The Hungarian Historical Review Business History
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The Hungarian Historical Review New Series of Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Volume 4 No. 4 2015 Business History: Enterprises in Adaptation Judit Klement Special Editor of the Thematic Issue Contents Articles PETR POPELKA Business Strategies and Adaptation Mechanisms in Family Businesses during the Era of the Industrial Revolution: The Example of the Klein Family from Moravia 805 JUDIT KLEMENT How to Adapt to a Changing Market? The Budapest Flour Mill Companies at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twenties Centuries 834 ÁGNES POGÁNY Crisis Management Strategies after World War I: The Case of the Budapest Flour Mills 868 ANDRÁS SCHLETT The Socialist-Type Process of Innovation: Lessons of Hungarian Agrarian Modernization between 1960 and 1990 900 ZSUZSANNA VARGA Opportunities and Limitations for Enterprise in the Socialist Economy: The Case of the Budapest Agricultural Cooperatives 928 ZSOMBOR BÓDY Enthralled by Size: Business History or the History of Technocracy in the Study of a Hungarian Socialist Factory 964 http://www.hunghist.org Featured Review Felvilágosult vallás és modern katasztrófa között: magyar zsidó gondolkodás a Horthy-korban [Between Enlightened Religion and Modern Catastrophe: Hungarian Jewish Thinking in the Horthy Era]. By Ferenc Laczó. Reviewed by Zsolt K. Horváth 990 Book Reviews On the Road: The History and Archaeology of Medieval Communication Networks in East-Central Europe. By Magdolna Szilágyi. Reviewed by Dietrich Denecke 996 A pozsonyi prépost és a káptalan viszálya (1421–1425). A szentszéki bíráskodás Magyarországon – a pozsonyi káptalan szervezete és működése a XV. század elején [Confl ict between the provost and the Chapter of Pressburg (1421–1425). Jurisdiction of the Holy See in Hungary – Organization and Operation of the Pozsony Chapter in the Early Fifteenth Century]. By Norbert C. Tóth, Bálint Lakatos, and Gábor Mikó. Reviewed by Balázs Karlinszky 1000 Cities and their Spaces. Concepts and their Use in Europe. Edited by Michel Pauly and Martin Scheutz. Reviewed by Katalin Szende 1003 Dzsámik és mecsetek a hódolt Magyarországon [Mosques in Hungary under Ottoman Occupation]. By Balázs Sudár. Reviewed by Szabolcs Varga 1009 A Divided Hungary in Europe: Exchanges, Networks and Representations, 1541–1699. Edited by Gábor Almási, Szymon Brzezinski, Ildikó Horn, Kees Teszelszky, and Áron Zarnóczki. 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Reviewed by Vítězslav Sommer 1057 Notes on Contributors 1061 Hungarian Historical Review 4, no. 4 (2015): 805–833 Petr Popelka Business Strategies and Adaptation Mechanisms in Family Businesses during the Era of the Industrial Revolution The Example of the Klein Family from Moravia Family businesses are a central topic in the history of business, especially in the early phases of the industrialization process. This case study attempts to identify the business strategies and the adaptation mechanisms used by a family business during the era of the Industrial Revolution. The main aim of the study is to explore which adaptation mechanisms and strategies were used during the Industrial Revolution by large family fi rms in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. The study focuses on a model example, the Klein family, which ranked among the foremost entrepreneurial families in the Bohemian Crown Lands. The Kleins initially rose to prominence through their road construction business. They later built private and state railways and also diversifi ed into heavy industry. I delineate the main stages in the development of the family fi rm, discuss a number of key microeconomic factors which infl uenced the Kleins’ business activities, and describe the factors which ultimately led to the downfall of this once- successful fi rm. Keywords: business history, family fi rm, Industrial Revolution, capitalism, Lands of the Bohemian Crown, business strategies, adaptation mechanisms, Gebrüder Klein, Klein von Wiesenberg The Problem of Continuity and Adaptation In his infl uential study of the family, businesses and capitalism, Jürgen Kocka states that the spirit and practice of capitalism are based on non-capitalist structures and processes which have a long-term infl uence over capitalism. He identifi es the family as one of the key elements which contributed to the formation of capitalism. Kocka writes that family structures, processes and resources encouraged the emergence of industrial capitalism and helped resolve certain problems faced by capitalist industrialization. In his view, this role was particularly evident in the early phase of industrialization.1 1 Jürgen Kocka, “Familie, Unternehmer und Kapitalismus. An Beispielen aus der früher deutschen Industrialisierung,” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 24 (1979): 99–135. http://www.hunghist.org 805 Hungarian Historical Review 4, no. 4 (2015): 805–833 Many years have elapsed since the publication of Kocka’s above-cited article, and many studies have explored the relationships between business and the family. Although scholars may differ in some of their conclusions regarding this relationship, there nevertheless exists a general consensus that the family played an exceptional role in business throughout the nineteenth century.2 In the European historiography on business history, over the course of the past decade there was a marked increase in the interest in the history of family businesses; many studies of family businesses focus on the nineteenth century, the era which witnessed the formation of modern family business practices. Many phenomena have been analyzed with regard to nineteenth-century family businesses; among the most important are issues of succession within family fi rms, business strategies applied by family businesses, and the construction of social networks.3 The central topic of this study (and indeed this entire issue of the journal) concerns enterprises in adaptation. This topic is intricately intertwined with the question of continuity in business, a question that has not yet been fully addressed by Czech historiography with regard to nineteenth-century businesses. Existing studies suggest that the development of the entrepreneurial classes in the Bohemian Crown Lands was in fact characterized not by continuity, but rather by discontinuity. This fi nding has been demonstrated by historical research mainly in terms of the transition between business practices in the proto-industrial era and the industrial era. Businesses which emerged under the protectionist conditions that prevailed during the period of enlightened absolutism and the Napoleonic Wars generally found it diffi cult to adapt to the conditions of economic liberalism that characterized the early phase of industrialization. There were, moreover, certain specifi c features which affected developments 2 Andrea Colli, The History of Family Business 1850–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Toni Pierenkemper, Unternehmensgeschichte. Eine Einführung in ihre Methoden und Ergebnisse (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000), 112; Wieland Sachse, “Familienunternehmen in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft bis zur Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Ein historischer Überblick,” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 36 (1991): 9–25; Louis Bergeron, “Familienstruktur und Industrieunternehmen in Frankreich (18. bis 20. Jahrhundert),” in Familie zwischen Tradition und Moderne, ed. Neithard Bulst, Joseph Goy, and Jochen Hoock (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), 225–37. 3 One fi nds examples of these approaches in Sandra Zeumer, Die Nachfolge in Familienunternehmen. Drei Fallbeispiele aus dem Bergischen Land im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012); Adelheid von Saldern, Netzwerkökonomie