Aufsätze (Articles):

Ralf Banken/Ray Stokes, Pipelinenetze als Unternehmensstrategie. Die Entstehung des Sauerstoffleitungsnetzes im Ruhrgebiet 1956 bis 1975, S. 3–26.

Pierre-Yves Donzé, Canon catching up with Germany: The mass production of “Japanese Leica” cameras (1933 until 1970), S. 27–46.

Sebastian Teupe, Kontrolldenken. Vertikale Preisbindung, Hersteller-Händler-Beziehungen und die Transformation des Wettbewerbs im Markt für Fernsehgeräte zwischen den 1950er und 80er Jahren, S. 47–72.

Daniel C. Schmid, „Quo vadis, Homo harzburgensis?“ Aufstieg und Niedergang des „Harzburger Modells“, S. 73–98.

ABSTRACTS:

Ralf Banken/Ray Stokes
Pipeline networks as business strategy: The origins of the oxygen pipeline in the Ruhr District, 1956–1975
Although pipelines form a vital part of the transport and distribution infrastructure for a variety of industries, they are rarely examined by economic and business historians. Those analyses that do exist concentrate on oil and gas pipelines, and often on geopolitical dimensions and general interactions between economics and politics, including pipelines as a focus for political protest. In contrast, the interests of the firms involved in building and operating them, the interplay between suppliers and customers and the economic logic of pipeline construction are seldom addressed in any detail. This article explores these issues using the case of the construction of an oxygen pipeline network in the Ruhr district between 1956 and 1975.

Pierre-Yves Donzé
Canon catching up with Germany: The mass production of “Japanese Leica” cameras (1933 until 1970)
This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of the root causes for the competitiveness of the Japanese camera industry on the world market before the electronics revolution. It takes the example of the company Canon, one of the main camera manufacturers in Japan, and focuses on technological issues. The main result of this article is to demonstrate that Canon was able to establish itself as a competitive firm on the world market thanks to a particular production system, which incorporated the design of high-quality 35 mm cameras and mass production methods. The technological facilities developed during World War II for manufacturing armaments (training of engineers in universities, optical instruments made by Nikon for the Navy) played a key role in the development of Canon after 1945.

Sebastian Teupe
Kontrolldenken. 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.

Daniel C. Schmid
„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.

Buchbesprechungen (Reviews):

Ralf Ahrens/Johannes Bähr, Jürgen Ponto. Bankier und Burger. Eine Biografie (Christian Marx)

Peter Langer, Macht und Verantwortung. Der Ruhrbaron Paul Reusch (Uwe Fliegauf)

Ulrike Schulz, Simson. Vom unwahrscheinlichen Uberleben eines Unternehmens 1856–1993 (Armin Muller)

Jürgen Nautz (Hg.), Henschel und Kassel. Fallstudien zur Geschichte des Unternehmens und der Familie Henschel (Hartmut Knittel)

Adolf Drüppel/Michael Caroli, Die Eichbaum-Chronik. 333 Jahre Eichbaum-Geschichte (Roman Koster)

Thilo Jungkind, Risikokultur und Storfallverhalten der chemischen Industrie. Gesellschaftliche Einflüsse auf das unternehmerische Handeln von Bayer und Henkel seit der zweiten Halfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Jonathan Voges)

Marco Rudzinski, Ein Unternehmen und „seine“ Stadt. Der Bochumer Verein und Bochum vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Sebastian Beck)

James W. Cortada, The Digital Flood. The Diffusion of Information Technology across the U.S., Europe, and Asia (Ralf Ahrens)

Frank Steinbeck, Das Motorrad. Ein deutscher Sonderweg in die automobile Gesellschaft (Christiane Katz)

Christian Kleinschmidt/Dieter Ziegler (Hrsg.), Jahrbuch fur Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (2012): Internationale Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensbeziehungen nach 1945 (Meral Avci)

Christoph Buchheim/Marcel Boldorf (Hrsg.), Europaische Volkswirtschaften unter deutscher Hegemonie 1938–1945 (Peter M. Quadflieg)

Christof Dejung/Niels P. Petersson (Hrsg.), The Foundations of Worldwide Economic Integration. Power, Institutions, and Global Markets, 1850–1930 (Mark Jakob)

Norbert Frei/Dietmar Süß (Hrsg.), Privatisierung. Idee und Praxis seit den 1970er Jahren (Christian Marx)

Thomas Paster, The Role of Business in the Development of the Welfare State and Labor Markets in Germany. Containing Social Reforms (Werner Buhrer)

Sven Jüngerkes, Diplomaten der Wirtschaft. Die Geschichte des Ost-Ausschusses der Deutschen Wirtschaft (Elina Feihe)

Joachim Lilla (Bearb.), Der Vorlaufige Reichswirtschaftsrat 1920 bis 1933/34. Zusammensetzung – Dokumentation – Biographien. Unter Einschlus des Wirtschaftsbeirats des Reichsprasidenten 1931 und des Generalrats der Wirtschaft 1933 (Werner Buhrer)