Raymond G. Stokes

A Historical Analysis of Management of Technology at Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik (BASF), AG: A Case Study

But over the years I began to realize that change too has to be managed. In fact, I came to realize that the only way in which an institution, whether a government, a university, a business, a labor union, or an army, can maintain continuity, is by building systematic, organized innovation into its very structure Peter Drucker. 1

Constructing an ‘industry’: the case of industrial gases, 1886–2006

Historically minded social scientists who analyse business and industrial development over time – including business historians – often deploy the term ‘industry’ as if its meaning were both self-evident and unchanging through time. This article uses the case of the international industrial gases industry over the course of 12 decades to demonstrate some ways in which a more critical and dynamic view of ‘industry’ – in combination with recognition of the imperfect overlap between firms on the one hand and industries on the other – enables better understanding and analysis of both.

Autarky, Ideology, and Technological Lag: The Case of the East German Chemical Industry, 1945–1964

The ignominious and total collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989/90 revealed all too clearly the disastrous state of the countrys economy, especially in comparison to the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). This fact must not, however, be seen in isolation from another, apparently contradictory one: From the beginning to the end of its existence, the GDR was the shining economic and technological star in the communist firmament in Eastern Europe. GDR electronics and optics were crucial to the Soviet space program and to East-bloc military production, which counted among communisms few technological successes. Its chemical and automobile industries were also well regarded in the Eastern bloc and in many developing countries. The GDRs technological prowess—especially when combined with its favored and very lucrative relationship with the FRG—made for a reasonably high standard of living, not just in relation to other countries in the Soviet bloc, but in relation to other industrialized countries as well.

'The trauma of competition': The entry of Air Products Inc. into the industrial gases business in Britain and continental Europe, 1947-70

The British Oxygen Company (BOC) had a virtual monopoly on the supply of industrial gases (e.g. oxygen and acetylene) on the British market through the 1950s, when it was finally challenged by an American-based company, Air Products. Air Products Limited (APL) was able to undercut BOCs position, overcoming high barriers to entry to gain significant market share in this sector, which shares some features of network industries. Factors in this success included conditions imposed by the Board of Trade, APLs innovations, BOCs slow response, and favourable market conditions. APLs success had implications for the internationalisation of the industrial gases industry.

Recasting the Ruhr, 1945-1958 : manpower, economic recovery, and labour relations

Part 1 Resourcing the Ruhr: coercion and constraint - military government, manpower and the mines 1945-46 bringing home the bacon - manpower, incentives and coal production, 1946-48 supplies in demand - housing new labour in the pre-currency reform economy an imperfect market - financing workforce regeneration in the social market economy. Part 2 Reshaping the Ruhr: Stammbelegschaft and Masenmenschen the apprenticeship programme, 1948-58 the foundations of stability? housing new labour, 1948-58 compulsive talking and constrained silence - propaganda in the mining hostels of work and wastage minings new relations, new labour, the labour movement and labour relations, 1945-1958.

Building on Air: The International Industrial Gases Industry, 1886–2006

The industrial gases industry originated in 1886, when a London-based company began producing high-purity oxygen. Initially purified oxygen was a solution in search of a problem, but demand for it soared early in the twentieth century with the emergence of welding technology. By then, dramatic technological improvements in air separation and purification emerged, as did most key firms dominating the industry today. Building on air in the decades that followed, the firms expanded their product range and geographical reach to create applications essential to every manufacturing process in the modern world, from semiconductor production to oil refining, waste water treatment, and steel-making. This is the first scholarly history of this vital but invisible industry from its origins to the present. Based on unparalleled access to company and public archives, the book explores business and technological development, industrial evolution, and the industrys local roots even while becoming international and global.

Change of referencing style

We are now inviting manuscripts to be submitted with in-text references from 2018 onwards, as Business History will change its citation format from endnote to in-text author–date from 2019. There w...

Pipelinenetze als Unternehmensstrategie. Die Entstehung des Sauerstoffleitungsnetzes im Ruhrgebiet 1956 bis 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.

Migration and inequality in Germany 1870–1913 – Oliver Grant

No abstract available.

Gravity and the rainbow-makers: Some thoughts on the trajectory of the German chemical industry in the twentieth century

In this closing paper, I consider three questions briefly: why did we have this conference? what do we know after it? what is left on the research agenda for historians of the German chemical industry in the twentieth century?