Inhaltsverzeichnis der Beiträge

Untertitel: Eine Sparkasse als regionale Finanzierungsquelle für Gewerbe und InfrastrukturFinancing of companies by large joint-stock banks is regarded as a crucial factor explaining the rapid industralization in Germany. Other financial institutions like savings banks have not played a significant role in scholarly discussions so far. This probably derives from the claims of the majority of authors who have studied the subject: in their view, savings banks could not contribute to commercial lending because they focussed primarily on public debt and mortgage loans. This paper is the first empirical investigation which, in the form of a case study, examines which client groups of one savings bank got which loan amounts, and also how the loans were used. It shows that there was extensive commercial lending to craftsmen as well as to small- and medium-size enterprises from the bank, mainly in the form of mortgage loans. Furthermore it describes how loans to municipalities contributed to economic development.

This paper traces the relationship between the Deutsche Bank and the automobile industry, which began in 1904 when it became a shareholder in Daimler. Its recent role in the Daimler-Chrysler merger is a major episode in a long history of Deutsche Bank involvement in efforts to organize and rationalize the automobile industry nationally and now internationally. This has been no easy task, and the paper discusses the difficulties of bringing Daimler and Benz together in 1925-1926 as well as the failure of its efforts to create an automobile trust in the late Weimar Republic. Daimler-Benz and B.M.W. collaborated but could not be brought together and Opel fell into the hands of General Motors. While the National Socialist regime favored motorization in the early years, it also favored small car producers rather than Daimler, and its chief interest became military in the late 1930s. The development of a consumer-friendly German automobile industry and the reemergence of Deutsche Bank as a major player in the industry could only take place in the reconstruction after the German defeat of 1945.

The Bausparkasse Devaheim was a building and loan society affiliated with the Lutheran church in Germany. Founded as part of the initial wave of the German building society movement, Devaheim’s rapid rise was the result of the housing shortage during the Weimar Republic. Its sudden collapse was due to a combination of factors, including: nepotism within its management structures; a lack of professional ability and personal integrity on the part of its managers; an alarming expansion of its business lines; and an organisational structure conducive to concealing fraud. The offences committed by those in charge were punished by prison sentences and fines. The financial damage inflicted on Devaheim’s approximately 16,000 savers and on the building society movement as a whole could only be partly offset by subsequent government assistance.

The economic growth and modernization of Palestine during the later nineteenth century created conditions and demands for typical merchant-banker firms, and eventually for the services of European commercial-banking corporations. One of four such banks which opened branches or were founded in Palestine at the turn of the century was the DPB. The story of its establishment and brief existence is thus an instructive chapter in the country's economic history. It illustrates the growth of the market-oriented, especially the export-oriented sector; changes in economic behavior and business practices; and competition and cooperation in the modern banking sector itself. On the other hand, the DPB was part of German economic activities and initiatives in the Near East. These were combined at first, particularly in Jerusalem, with Protestant missionary enterprises; but the focus shifted more and more to commercial penetration, investments, and political schemes. The DPB itself was taken over more and more by the so-called Princes' Consortium, which generously financed the bank's expansion but eventually involved it in the overblown speculative schemes that led to the Group's downfall. The religious and nationalist tendencies of the DPB's directors caused, inter alia, the rejection of offers by the Zionist Organization to purchase the bank or an influential share in it. The collapse of the Ottoman empire put a sudden end to the successful development of the DPB Near Eastern Branches.

This article shows the developments which led to the creation of the statutory audit for stock corporations in Germany. After the foundation of the German Empire in 1871 many new corporations were established. Many of them later went bankrupt due to the following economic slowdown. As a result of this the first discussions about the auditing of financial statements arose. The auditing of cooperatives was established in 1889. The beneficent results of the voluntary audits performed by trust companies, which were founded at the beginning of the 20th century, reduced the necessity for a statutory audit for stock corporations at that time. The bankruptcies during the world-wide economic crisis of the 1930s showed again the need of a financial statements audit through independent outsiders. With the growing influence of the national socialists and the communists in parliament there was no possibility to establish the statutory audit for stock corporations through legislation but only through an emergency decree. At that time the process of certifying auditors had just begun. Therefore it was necessary to introduce the statutory audit gradually, depending on the size of the stock corporations.

Untertitel: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen BetriebswirtschaftslehreThe development of the modern concept of labour productivity. A contribution to German Business Economics History The starting point of this article is the reduced output in German factories in the early 1920s, which employers attributed solely to workers’ efficiency. This was possible because of the long standing lack of a common definition for productivity, particularly in the German-speaking area. This again was not even a result of historicism, but of an absence of interdisciplinary and international response by German Business Economics. After World War II international research then provided an unambiguous definition related to a clear concept: that capital is of vital importance for productivity and that therefore a unilateral relationship between output and workers’ efficiency is non-existent.

Patent statistics constitute a valuable tool of analysis which can help us clarify the nature of the technological process in innovative companies, such as Du Pont and IG Farben. Patents granted to the firms in question have been collected manually from the US Index of Patents and the US Patent Office Gazette, and they have been classified into common types of technological activity. This study employs a system of patent classes used by the Patent Office. Although patents may be assigned to several fields, the primary classification was used in all cases. The technological specialisation of a company in a particular sector is given by the firm's share in that sector of US patents granted to all companies in the same industry, relative to its overall share of all US patents granted to companies in the same industry. The index varies around one, so that values greater than one suggest that a firm is comparatively specialised in the activity in question. The evidence seems to confirm that both Du Pont and IG followed specific technological paths, that is that past developments exercised an influence on the breadth and direction of their technological capabilities. In spite of the fact that the companies expanded their areas of research, they remained specialised in those fields which had been their original stronghold. However, during the period Du Pont seems to have experienced a more radical departure from its original core technology than IG Farben. Nevertheless, the gradual extension of IG Farben's research activities resulted in the emergence of other important areas of strength. One other interesting feature is the possible effects that intensification of research in some areas appears to have spun off related innovations in other fields. This seems to confirm the importance of interrelatedness of technology, whereby a major technological breakthrough tends to generate a growth of inventions in related fields. This confirms the usefulness of patent statistics, as important patents are unlikely to be isolated while unimportant ones may be.

Untertitel: Drei Volkseigene Betriebe im VergleichThe first generation of managers in the GDR. Three state-owned companies in comparison The succession of managers in state-owned companies of the GDR is the main issue of this paper. A framework of organisational psychology will be used for description and explanation. The period covers the first generation of managers. The events in three different firms after expropriatation and socialisation will be compared. VEB Buchbindereimaschinenwerk Leipzig, VEB Leipziger Stahlbau und Verzinkerei and VEB Carl Zeiss Jena are the examples in this paper. First the analysis explores the actors involved and their strategies, second the institutional arrangements, and finally it analyses the sociocultural environment of these processes. This paper changes and differentiates the current model of managerial succession in the GDR. By using case studies this paper describes how local and internal constellations of actors and institutions influenced the appointment of the managers. These factors made a substantial contribution to the selection of qualified candidates. The successful representatives of the first generation are characterized as «transformation managers». Their social and cultural capital enabled them to integrate the company and the employees into the new political and economical system.

Schumpeter´s model of the pioneering entrepreneur provides an exceptional good base to explain the rise of the von der Leyens, the leading 18th century merchant entrepreneurs in Prussia. Based upon the rural industry (Verlagswesen), which kept costs low, the von der Leyens were the founders of the silk industry in the Crefeld area. The subsequent process of expansion and adaptation failed, because of the inability and unwillingness of the urban handicraft and preindustrial factories (Manufakturwesen) to adopt modern technologies and methods of production previously invented by the von der Leyens. Thus both parties were not able to produce on the same level of low costs. The Prussian’s policy of industrial promotion of the silk industry as its focus also proved to be unsuccessful. This was mainly because of the preindustrial factories and inappropriate means and devices, subsidies and the privileges of exclusive rights.