Varieties of business history: Subject and methods for the twenty-first century

Abstract

This paper deals with different approaches to business history. It argues that conflicting choices about methodology and subject can enrich a discipline, but that some of the current disputes among business historians produce unnecessary opportunity costs and block a more integrated understanding of how firms function in their larger social, political and economic contexts. The paper provides examples of how the separation in the field works against writing business history that is at once rigorous and appeals to broad audiences. It also suggests two approaches for bridging methodological differences. The first calls for reviving some basic historiographical notions. The second involves developing a closer relationship with business to gain more access to private, primary source materials. German experiences are drawn on to show how mutually beneficial academic–business cooperation can be.

Keywords:

• business history
• methodology
• theory in the social sciences
• historiography
• business-academic cooperation

Acknowledgements

This paper owes a lot to several scholars, who have contributed in many ways at different stages of its writing. They include: Gerald Feldman, who was part of the panel for which an earlier draft of this paper was used; Per Hansen; Phil Scranton; Chris McKenna; Patrick Fridenson; Hartmut Berghoff; Mary O'Sullivan; Hervé LaRoche; Michele Saboly; Alice Teichová; Volker Berghahn; Peter Hayes; Mira Wilkins; and John Wilson.

Notes

 1. This paper takes its title from a book edited by Fritz Stern, Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. That book is a collection of reflections by great historians of the past about their work, introduced by the editor with comments about the importance of those historians to the evolution of the profession and the nature of historical analysis. Stern (1956) selected and introduced Varieties of history, which was designed to expose history students to the historical development of their discipline, its many forms and some of its guiding principles. At one time it was the chief work in the United States at least for teaching historiography, but now the book and some of its lessons are out of favour and new works have for the most part – even at Columbia – superseded Stern's text in the classroom. Fritz Stern was one of Gerald Feldman's professors at Columbia and Varieties of history was one of Gerald Feldman's first exposures to historical methodology.

 2. Jones and Zeitlin (2007) is the latest attempt to give an overview of what is going on in business history and to address many important conceptual issues. There is little about methodology and evidence. Although many of the authors point out that economy theory has stimulated and should stimulate studies in business history, whether historians are building theory, providing ideas for theorists, organising material around theoretical questions, or trying to disprove theories is hardly addressed (see in particular Lamoreaux, Raff, & Temin, 2007).

 3. German business historians tend to come out of a more traditional historical milieu and therefore to put business history into historical literature. As early as 50 years ago, Wilhelm Treue compared the writing of business histories to that of biographies. Unsurprisingly, several leaders of a new German generation have been particularly concerned about method and the appropriate connections between history and business history. In 2004, Hartmut Berghoff, for example, suggested a ‘golden way’ for business history, combining methodologies of various disciplines with case studies, whereby business history would become more accessible and useful (anschlussfähig) for other disciplines (Berghoff, 2004). Werner Plumpe highlighted business history's role in analyzing and interpreting the decision-making processes ‘Handlungsprozesse’ of complex organisations in the context of general and varying technical and economic contexts (Plumpe, 2003). Toni Pierenkemper has called for a separate paradigm for business history oriented towards economics.

 4. Some management theorists active in business history circles readily admit that they are just not interested in what goes on in firms.

 5. As business historians, we should be prepared to understand how post-modernism, or post-structuralism, affects our discipline and to engage in the historiographical issues raised by these views of knowledge.

 6. There are two references to Hayes (1987) and the work of Gerald Feldman on the structure of German industry, and none to James (1986), which might have helped integrate a more political dimension to the economic issues. The section in Chandler that relies on Hayes's description of changes in IG Farben's organisation barely mentions the Nazi influence on IG Farben's business (Chandler, 1990).

 7. Compare, for example, also Hayes' (1987) and Plumpe's (1992) histories of the same firm published around the same time covering roughly the same period. One is 90% about the company's political significance and 10% about business activities and its structural evolution. The other is just the reverse. While both make a great contribution, the different approaches reinforce the perception that these various domains are not intertwined. Added to this is the fact that neither work was translated into the other's language, another division that plagues cross-border studies.

 8. See, for example, Hayes (1987) on the near bankruptcy of one of the most managerially controlled companies, IG Farben (and James, 1986).

 9. Phrase taken from Fischer (1998).

10. Debates about the degree to which, for example, American business historians should focus on business policies and strategies or conversely on business' social role dates back at least to the late 1950s. From the time business historians first conceived of their work as a separate sub-discipline, scholars wrestled with questions such as: what role should biography play? How much and what kind of theory should be integrated into business history? Under the influence of Max Weber and Talcott Parsons, Chandler chose an institutional, theoretical sociological path for his work. Chandler not only reinforced the importance of business institutions to modern society, he also laid out a theory to explain their internal development. His emphasis was on the economic and technological imperatives that led managers to expand their firms' capacities. Some scholars, such as Thomas McCraw, placed those developments in business' overall political-regulatory environment, and others such as Thomas Cochran and Lou Galambos continued to emphasise the wider implications of business on society. But American scholarship about business became, in the 1960s and 1970s, divided between the more institutional and social historians. Indeed, most of the more ‘sociological’ studies of business were produced by sociologists and economists such as David Riesman, William H. Whyte, and John Kenneth Galbraith. We have drawn most of this discussion from Maury Klein's recent article (2001). For other good discussions of the historiography of business history see Wilkins (1988) and Hausman (2003). For an extremely clever discussion of methodological issues see McKenna (2009).

11. Two excellent papers come to mind. Mira Wilkins' contribution to the last European Banking History Conference in Athens, 2004, ‘Disjunctive sets? Business and banking history', in which she argues that business historians derive most of their insights from the manufacturing and transportation sectors, avoiding the service sector (in Green & Pohle-Fraser, 2008). Along similar lines, Patrick Fridenson's presidential address at the June 2004 BHC meeting (Fridenson, 2004) encouraged business historians to delve into business failures, rarely researched even though they account for the vast majority of business undertakings. A similar point might be made about the selection bias for firms studied during the Nazi period. Firms that did the right thing are somehow uninteresting. See, also, as a refreshing counter example, Mira Wilkins, extraordinary essay (Wilkins, 1986).

12. Editor's note, Business History Review, A special issue on Alfred D. Chandler Jr., vol. 82, no. 2, p. 206 (emphasis added).

13. See discussion of this point in Kobrak (2002b, p. xi).

14. For an excellent discussion of the absence of profit description in business history narratives, see Cassis (1997).

15. Historical methods and materials were central to Gerald Feldman's professionalism. He loved his craft, when applied to business as well as other historical subjects. While the ‘torments of hell’ might have been a little much for those who tampered with historical evidence and those who knowingly misused it, he had little patience, to say the least, for those who did not respect core tenets of their craft. For him, historians were lucky to have a huge treasure chest of materials, but appreciating their luck was not good enough. They had to understand the many obstacles in getting the right ones and using them prudently. He recognised that while the field was rich, it was also mined, requiring professionals with good metal detectors. Business issues and the documents that report on them are generally very complicated to decipher even for the trained eye.

16. Fridenson points out that many business archives have opened up in the last 10 years. While many business archives remain closed, not all the open ones are well organised. Some contain such massive amounts of documents that a detail examination of all the sources available is impossible.

17. Gillingham effectively argues that our vision of the violence of the fifteenth century may be shaped by the greater amount of criminal records available in comparison with previous centuries and the characterisations it received by fictional authors, notably William Shakespeare.

18. As early as the mid-nineteenth century, Germans were writing their earliest, perhaps the earliest, business histories. Johann Trauscholdt's ‘History of the Iron Factory Lauchhammer’ the first German company (Trauscholdt, 1825). During the first decades of the twentieth century, German companies arranged for company histories or company biographies, as they were called. Although Conrad Matschoß (AEG) and Richard Ehrenberg (Siemens) were producing company histories written by academics in 1906, a development that paralleled the first business archives at Krupp and Siemens, academic interest emerged only during the second half of the century (see Schröter, 2000, p. 32). America was ahead though in the academic institutionalisation of business history. At a time when business history was already well-established in the Anglo-American world, in 1957, Wilhem Treue founded the journal Tradition. Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie (Journal for Company History and Biographies of Entrepreneurs). Even Fritz Redlich's 1959 piece in Tradition. Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie, which quickly contributed to professionalising business history in Germany, was first published in the United States. In that year, Redlich's contribution on the origins of business history (Tradition. Zeitschrift für firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie) was originally published in 1952 in America with the title ‘The beginnings and development of German business history’.

19. Still there are only a handful of chairs that have ‘business history’ in the title. Social, economic and business history are usually taught by one person. Therefore, business history is only a part of wider fields.

20. For example, Dieter Ziegler (Bochum), Thomas Welskopp (Bielefeld), Cornelia Rauh (Hannover), Stephan Lindner (Munich). These findings are the result of a recent informal GUG survey.

21. This is evidenced by the relatively large number of young German scholars at international meetings, for example, 29 at the 2010 EBHA Glasgow conference. In Germany, too, a growing number of young scholars attend workshops, conferences, etc. in business history.

22. This also helps explain why the German Association for Business History (Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. GUG) is the only national or international association based on business and academia working together to strengthen business history with regular opportunities for interaction between these groups. There are other national associations in the field of business history where sometimes also companies are members.

23. Discussed in detail in Kobrak (2002b, p. xiii).

24. Herkunft Thüringische Unternehmer (Beiheft zur Tradition 2), Eugen Langen und Nic. August Otto (Beiheft 3, 1963), Ludwig Baist (Beiheft 4) or Carl Zeiss (Beiheft 6) and Wilhelm Oechelhäuser (Beiheft 7).

25. There are some unfortunate exceptions. Alfred Chandler made use of many in Scale and scope (1990).

26. A large number of company histories were written by company archivists, but they make up only a minority of the company histories written (for example, Stürmer, Teichmann, & Treue, 1989; Wessel, 1990; Wolf, 1993).

27. This study presented a great deal of new data on the financing problems of the agricultural sector during Weimar, during the Third Reich, and after.

28. It was Harm Schröter who described the success of the German Association for Business History (GUG) as change of business history from a branch of journalism to a part of professional history.

29. By 1989, a working group was also created, Arbeitskreis für kritische Unternehmensgeschichte (AKKU) (Working Group for Critical Business History), which dissociated itself from commissioned work and argued for strict academic research. Whereas the GUG emphasises business history as mainstream history and the two groups cooperate on many projects, AKKU tries to apply methods from the Anglo-Saxon business history and to develop new theories. During the late 1990s, these two approaches coalesced, helping to create a third wave of business history in Germany.

30. Of the 25 projects Andrea Schneider led, the treatment of National Socialism was questioned only once. In that instance, the marketing department cut out two-thirds of the section. Its decision was overturned by the company's board of directors, which threw the abridged version into the garbage.

31. Topics and presentations of the working groups can be found at the homepage of the GUG: http://www.unternehmensgeschichte.de

32. For example, the number of private members of the GUG, predominately senior and junior scholars, grew in the mid-1990s from 100 to 250 in 2005.

33. The emphasis on traditional values are widespread and again companies have a tendency to lean towards their history. Even economists plead for business history as an inspiration (Schwarz, 2010).