenkemper this first contribution argues for a different approach from the former. Reviewing recent literature and elaborating on the development of German business history it identifies some shortcomings in his argument and corrects some assertions by Pierenkemper. This article states that 1. actual German business histories no longer gloss over difficult periods and themes, that 2. a broader rather than a pure economic approach is required and that 3. all research on the involvement of business with the Nationalsocialist Regime is necessarily accompanied by high media interest. Furthermore, it states that the production of business history and the transfer of its findings should not be separated. Instead of disassociating the different institutions concerned with business history they should be strengthened and their co-operation should be reinforced.
This historical review tries to explore the demographic and cultural background of todays problems in finding successors within family enterprises. It is argued that the number of children in business families shrank distinctly since the middle of the nineteenth century. Even before 1914 the traditional family enterprise in which the key positions were held by family members began to run into severe demographic difficulties. Hence family firms had to rely more and more on managers from outside. Furthermore, from the end of the nineteenth century the strong cohesion of the classical business family weakened for various reasons. Capital formation did depend less upon the family, training was provided less by family enterprises and kinship loyalties were less needed when modern communication techniques and management methods had been established. The patriarchal authority of the head of the business family was - last but not least - weakened by an intensified generation conflict at the beginning of the twentieth century. The family became less important and - also due to its heritage practices - more dysfunctional for further economic development. Though the dynamic of our industrial system produced new foundation waves of family firms in the last decades, one has to keep in mind that these «new» business families are also affected by those ongoing secular processes of shrinking fertility, i. e. shrinking numbers of potential successors within a family and of individualisation.
Adam Opel, the owner of a factory that produced sewing machines, hired the first female workers in the 1880s. The introduction of female workers into the factory was due to the fact, that the newly developed industrial work in contrast to the former craftsmen work did not require merely skilled workers. Thus the number of women at Opel grew till the turn of the century. However the individual female worker usually did not work at the factory for a longer period of time since Opel only employed unmarried women. This rule built an additional obstacle to women to get the opportunity to become skilled. A few years later the portion of female workers remained stagnant for some reasons: Opel started to manufacture cars which required a huge amount of skilled workers. And at the same time a lot of male workers from rural areas demanded work. Laws and regulations supported the preferential employment of men. Besides, gender based role models in the family enabled male workers to spend more energy in the factory. This employment patterns persisted until the end of the examined period, the end of World War II. Times of scarce labour force only led Opel to vary the model, but it did not change fundamentally.
Until recently the links between Nationalsocialism and insurance companies represented an unknown field of historical research. At present this issue reaches high degrees of public attention in consequence of unsatisfied claims for compensation of confiscated life insurance policies. This paper deals with an another neglected aspect. It shows the attitudes of Nazis against the insurance business in the second half of the Republic of Weimar. The aggressive, violent and risky behaviour of the SA and other nazi-organisations had to be domesticated by insurance contracts. A longtime cooperation failed, because for private insurance companies this deal with this kind of clients was not very profitable. The documents make clear, that antisemitic propaganda of the Nazis had its focus not only in banks and department stores, but also in private insurance companies. The aversion against insurance companies went so far, that the Nazi-leaders put the term of «Versicherung» under taboo. In the internal communication of the NSDAP it was substituted by «Hilfskasse».
This paper presents some quantitative results from a wider study of the role of fire insurance in industrialising Britain. For the first time, an annual time series for output, measured by sums insured, is constructed for this financial service for the period 1720 to 1850, based upon the surviving archives of over 50 fire insurance offices. Real growth rates of insurance output are compared with recent growth estimates for other sectors of the British economy. Factors which may have determined cyclical and trend growth in fire insurance, including population growth, the building cycle, the real cost of insurance, the level of fire damage, and taxation, are also examined. The findings suggest there was no simple linear relationship between insurance growth and economic or demographic growth. Insurance grew most rapidly in real terms during two periods, the third quarter of the eighteenth century and the three decades after 1815, with a long intervening period of slow growth during which the industrialisation of the economy and the growth of the population continued to accelerate. There is some indication of a rising price elasticity of demand for insurance over the period, which suggests the increasing penetration during the early nineteenth century of the insurance habit through social groups below the comfortable middle classes. Insurance growth thus appears to have been primarily determined by changing patterns of domestic consumption, by the 'consumer revolution' rather than the industrial revolution.
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