Aufsätze (Articles):

Geoffrey Jones: The End of Nationality? Global Firms and «Borderless Worlds». S. 149-165.

Jonas Scherner: Das Verhältnis zwischen NS-Regime und Industrieunternehmen – Zwang oder Kooperation? S. 166-190.

Paul Windolf: Unternehmensverflechtungen im organisierten Kapitalismus. S. 191-222.

Philipp Ischer: Digitalisierung und Deregulierung der Telekommunikation. Wechselwirkungen zwischen Innovationsprozessen und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen am Beispiel der schweizerischen PTT (1970-1998). S. 223-243.

Abstracts:

Geoffrey Jones: The End of Nationality? Global Firms and «Borderless Worlds»

This article provides a historical perspective to current debates whether large global firms are becoming «stateless» and whether this is a historically new phenomenon.
It shows that a great deal of international business in the nineteenth century was not easily fitted into national categories. The place of registration, the nationality of shareholders, and the nationality of management could and quite often did point in different directions. During the twentieth century such «cosmopolitan capitalism» was replaced by sharper national identities.
However the interwar disintegration of the international economy led to the subsidiaries of multinationals taking on stronger local identities and becoming «hybrids». Over the past two decades, as the pace of globalization quickened, ambiguities increased again, especially if the focus is the «nationality» of products and services. Yet ownership, location and geography still matter enormously in global business.

Jonas Scherner: Das Verhältnis zwischen NS-Regime und Industrieunternehmen – Zwang oder Kooperation?
(The Relation between NS-regime and Businesses – Pressure or Cooperation?)

Many studies on business history of Nazi Germany suggest that, after the implementation of the Four Year Plan in 1936, German private industry was directly or indirectly – by macroeconomic policy and regulation – forced to invest according to the regime’s autarky and armament goals.
However, as will be shown in this paper based on three case studies on negotiations between the state and private companies in different industrial sectors between 1937 and 1943, there are also several examples, which challenge this interpretation.
In the following I will demonstrate that these examples were no exceptions. Furthermore it seems that the macroeconomic framework normally had only a minor influence on companies' investment decisions in the autarky and armaments sectors. More important were contracts, which shifted investment risks in part or even completely from private industry to the state.

Paul Windolf: Unternehmensverflechtungen im organisierten Kapitalismus
(The Interweaving of Enterprises in Organized Capitalism – A comparison between Germany and the United States 1896-1936)

In the late nineteenth century, a relatively dense network was created among companies by the directors sitting on the Boards of the large orporations.
This study examines the interlocking directorships of these large corporations in the period between 1896 and 1938 in Germany and the United States. In Germany, the density and centralization of the corporate network increased parallel to the growing degree of cartelization within the economy (cooperative capitalism). In the United States, the density of the network decreased in relation to the extent that antitrust laws were enforced (competitive capitalism).
A number of structural differences between Germany and the United States are evident. In Germany we find a greater percentage of multiple interlockings, strong bank control (credit financing), and a greater degree of intrasectoral ties among corporations (cartel).

Philipp Ischer: Digitalisierung und Deregulierung der Telekommunikation. Wechselwirkungen zwischen Innovationsprozessen und institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen am Beispiel der schweizerischen PTT (1970-1998)
(Digitalisation and De-regulation of telecommunication. Interaction of processes of innovation and institutional general conditions on the example of the Switz PTT (1970-98))

The main aim of this article is to show in a historical context not only the institutional change of the telecom sector but also the technical transformation that the Swiss state-owned PTT underwent during the last thirty years of the 20th century.
The focus hereby lies on the complex relations between technical and economical innovations and institutional setting. The question to be answered in this article is how the innovations undertaken by the PTT influenced the institutional setting respectively how the legal framework influenced the innovational behavior of the actors of the Swiss telecom sector.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

Thomas Keiderling (Hrsg.), F.A. Brockhaus 1805-2005. Die Festschrift, 2 Bde., Verlag Brockhaus (Karsten Jedlitschka)

Peter Danylow/Ulrich S. Soénius (Hrsg.), Otto Wolff. Ein Unternehmen zwischen Wirtschaft und Politik (Ralf Ahrens)

Peter Kuckuk (Hrsg.), Die A.G. «Weser» in der Nachkriegszeit 1945-1953, (Beiträge zur Sozialgeschichte Bremens, Heft 24) (Harald Wixforth)

Kilian J. L. Steiner, Ortsempfänger, Volksfernseher und Optaphon – Die Entwicklung der deutschen Radio- und Fernsehindustrie und das Unternehmen Loewe 1923-1962 (Dorothea Schmidt)

Stefanie van de Kerkhof, Von der Friedens- zur Kriegswirtschaft. Unternehmensstrategien der deutschen Eisen- und Stahlindustrie vom Kaiserreich bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges (Werner Bührer)

Jesko Graf zu Dohna, Die «Jüdischen Konten» der Fürstlich Castell’schen Credit-Cassen und des Bankhauses Karl Meyer AG (Veröffentlichungen der Gesellschaft für fränkische Geschichte, Neujahrsblätter Bd. 45) (Martin L. Müller)

Ingo Böhle, Private Krankenversicherung (PKV) im Nationalsozialismus. Unternehmens- und sozialgeschichtliche Studie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Deutschen Krankenversicherung AG (DKV) (Stefan Jauernig)

Johannes Bähr/Ralf Banken (Hrsg.), Das Europa des «Dritten Reichs». Recht, Wirtschaft, Besatzung (Harald Wixforth)

Evelyn Kroker/Renate Köhne-Lindenlaub/Wilfried Reininghaus/Ulrich S. Soénius (Hrsg.), Handbuch für Wirtschaftsarchive. Theorie und Praxis (Benjamin Obermüller)

Akira Kudo/Matthias Kipping/ Harm G. Schröter (ed.), German an Japanese Business in the Boom Years. Transforming American management and technology models, Routledge, London/New York (Takafumi Kurosawa)

Harm G. Schröter, Americanization of the European Economy. A compact survey of American economic influence in Europe since the 1880s (Christian Kleinschmidt)

James W. Cortada, The Digital Hand (Vol. I): How Computers changed the Work of American Manufacturing, Transportation, and Retail Industries und ders., The Digital Hand (Vol. II): How Computers changed the Work of American Financial, Telecommunikations, Media, and Entertainment Industries. (Timo Leimbach)

Kai-Uwe Hellmann/Dominik Schrage (Hrsg.), Das Management der Kunden. Studien zur Soziologie des Shopping (Hartmut Berghoff)

Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire. America’s Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe (Hartmut Berghoff)

Hans Jörg Hennecke, Wilhelm Röpke. Ein Leben in der Brandung (Jan-Otmar Hesse)

Gabriele Metzler, Konzeptionen politischen Handelns von Adenauer bis Brandt. Politische Planung in der pluralistischen Gesellschaft (Werner Bührer)

Hansjoachim Henning/Florian Tennstedt (Hrsg.), Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der deutschen Sozialpolitik 1867-1914, II. Abteilung: Von der kaiserlichen Sozialbotschaft bis zu den Februarerlassen Wilhelms II. (1881-1890), I. Bd.: Grundfragen der Sozialpolitik, Die Diskussion der Arbeiterfrage auf Regierungsseite und in der Öffentlichkeit (Thomas Mayer)