Crisis, Credibility and Corporate History [1 ed.] 9781781387566, 9781781381373

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Crisis, Credibility and Corporate History

Crisis, Credibility and Corporate History

Proceedings of the Symposium of the International Council on Archives, Section on Business and Labour Archives, 14–16 April 2013, Basel Alexander L. Bieri, Karl-Peter Ellerbrock, Thomas Inglin, Thilo Jungkind, Paul Lasewicz, Lionel Loew, Yuko Matsuzaki, Henning Morgen, Birgitte Possing, Joachim Scholtyseck, Jonathan Steffen and Clemens Wischermann

Liverpool University Press

First published 2014 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2014 Liverpool University Press The right of Alexander L. Bieri to be identified as the editor of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-137-3 epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-756-6

Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by BooksFactory.co.uk

Contents Contents

List of Figures vii Foreword ix 1 Marking Out the Extremes in Corporate History

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(a) Stick or Twist? Or: What Has the Company Ever Taught Us? Jonathan Steffen, Managing Director, Jonathan Steffen Ltd.

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(b) Business History or Corporate Communication Clemens Wischermann, University of Constance

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2 Novel Approaches in Corporate History: Selected Examples

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(a) Objective? Me? Henning Morgen, Head of Historical Archives, A. P. Moller–Maersk

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(b) Do Archivists Have the Right to Write History? What is at Stake When Writing Your Own Company’s History? Lionel Loew, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive

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3 Historical Writing: No More Tales of Heroes and Myths!

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(a) The Application of Social Science Theories in Corporate History Thilo Jungkind, University of Constance

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(b) The Biographer’s Power and Private Archives Birgitte Possing, Danish National Archives (c) Company History as an Opportunity and Challenge for University Academics: The Example of the Günther Quandt Group from the Nineteenth Century to 1954 Joachim Scholtyseck, University of Bonn 4 Scientific Credibility and Getting Across the Message: Can We Bridge the Gap? (a) Between Credibility, Mutual Trust and Corporate Interests: Regional Business Archives as Partners of Historical Research and Economic Business Karl-Peter Ellerbrock, Stiftung Westphälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (b) Don’t Waste your Money! Forget the Jubilee Book! The Case for an Integrated Anniversary Approach: A Corporate Archivist’s View Thomas Inglin, Head of Corporate Archives / Library, Zurich Insurance Company 5 The Global Scale of Corporate History: Changing Expectations in Changing Environments

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(a) Archives and Collections in the Twenty-First Century: From Drab to Sexy Alexander L. Bieri, Curator, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive

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(b) The View from the Ivory Tower: The Academic Perspective on the Strategic Value of Corporate History and Heritage Paul Lasewicz, IBM Inc.

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(c) Seventy-Five Years of Toyota: Toyota Motor Corporation’s Latest Shashi and Trends in the Writing of Japanese Corporate History Yuko Matsuzaki, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation

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Index List of Contributors

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Figures Figures

Between pages 30 and 31 2.1 25 Years of Pantopon – Roche 2.2 Somnifen 2.3 ‘Nervous … then Sedormid “Roche”’ 2.4 ‘Sedobrol Roche. To give instead of the regular soups’ 2.5 ‘Librium. The world of the neurotic’ 2.6 ‘Limbitrol. Liberation, blooming, mood improvement, dynamism’ 2.7 ‘Librium. Many million patients later …’ 2.8 ‘Librium. Recapturing the party spirit thanks to Librium’ 2.9 Menrium Roche 2.10 ‘Lexotanil. The subtle adjustment’ 2.11 ‘Valium Roche relaxes mind and body’ 2.12 ‘Afternoon tea pain – a logical remedy: Librax’ 2.13 ‘Mogadon. Double Security!’ 3.1 3.2 3.3

Dimensions of Institutions, after Scott Maintaining the Development of a Crisis Maintaining Credibility in a Crisis

47 50 50

4.1 4.2

The Hoover Dam Madison Square Garden, New York

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4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7

The Desk of Franklin Delano Roosevelt The Lobby of US Headquarters, Schaumburg Modified Double-Decker Buses Giant Posters Anniversary Book

92 93 93 94 94

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The Application of Corporate History – Heritage – the Intersection of Historical Fact and Organizational Activity 109

Foreword David A. Leitch, Secretary General of the ICA Foreword

The distinguished French writer André Maurois once pithily observed that ‘business is a combination of war and sport’. While this might be something of a fanciful exaggeration, the articles in this volume all demonstrate that the archives of business companies, wherever they are located, provide indispensable sources for a full understanding of the evolution of modern society. In recent years the management of records and archives created by the public sector has received increased attention, in the light of legislation intended to give the public greater rights of access to official information and stirring controversies about the management of personal data. However, the records created by the private sector, including businesses, surely merit full parity of esteem with the public sector, as they provide much of the material for the writing of history outside official sources. Business archives pose their own ethical dilemmas for the archivist and researcher, as well as for the company that created them, which cannot be reduced to a public sector paradigm. The publication of this volume has been undertaken by the Section on Business and Labour Archives (SBL) of the International Council on Archives (ICA) and the articles are based on the presentations given at its annual conference in Basel in April 2013. Its appearance now is very timely in helping to redress the sometimes unconscious bias of some recent archival literature towards the public sector and especially central government. Within the world of business archives, the approach taken to archive management can be very different – the emphasis may be on preserving the company’s memory for future business use, the encouragement of academic research in the archives, or exploiting the public relations value of some archives. Of course, these approaches are not mutually exclusive. This volume illustrates the diversity of current practice but there is one unifying factor – a determination to refute Henry Ford’s notorious dictum that ‘history is bunk’. ix

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The good quality of the contributions to this volume highlights once again the value of reflecting on the future direction of the archives sector and sharing these reflections with those who are outside the profession. While the new social media undoubtedly create new opportunities to transmit breaking news and to develop virtual professional networks, there is still a place for publications that enable the profession to address fundamental issues, based on thorough research and analysis. It is essential that these publications also attract the attention of those who have a keen historical awareness but who would not consider themselves to be archivists by any stretch of the imagination. Perhaps archivists need to stop talking to each other so much and to spend more time engaging with wider audiences. I am delighted that Liverpool University Press has agreed to publish this volume, and I hope that other ICA bodies now will come forward and produce volumes of a similarly high standard in the near future.

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Marking Out the Extremes in Corporate History

Stick or Twist? Or: What Has the Company Ever Taught Us? Jonathan Steffen What Has the Company Ever Taught Us?

We live in interesting times. The world’s population recently passed the seven billion mark, and is projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050.1 Nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, are chronicaly undernourished.2 One in four of the world’s children are stunted,3 while more than 1.4 billion people on the planet are overweight.4 Something is going very, very wrong. The unprecedented growth of the world’s population is placing unparalleled strains on individuals and ecosystems alike. Lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease are projected to reach epidemic proportions, while climate change is destabilizing the world’s familiar weather patterns and leading to ever more natural disasters that claim lives and destroy livelihoods around the planet. At the same time, an unparalleled profusion of disruptive new technologies is wiping out entire industries. The music industry has been decimated by the effects of digitalization, and the publishing and bookselling industries are going the same way. The oil industry will soon have to step aside for a new biobased economy; the pharma industry will be obliged to adapt to a medicare philosophy based on prevention of potential conditions rather than treatment of actual symptoms; and even the accountants and – dare I say it – the lawyers have seen their professions radically reshaped by the very tools that they use to do their day-to-day jobs. Faced with change on such a scale, what can 1 United Nations, 13 June 2013. 2 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2012. 3 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 2013. 4 United Nations World Health Organization (WHO), 2013. Figures refer to 2008 and are quoted in The Road to Good Nutrition: A Global Perspective, Karger, Basel, 2013. 3

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we hope to learn from history? And what, if anything, might we reasonably expect to learn from the history of a company?

‘Crimes, follies and misfortunes’

Let us start by briefly examining the purpose of history, and specifically of corporate history. Definitions of the purpose of history vary with the personalities of individual historians and the spirit of the times in which they were active. Edward Gibbon, English author of the eighteenth-century classic The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, remarked that ‘History … is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind’. A very jaundiced view, characteristic of a society that had largely lost its faith in both religion and kingship. It is wildly different from the position of Livy, or Titus Livius Patavinus, the Roman historian who chronicled the history of Rome some 1,800 years before Gibbon and observed that ‘The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid’.5 Interestingly, both viewpoints imply that history contains a catalogue of things to avoid. It may or may not teach us how to conduct our affairs, but it certainly gives us some insights into how not to do so. This consideration is important in the context of company histories, I believe, and particularly in the context of the present debate as to the credibility of corporate history. For my part, I find useful the definition provided by the British historian E. H. Carr, author of, among other works, a fourteen-volume history of the Soviet Union and a book boldly entitled What is History? ‘The function of the historian’, Carr stated, ‘is neither to love the past nor to emancipate himself from the past, but to master it and understand it as the key to the understanding of the present’.6 This is a very finely balanced definition which forbids the historian from engaging in sentimental reminiscing on the one hand and victimized hand-wringing on the other: it calls on the historian to accomplish an act of mastery which will have a beneficial effect on the present, irrespective of the precise content of the past. This definition I find very useful, and I would like to work with it to consider the peculiar requirements of corporate history.

5 Livy, The Early History of Rome, Books I–V. 6 Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History?, Cambridge University Press, 1961.

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The birth of corporate history

It could be argued that corporate history is as old as written history itself, and that the Tacituses and Machiavellis of this world were writing a species of corporate history when they penned their respective accounts of Ancient Rome and medieval Florence. Certainly the rewards that were open to them, as well as the punishments they might incur, might resonate with anyone who has been charged with writing the history of a major corporation. Be that as it may, the modern genre of corporate history can arguably be traced back to Charles Hindley’s History of the Catnach Press,7 a book that appeared in 1869 and which recounts the story of John and James Catnach, the father-and-son printers who were pioneers in bringing cheap print to the masses of Victorian society. Very significantly, this work is inspired not only by the sensationalist ‘penny dreadful’ material that the Catnachs printed but also by the process innovations they introduced, using real paper and printers’ ink for low-budget publications rather than the cheap substitutes current at the time. Histories of companies from the great age of industrialization tend to be written by the founders or their key employees in celebration of significant jubilees, and not by professional historians. They are often rich in anecdote and they frequently make the mistake of concluding with forward-looking statements that the march of progress is to render horribly obsolete within decades. Nothing is as out of date as a photograph of the Board of Management of a defunct company. We live in very different times, however, with the family bonds that characterized early high capitalism the exception rather than the rule in most countries today, and most corporations increasingly aware of the need to cultivate their history with the aid of professional specialists and an ever-increasing range of new archiving and publishing technologies.

The burden of curation

But the ground has shifted. The great early entrepreneurs – the Hoffmann-La Roches and the Alexander Graham Bells and the Henry Fords – did not run global corporations in today’s sense. They did not have to report on their sustainability standards, their diversity profile or their levels of employee engagement. They did not have to cultivate dialogue with antagonistic pressure groups bent on forcing them to change their policies, or to communicate in terms of sound-bites and share of voice. And they did not have, most significantly, a huge burden of history to curate. Whatever may have driven them to achieve exceptional things – and 7 Charles Hindley, The History of the Catnach Press, at Berwick-upon-Tweed, Alnwick and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in Northumberland, and Seven Dials, London, London, 1886.

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figures such as Samuel Courtauld II8 and Alfred Nobel9 were very much driven by the demons of their personal past – they were not the owners of a body of history in the sense that today’s corporations are the owners of a body of history. And this is a very significant difference. There are names – of products, industrial accidents and entire companies – that strike a chill into the heart when they are mentioned. Thalidomide, Amoco Cadiz, Three Mile Island, Seveso, Chernobyl, Piper Alpha, Bhopal, Enron, Arthur Andersen, Barings Bank, Deepwater Horizon, Lehman Brothers. One could continue the list, but the point is surely clear. If such events – amongst all the many great things that may have been achieved – are part of a company’s past, how do we master them and use them as the key to the understanding of the present, to return to E. H. Carr. In an age of social media, consumer activism and cyber terrorism that can elevate almost any individual into a David in the face of the corporate Goliath, how should the company curate its past in such a way that everyone can learn from it?

The purpose of the corporation

Let us start by examining the nature and purpose of the corporation itself. Coca-Cola says that its mission is ‘to refresh the world’. Unilever aims to ‘help people feel good, look good and get more out of life’. Nike exists ‘to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world’. BASF is dedicated to creating ‘chemistry for a sustainable future’. Bold claims – almost as bold as the famous Johnson & Johnson credo that was formulated by Robert Wood Johnson in 1943 and which has guided the company ever since.10 Literally carved in stone at the company’s New Jersey headquarters, and posted on the Internet for all the world to see, this famous value statement is defined as not just a ‘moral compass’ but a ‘recipe for business success’. It puts the needs of doctors, nurses and patients first and those of stockholders last, asserting that if Johnson & Johnson fulfils its obligations to the people who use its products and those who make its products it will be in a position to discharge its obligations to the investors who lend the finance to make its operations possible. Interestingly, the final paragraph concludes with the words: ‘Business must make a sound profit … Research must be carried on, innovative programs developed and mistakes paid for.’

8 Samuel Courtauld II (1793–1881), the founder of Courtaulds, in Tomorrow’s Answers Today: This History of AkzoNobel since 1646, Amsterdam, AkzoNobel, 2008. 9 Alfred Nobel (1833–96), the inventor of dynamite, ibid. 10 w w w.jnj.com/sites/default/files/pdf/jnj_ourcredo_english_us_8.5x11_cmyk.pdf (accessed 11 April 2014).

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Paying for mistakes

And mistakes paid for …The company’s central statement of identity, its seminal expression of its purpose, actually admits of the possibility of failure and makes provision for rectifying such mistakes. I am sure that this position is not unique in the world, but it was certainly pioneering in its day. It is actually the complete opposite of the corral mentality that has characterized the behaviour of so many corporates over the years, a mindset typified by arrogance and secrecy that inspired the creation of a number of increasingly effective activist organizations. Greenpeace’s present influence on corporate life would not be possible without the disastrous decisions taken by the Shell executives responsible for decommissioning the Brent Spar, a North Sea oil storage and tanker loading buoy, in 1995. Who now owns the history of Shell, a company which started life as a London antique shop in the days before Queen Victoria?11 Surely a sizeable sliver of it sits squarely on the desk of Greenpeace and its adherents, well out of the control of anyone at Shell’s global headquarters in The Hague.

The corporation as a publisher

Most major companies today have an inspirational mission statement of some kind. The mission statement has, in fact, taken the place of the old firm motto – the difference being that it is usually articulated in English rather than Latin and – unless you are Johnson & Johnson – that it tends to be revised with disconcerting frequency. The problem is, however, that the ubiquitous mission statement is almost a minimum entry requirement for any company wishing to be taken seriously. Even a company as renowned as General Electric, which does not have a mission statement, defines itself in terms of its lack of a mission statement, in fact.12 The mission statement is today essential not simply because investors need to understand who they are lending their money to, customers need to understand who they are buying their products from or employees need to understand who they are working for. These are all very valid reasons, but there is another, which is in the context of today’s debate even more important. It is the fact that all companies have become publishing houses. I observed in my introductory remarks that the publishing industry is on the brink of experiencing the decimation suffered by the music industry in the past ten years. The fact that any corporation can revise its mission statement, 11 w w w.shell.com/global/aboutshell/who-we-are/our-history/the-beginnings.html (accessed 11 April 2014). 12 www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/mission-statements/general-electric-missionstatement.html (accessed 11 April 2014).

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post it on its website and instantly publish it worldwide is a symptom of this. The communication tools that we originally conceived as labour-saving devices, which then became weapons of competitive advantage, and then became minimal entry requirements, have transformed the corporation to the effect that it has to talk about itself all the time. It has to talk about what it has just done and what it is about to do next. It has to talk about where it came from, what it believes in, and why it is different from its competitors. It has to beg its licence to operate, and be ready at the drop of a hat to explain to camera its position on almost any subject. The global corporations of the early twenty-first century have astonishing power and reach and influence: but only if they continue to talk a good talk. Product and service and values and heritage can mean nothing in the face of a well-publicized PR gaffe. There are, as it happens, entire websites dedicated to ‘The worst PR blunders of the year’ and ‘The worst PR disaster of the decade’.13

The role of corporate archivists

So where does this put corporate archivists? Is it their role to collate and classify and preserve the relics of the past in the hope that this material can be spun in a positive direction by the right people when the need arises? Should they be archiving all the good and all the bad, maintaining very close links to the company’s legal department and keeping a very strong padlock on the archive doors? Or should they, by contrast, not only open up their archives for general viewing but actively invite stakeholders to contribute to the company’s ongoing appreciation of its own history? If corporate history is by definition an act of co-creation, who is involved in the relationship, and where should the boundaries be drawn? It is easy, of course, to ask rhetorical questions of this nature, and much harder to answer them. I myself am neither a corporate nor an academic archivist, and I have neither the responsibilities nor the pressures that go with these professions. Nevertheless, I would like to offer some suggestions as to how corporate history might be cultivated in future so as to make it a compelling and essential part of a company’s activities. Traditionally, company histories have been published in the form of books – reports by an authoritative source about a certain set of events. Company histories using film, and more recent web-based applications, are derivatives of this model, in which a validated narrative is presented in a clear and coherent way

13 Example websites: www.businessinsider.com/the-biggest-corporate-pr-disasters-of-thedecade-2009-12; www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/The_10_worst_PR_disasters_of_2012_ 13353.aspx (accessed 11 April 2014).

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and the reader or viewer may make up his or her own mind on the subject-matter presented. I am not for a moment questioning the validity and value of these classic approaches to the presentation of company history. Nor would I question the importance of another classic presentation format, the exhibition, or of its more recent derivative, the interactive museum. All these have limitless potential to present the history, products and values of a company in ways which are engaging and informative for outsiders and insiders alike. But I feel that there must be more, and that the potential for more innovative and at the same time more ancient forms of discourse has not been tapped as fully as it might. Many science-driven companies now engage in open innovation, collaborating with industry peers and academia in search of breakthrough concepts, products and processes. How many, however, engage in open curation of their own histories? I am not suggesting randomly inviting people in off the street to think up new ways of filing archived material or of asking everyone in the company canteen how they think the new company image film should be edited. I am talking about something rather different. I am talking about the representation of work itself in our society.

Representing the workplace

It is remarkable how little the subject of work is depicted in today’s literature, drama, film and visual arts. There are, of course, exceptions – the highly successful satirical British sitcom series The Office,14 for instance, which was launched in 2001 and spawned a US version four years later, or the cult US television drama Mad Men15 about the advertising agencies of New York’s Madison Avenue in the 1960s. These are exceptions, however, and work as a centrally defining element in our existences has not figured largely in the artistic representations of our age. Perhaps it was overdone as a theme by the realist novelists of the nineteenth century, and was thrown out in a wave of Modernism, Futurism and Vorticism following the First World War. Perhaps it was hijacked by the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, and most of us have seen one heroic female agricultural labourer too many, a baby on one arm and her free hand brandishing a pitchfork at the sky. Whatever the reason, we have continued to work, and have continued to produce, without representing these activities as widely as we might in our general creative discourse – and not just the discourse controlled by corporates themselves.

14 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jd68z (accessed 11 April 2014). 15 www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men (accessed 11 April 2014).

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A different view of work

I myself would like to read a novel about a Jaguar – if only because that is the first famous car marque that comes into my head when I turn my mind to the subject. I would like to watch a play about Valium. I would like to listen to an album of songs about the decoding of the human genome. I would like to visit an exhibition of paintings about the manufacture of shoes. I would like – although I am not a lover of opera, by any means – to go to an opera about a supermarket chain. Oh, and I have forgotten about the string quartet about working in a call centre. Let us please have that, preferably with a menu choice of possible opening movements. I am being facetious, but not entirely so. Work is where many of us spend most of our waking lives. Work is something that makes us what we are, and something that we shape even as it shapes us. The corporations of tomorrow will need not only to cultivate their history, but more than ever to cultivate relationships with those who have a potential interest in their history. The traditional corporate archive is one element in the mix, and it will continue to have an absolutely central role. But I believe that the aspirations, preoccupations, discoveries, triumphs and disasters which make up the history of all great companies deserve a bigger, broader treatment. The story needs to be given to other people to tell, even if they may not tell it in exactly the way the company may desire. We need the great corporations to be commissioning the novelists and dramatists, the artists and songwriters, to create works which critically examine what capitalism has collectively achieved. Not lucrative propaganda. Not embittered protest songs, either. But mature, serious and honest encounters with what we have done with all those countless hours of our lives spent working for the company. We need the great corporations of the world to be cultivating an atmosphere in which their activities are the subject for mainstream artistic treatment and philosophical debate, not just for ephemeral headlines.

Learning from history means learning to listen

Why is this important? Because, to paraphrase E. H. Carr, history is there for us to learn from our mistakes, whatever the nature of those mistakes might have been. And it is on reviewing the errors of our past that we make our decisions about how to conduct ourselves in future. What caused us pain, and what can we learn from it? Should we continue on the same path, or should we change tack? Should we, in card-player’s parlance, stick or twist? What has the company ever taught us, and what should we do with that knowledge? That is the question that major corporations need to ask themselves almost every day, as the world changes at an unparalleled speed around them. I mentioned at the outset a few of the very many pressures on our planet and our species.

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I could have filled this talk with a catalogue of woes, from airborne pesticides to zinc deficiency, from anorexia to xenophobia. Whatever the origins of the problems that face us, it is impossible to imagine their being solved without the involvement of the world’s great global corporations. I believe that we can indeed learn from history, and from corporate history specifically, and perhaps do something to combat them. But only if our discussion of history is an open debate, and we are all prepared to listen to things that we may well not wish to hear.

Business History or Corporate Communication Clemens Wischermann Business History or Corporate Communication

Introduction Overview

There is growing international interest in professionally presented business history. This field offers academic historians great research opportunities and financial potential. Companies are changing their former reclusive habits about public disclosure and instead managing their past as a market strategy for targeted social communication. That said, business history is caught between the conflicting demands of academic standards and entrepreneurial marketing. A company’s decision to publish its corporate history in accordance with scientific standards, for which I argue here, has explicit consequences. By commissioning a research project, the company agrees to finance the research, yet at the same time relinquishes ultimate control over the results: in scientific research it is not the financier who has the final say. What the company does acquire in return is a social reputation as an economic agent of verifiable integrity and transparency. Illustrating the problem

To illustrate the relevance of this problem, I draw on a dispute that has attracted much attention in Germany in recent months, namely that between the Catholic Church as an organization in the Association of German Dioceses (VDD) and the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN) and its director, Christian Pfeiffer. In 2011, the two parties agreed to a research project on sex abuse cases in the German Catholic Church. The Church would fund the project and Christian Pfeiffer would be responsible for the scientific investigation. A written contract was drawn up and the research concept was presented at a joint press conference. 13

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Immediately afterwards, a network of Catholic priests raised concerns regarding data and protection of privacy, declaring that granting non-religious institutions access to diocesan archives contravened Church law. Furthermore, they demanded that all ‘records on criminal matters relating to moral acts of accused or deceased persons or persons convicted in the last decade’ be destroyed. The cooperation project was quickly terminated. Christian Pfeiffer may have realized that he would not have full access to staff records and archives dating back to 1945 (as originally planned). At the same time, the Church realized that the rights to the publication of the research results lay with the researchers, who rejected tighter Church control of the project. The affair was a communications disaster for the Church: at the last moment, Pfeiffer forwent mediation with an accredited mediator and took his story to the press. This created the impression of a cover-up by the Church. Daniel Deckers, the political editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, accused both parties of mistakes: They failed to appreciate the fact that a scientific research project based on personal data is as dangerous a legal minefield as one can find. In autumn 2011 lawyers who examined the written contract approved by Pfeiffer and the bishops were appalled by its wording. The text was evidence of stupendous ignorance on the part of the parties involved.1 In my opinion, the scandal, for which, in the eyes of the public, an explanation is long overdue, could have been avoided. Scientific research: the need for theory

The point of departure for my thoughts on enhancing cooperation between organizations, including companies, and scientific research is the need for a theory-based approach. To find answers to contemporary questions about a company’s history it is not enough to study its history, traditions and sources. The past and its sources do not speak directly to us; they need to be addressed. Even if one accepts the notion of an interactive research process between the researcher and the object of his research, answers always depend on the formulation of questions and the appropriateness of the methodology used. In the case of business history versus corporate communication I take as my starting point a typical principal–agent scenario.

1 Daniel Deckers: ‘Ein absehbarer Eklat bei der Aufklärung’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 January 2013.

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Corporate history and the principal–agent dilemma Defining the principal–agent theory

The principal–agent theory is a branch of New Institutional Economics. The standard definition states: ‘There are two economic agents: the client (principal) and the representative (agent). The principal hires an agent to perform a task on his behalf, and to facilitate this he grants the agent a degree of discretion … The information is asymmetric after the signing of the contract’.2 The contractual partners have different utility functions and different information in respect to subject matter of the agreement. The principal as delegator is considered to be less informed. Bridging the information gap involves costs. The agent effectively maximizes the benefit of the principal only insofar as this lies in the agent’s own interest. The challenge for the principal – for example, the owner of a company – is to prevent such behaviour. To achieve this, the principal has essentially two options: he can either monitor the agent completely or place his full trust in the agent. Both options involve transaction costs. Solution as corporate communication

One solution for the principal–agent problem is strict monitoring of the agent. This would be achieved by incorporating the task into the internal hierarchy of the company: in other words, an in-house historian or archivist would write the history of the company, or assign the task to the corporate history department or corporate communications, both of which are subject to in-house directives. The other option is to hire an external agent to perform this task, e.g., a freelance historian, a media expert or an external communications agency. The company will draw up a very precise contract that seeks to anticipate all contingencies and guarantees the principal the final say. The disadvantage of this solution is potential transaction costs in the form of unforeseen contract, monitoring and implementation costs. However, the company should be able to protect itself against the revelation of unpleasant facts about its past. Solution as business history

The other solution for the principle–agent dilemma is what I call the business history model, namely trusting the agent and thereby forgoing an extremely detailed contract and control mechanisms and, in consequence, transaction costs. The reduction of transaction costs is the result of reducing the principal’s influence 2 Rudolf Richter and Eirik Furubotn: Neue Institutionenökonomik Redlich, Tübingen, 1996, p. 163.

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over the agent. Strictly speaking, with the signing of the contract the principal relinquishes his powers of influence. The model applied is a cooperation model based on trust. In the case of an academic history of a company the agent will usually be a historian at a university, who cannot commit to solving the problem on the company’s terms. This may have unpleasant consequences for the company.

Examples of success and failure in German corporate history Initial difficulties of modern business history: the Daimler story

In Germany, the fundamental framework for modern business history was established in the 1980s. Observers have highlighted a fundamental shift towards a microeconomic emphasis in economic history: instead of macroeconomic and control theories, explanations of corporate performance focus on a company’s past and present.3 For German companies the period of the Third Reich was, and in many cases still is, a source of considerable anxiety. One consequence was that companies went to great lengths to keep corporate archives under lock and key. A hot topic was the issue of forced (or slave) labour under the National Socialist regime. Daimler–Benz AG’s centennial in 1986 highlighted this conflict and triggered a public debate. The company had taken great pains to ensure that the event was properly planned: it commissioned the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte (GUG) [Society for Business History], the pioneer in the field of business history, to document the company’s history during the Third Reich.4 In the 1980s, the explicit willingness to grapple with this period was a pioneering step. The public, however, was interested in only one issue: the foreign workers, or, to use the politically correct term: forced labourers. GUG ignored the issue of forced labour in its documentation in 1986. The following year, the Hamburg Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century (Reemtsma) published a study criticizing the work of GUG.5 Notwithstanding serious methodological weaknesses, it reflected the social awareness of the German public at the time, which no longer accepted the myth of entrepreneurs acting on orders as an explanation of corporate behaviour during the Third Reich. The result was a ‘national PR disaster’ (Schanetzky) for Daimler–Benz. The company and GUG had to publish a separate study of the 3 See Tim Schanetzky: ‘Jubiläen und Skandale. Die “lebhafte Kampfsituation” der achtziger Jahre’. In: Norbert Frei, Tim Schanetzky (eds): Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Historisierung einer Forschungskonjunktur, Göttingen, 2010, pp. 68–78 (p. 68). 4 See Hans Pohl et al.: Die Daimler-Benz AG in den Jahren 1933–45. Eine Dokumentation, Wiesbaden 1986. 5 See Hamburger Stiftung für Sozialgeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts (ed.). Das DaimlerBenz Buch. Ein Rüstungskonzern im ‘Tausendjährigen Reich’, Nördlingen, 1987.

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company’s use of forced labour, which, of course, appeared years later, and thus too late to change public perceptions.6 Nevertheless, the Daimler case did have one significant result: ‘The conflict was a major turning point: the public debate fuelled by the reappraisal led a company to open up its corporate archives for the first time’.7 ‘This step fundamentally changed the historiography of companies and helped to establish methodological standards, and not only with regard to Nazi history’.8 The principal as problem

How does the problem change when we take the principal as the starting point of our company history? In the following, I will piece together elements from my own experiences into a kind of figuration, not fiction. The initiative for the project was taken by a member of the company’s management. A university graduate, he had a rough idea of what was required of university research, but had never worked in academia. Wanting a corporate history that met scientific standards, my businessman therefore turned to a historian in the trusted environment of his home university, a university close to his company headquarters. Direct and very open talks followed. Agreement on the funding and duration of the project was reached and a formal contract of cooperation, which laid down the requisite standards, was signed between the university and the company. So far, so good. The project made good progress; it was taking a little longer than planned, but that was not a serious concern. It was keeping within its budget. Then the project workers handed in a first version of the manuscript. The positive response they hoped for did not materialize. The project workers were puzzled. The project ground to a halt. The businessman and/or company did not answer queries for lengthy periods of time, and when an answer did come it was to criticize details, call for improvements and additions or request that other sources in possession of the company, but to which the company never granted access, be incorporated into the work. Time passed and the scholars feared for the publication of their most interesting results. Eventually the situation degenerated into an open confrontation, with communication through lawyers and legal departments. Only now did the heart of the dilemma become apparent: property rights, in this case specifically intellectual property rights. The company tried to claim a share of the intellectual property of the study by referring to consultations, ideas and legwork. With hindsight, the reason for the delays was obvious: only on receiving the first version of the manuscript with its explicit mention of authorship did the company become aware of the fact that the work it had 6 See Beate Brüninghaus: Zwangsarbeit bei Daimler-Benz, 1994. 7 Schanetzky 2010, p. 75. 8 Ibid., p. 77.

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commissioned would not be its property. The principal expected that all rights would be transferred to it after completion of the project (regardless of what the contract stated). The agent, i.e., the historian, always believed that the results of the project would be at his disposal (regardless of what the contract stated). The principal and agent both believed they had a clear understanding of the situation, but an explicit discussion about the property rights had never taken place: it had not seemed necessary. However, even detailed contracts do not cover informal, non-binding cultural constraints. To conclude this example, one can only hope that the parties were able to resolve this awkward situation – perhaps through mediators – and that the company’s history has been published. The agent as problem: the Nuremberg Institute and its misconception of scholarship

In my next example, the focus is on the agent (i.e., the author of the company’s history), in this case represented by the Center for Applied History (ZAG) in Erlangen, whose director is a professor of modern history. This historian and his institute, which was founded a few years ago, offer their services against payment like any other free agency – with the additional assurance that the services offered are scientifically sound. It should be mentioned that this historian has in effect said that scientists need to position themselves in the free market.9 Every principal has the right ‘to accept or to reject the result of our work as a whole’.10 This brings us, once again, to the heart of all deliberations on the question of corporate communication versus business history: who is entitled to use the findings from research into a company’s history? In the case of the Centre for Applied History the university historian takes a market-oriented position: (1) the principal assesses the quality, and (2) he who pays the piper, calls the decision. The scholarly reviews of the few published works of ZAG have been devastating. The business historian Toni Pierenkemper notes that companies used to commission festschrifts from professional historians: ‘These works served primarily to polish the company’s image as part of a marketing mix’.11 This was legitimate as long as it was clear what it was all about. Nowadays, this kind of work is nowadays usually done through history agencies, very often by younger freelance historians. There is a fundamental difference between this practice and that of commissioning business historians who are committed to academic 9 Quoted from Cornelia Rauh: ‘“Angewandte Geschichte” als Apologetik-Agentur? Wie man an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Unternehmensgeschichte “kapitalisiert”’, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 56 (2011): 102–15 (p. 103). For a detailed critique of the books that had appeared up to then, see ibid. 10 Quoted from Rauh 2011, p. 104. 11 Pierenkemper 2012, p. 80.

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standards. As Cornelia Rauh argues, it is these academic standards that ZAG in principle violates: In conclusion, it must be kept in mind that ‘the methods of historical interpretation adopted by the director of ZAG have as little in common with serious scientific research as does the Schickedanz biographer’s tendentious use of publicly inaccessible sources in the Schickedanz estate. In addition, the ZAG’s director ignores important results and well-researched issues of German contemporary history’.12 In other words, the role of entrepreneurs under the National Socialist regime has clearly been whitewashed.13 To conclude this example, I should like to state that in this case market conformity and scientific standards did not coincide. In terms of my principal– agent dilemma, leaving the final decision to the principal has neither assured nor improved quality. As a means of legitimizing business history, primacy of demand does not work. Which instance ultimately renders a verdict on the quality of a company’s history? In response to ZAG’s self-portrayal, the Dean of the University of Nuremberg identified instance beyond any doubt when he declared that ‘the quality of scientific work cannot be measured by the satisfaction of a principal; the sole yardstick is the judgement of an informed public’.14 Examples of balanced principal–agent cases: successful cooperation between companies and academia

In recent years a number of successful corporate histories have been written, some of a high academic standard. They embody successful collaborations between companies and academic historians. I shall limit myself to just one personal account in my own field: the writing of the Bertelsmann Company’s history on the occasion of its 175th anniversary.15 A few years earlier Bertelsmann had embarked on a project to produce a history of the company during the Third Reich, triggered by remarks of the CEO in New York, who continued to cultivate the legend that the company had supported the resistance during the National Socialist era. Public pressure forced Bertelsmann to address, research and communicate on the issue – and not least to build up an archive. The company learned from its past

12 Rauh 2011, pp. 114–15. 13 Quoted from Toni Pierenkemper: ‘Moderne Unternehmensgeschichte auf vertrauten (Irr-)Wegen?’, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 57 (2012): 70–85 (p. 83). 14 Ibid., p. 80. 15 See 175 Years of Bertelsmann: The Legacy for Our Future, Gütersloh, 2010.

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mistakes and launched a well-prepared collaboration between academia and the company on the occasion of its 175th anniversary. My focus was its more recent history as a media group. I wrote an account about the creation of corporate culture at Bertelsmann. Reinhard Mohn, Bertelsmann’s sole owner for decades, had institutionalized himself as the figurehead of modern democratic corporate culture, and this needed to be analysed from the point of view of history. Helen Müller, Head of Corporate History, contacted me on behalf of the company. Bertelsmann had thoroughly researched my publications and concepts in advance in the light of their own corporate history requirements. This was followed by a meeting with Helen Müller in Constance. In our lengthy discussion we established a relationship of trust and I subsequently signed a contract with Bertelsmann. The relationship continued seamlessly during my first working visit to the archive in Gütersloh: I had unrestricted access to the archive, as promised. At Bertelsmann people were very keen to learn what an outside historian would say about their corporate culture, which continues to play a key role in the company’s self-image. In the final stages of the project we jointly discussed details and gaps in my account. But, no attempt was ever made to try to influence my work. The primacy of science was not challenged.

Implications for projects in business history

To structure my thoughts on corporate communication versus business history I have used a principal–agent dilemma, in our case the relationship between a company and a historian. Principal–agent concepts usually solve problems of asymmetric information using transaction cost considerations. Principal–agent concepts can be helpful in revealing underlying tensions in communication between the parties involved in planning a business history. However, the principal–agent approach reaches its limits if the agent, in our case the historian, cannot commit to the aims of the company, be it financially or in good faith. The theory does not recognize academic independence, which is the cornerstone of the scholar’s reputation. In practice, of course, this is the crucial point. Referring to the Bertelsmann project, Tim Arnold called the autarky of the scholar working for a company the ‘seemingly paradox principle of hands in bonds’,16 i.e., binding oneself in order to stay functional in the market and society. What are the consequences of the above deliberations? I shall summarize them in four points. 16 Tim Arnold: Auftragsforschung. Lehren aus dem Bertelsmann-Projekt. In: Norbert Frei, Tim Scharnetzky (eds): Unternehmen im Nationalsozialismus. Zur Historisierung einer Forschungskonjunktur, Göttingen, 2010, pp. 176–81 (p. 179).

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§ The first step is for the company to decide whether it wants to commission a scholarly business history or a product for the purpose of marketing its history. § If the company decides in favour of a business history, it is crucially important that it commission the right scholar. This may involve significant transaction costs to determine a scholar’s credibility, e.g., by reading publications or establishing a personal relationship. After choosing a credible academic management, all further decisions on the staffing of the research group are the responsibility of the scholar alone. § From the scholar’s perspective it is crucial that it is laid down in the contract that the rights to the results are vested in him. § After signing the contract, the company loses its right of veto. Once the results are published the company must grant third parties access to its archives for purposes of verification. To conclude: in research the rules of the free market ultimately do not apply. Market conformity in respect of mission completion does not legitimize scientific results. But what does the company gain in return? It expands its capacity to act in the markets and society in various ways. Many German companies have experienced how quickly this capacity to act can be threatened by questions about their behaviour under the National Socialist regime. Other sorts of concealed crises and disasters in a company’s past can also seriously damage a company’s reputation when they become public. In the age of globalization, transparency – also about problems in corporate research and development – is more than ever an economic factor, in particular for listed companies. Ultimately, however, transparency is about the capacity to act in markets and societies. In social terms the company´s reputation is its most important asset. With the help of a professional business history, the company can establish a social reputation as an economic agent with verifiable integrity and transparency. In times such as ours, in which social trust in the actions of economic actors is so easily lost, reputation is more than just a precious commodity.

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Novel Approaches in Corporate History: Selected Examples

Objective? Me? Henning Morgen Objective? Me?

Introduction

The A. P. Moller–Maersk Group consists of a collection of companies operating within shipping and energy. The Group has four core businesses which include Maersk Line, APM Terminals, Maersk Oil and Maersk Drilling. Through these activities, and several others in shipping, off-shore, retail and industry, the Group employs roughly 89,000 people in more than 130 countries. As a Group, our business success is built on a number of strengths: our size and global reach, our financial strength, our talented employees, our time-honoured values, our approach to sustainability and our drive to innovate. A. P. Moller– Maersk A/S, the formal name of the legal entity, is listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. The company currently has some 76,000 shareholders; however, the majority of the A-shares, which have voting rights, are owned by The A. P. Møller Foundation, which is controlled by the founding family. In this presentation, especially our values and the founding family play an important role in my argument for why I cannot be objective in my work – but I can be contextually accurate.

The time-honoured values

The founder of the company, Arnold Peter Møller, and his son, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, led the company over a period of more than 100 years, and they were both highly visible role models in a company that was a relatively small enterprise until globalization took off in the 1990s. As Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller withdrew from operational duties in 2003, he worked to engrain the founder’s values as guidelines for each individual employee. The Values Process, as the project of formulating and propagating the Group’s values was known internally, resulted in five core 25

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values that serve as the anchor for our behaviour and ensure that we make ethically sound decisions that are aligned with our company culture: The values of constant care and humbleness imply that we must prepare for the future and look for inspiration on how we can continuously improve our practices. Uprightness requires transparency and accountability in everything we do. Our employees and our name entail striving to make our company an inspiring and challenging place to work, and a valuable and credible business partner.

The business of history documentation

The circumstances surrounding the practice of history documentation are a combination of time and age (or traditions), the private ownership of the company, our Group Policies (i.e., the Values Process put into action) and our communication strategy. Our method of history documentation includes research, compilation and communication. The research is conducted in-house in our archives, and externally, as deemed relevant. The aim of the research is to provide the facts and the context for compiling a text or a presentation for communication of the subject. Considering the above circumstances, the communication should be proportional, i.e., appropriate to serve the needs of the situation. The text or presentation should be contextually accurate set against the company priorities in the actual situation.

Case 1: The Maersk Line

Maersk Line is the world’s leading container shipping company and accounts for nearly 50 percent of the A. P. Moller–Maersk Group’s revenue. In 2011, we started work on a book with three themes; the Maersk Line history in container shipping, 1973–2013; the developments in container shipping; and the role of low-cost, efficient shipping in the ongoing globalization.1 With the expressed ambition to produce a professional piece of work that lives up to 1 Chris Jephson, Henning Morgen, Creating Global Opportunities: Maersk Line in Containerisation, 1973–2013, Cambridge University Press, 2014.

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Company standards on how we conduct business, we were faced with (at least) five dilemmas which had to be discussed with a view to objectivity: 1. The book will be the first time that our records have been researched to document one of the legendary decisions in the Company’s history: the decision to enter container shipping. Taking into account the myths about the decision (internally in the company, in Denmark and in the shipping industry), the focus was not just on how the business case for the decision was prepared, how it was presented and how the decision was made and by whom – it was important to establish the actual context for the reader to understand the circumstances. 2. The research and the writing have been conducted by two employees of A. P. Moller–Maersk and so it is ‘an inside job’. The company history of Maersk Line was developed with reference to the methods described above. The parts on the shipping industry and globalization relied to a great extent on facts obtained from third-party sources. To introduce as much credibility as possible, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Containerisation International, Lloyd’s Register and other independent agencies were asked to supply various statistics on, for example, world events, trade, industry developments and ships and containers. 3. An important means of describing the development of the Maersk Line business would be to disclose previously unpublished figures on turnover and revenue. Permission to do so was obtained from the CEO of Maersk Line and the relevant statistics were produced with the aim of presenting a set of transparent numbers. The inclusion of detailed financial information about a major player in the container shipping industry will support the book’s anticipated use in educational institutions. 4. Getting the context right: the internal records might show only part of a reality that would be different depending on what you ask or whom you ask. Again, to support establishing the actual context for the book’s subjects, whether we were describing a subject in the 1970s, the 1980s or later, external, independent information has been used to compare information gathered from our own records. 5. Having researched a range of books on the subject of globalization we realized that only very few considered the shipping industry to have had an important role in globalization. Being the market leader in container shipping, Maersk Line wanted to emphasize this position and to be a thought leader on the container shipping industry’s important role in today’s global trade. Rather than putting Maersk Line on a pedestal we

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wanted to show the entire industry’s impact and did so by extensive references to trade journals and yearbooks.

Case 2: Odense Steel Shipyard

Arnold Peter Møller established the Odense Steel Shipyard in 1918. Owing to the competition from shipyards in Asia, it was decided to cease ship production at the yard in 2012. To be delivered by the end of 2014, A. P. Moller–Maersk has commissioned a local museum to produce a two-volume academic manuscript on the history of the shipyard. The overall project responsibility for the work has been placed with the local museum. However, it has been agreed that I will support the project as a co-writer. With a view to objectivity, that requires me (and the commissioning company) to consider how to balance the input given to the discussions on the themes of the books. Full access has been given to the company archives. As questions arise on information found in records, answers must not interfere with the external authors’ writing. However, relevant comments should be provided to assist in establishing the right context.

Conclusion

A. P. Moller–Maersk A/S is not a family-run business, but it is controlled by the founding family, represented by the A. P. Møller Foundation. The owners and the family’s heritage, including the reason for establishing the business in the first place, must be recognized in our daily work. That might seem trivial, but it has a profound influence on how we do business and interact with our stakeholders. That is about living the values in every aspect of our working lives. On the tactical level, Group History Documentation supplies its product into the Group’s communication efforts, and as such must support the communication strategy. That leads to the conclusion that history documentation and communication cannot be objective, but our professionalism, combined with living the Values Process, should result in texts and presentations that are contextually accurate.

Do Archivists Have the Right to Write History? What is at Stake When Writing Your Own Company’s History? Lionel Loew Do Archivists Have the Right to Write History?

‘History, I suppose, is the Past – so far as we know it’1

One belief commonly shared by some historians is that the idea and ideal of ‘objectivity’ lie at the core of the historian’s venture. Dispassion and non-partisanship should define this term ‘objectivity’. The researcher has to make abstraction of his own personality, seen as a filter altering his observations of the past. His freedom of thought is seen as an imperative for the writing of history. In other words, he should stay neutral and disinterested. From this point of view, partisanship can be avoided by isolating the profession from social, material or political pressures. This could help eliminate any requirement to reach one conclusion rather than another in the writing of history. It is therefore possible to understand why the partisans of pure objectivity are not impressed with the idea of an archivist who, working and being paid by a private company, intends to trace the history of his company. They do not believe one can reconcile the position of archivist with that of objective observer. The fear of losing one’s job, the fact one partakes in the very history one plans to write about, for example, should be proof enough of partisanship. In short, archivists are not suited to write about the history of the company they are working for. Of course, we disagree! This strict interpretation of objectivity implies that archivists in private firms are not the only ones to be too ‘subjective’ to write history. In fact, you can barely find anyone truly free from any values or preconceptions, no matter how hard they try. To quote French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, ‘every discourse is the result of a compromise between an expressive interest and a censorship constituted by 1 V. H. Galbraith: ‘Why We Study History’, Historical Association Publications, 131 (1944). 29

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the very structure of the field in which the discourse is produced’.2 Nobody is free to write what they want: we all are writing a history which is determined by our position in a given field, society, company or university. Objectivity simply does not exist in its purest form. Every history is dependent on the situation of its historian. For example, we generally believe that historians working at a university are the most likely to be free from any kind of pressure. They seem protected from the petty requirements of outside fields. Still, it is not a new observation that many academic scientists have had to find the subtle balance between quality on the one hand, and acceptability or market value on the other, in order to be well on their way to a bright academic future. Objectivity here can be boiled down to the weight of authority, the viewpoint of those who are in a position to enforce standards. In other words, the historian is involved in a complex network of scientific relationships where the legitimation of his work is at stake. He has to use strategies to guarantee his access to symbolic, social or material profits. If we take the example of the Seveso disaster, which occurred in 1976 in Italy and is by far the worst event in Roche’s history,3 it will of course be difficult for the Roche archivist to speak about it. The risk of being biased exists. But you cannot underestimate what is at stake for the academic historian who writes this history of Seveso. He has to deal with social pressure. The social demands that too often lead his need to be useful to society trump his duty of neutrality: society requires a history which reminds us of the disaster, which does not allow us to forget it, in order to avoid – as is believed – any repetition of that disaster in the future. And Philippe Joutard cautions us not to be surprised if the historian also finds new reasons to blame the causes and the party responsible for the accident by revealing the suffering inflicted on the population.4 The historian is here harnessed not by his quest for objectivity and the truth but by his interest for social valorization and legitimation of his work. He sees here, at least, the possibility to prove his public usefulness. In short, the debate over objectivity is a wrong debate. No sooner had the historian chosen a subject than he already has imposed his subjectivity on history. The questions he asks, the selection of the sources he intends to use, the preliminary answers he already has in mind, the fact he is living hic et nunc nullify the mere possibility for objectivity. Denying this would border on self-denial. 2 Pierre Bourdieu: Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 137. 3 The Seveso disaster was an industrial accident that occurred on 10 July 1976 in a chemical plant in northern Italy owned by the company ICMESA, a subsidiary of Givaudan, which was, in turn, a subsidiary of Hoffmann-La Roche. 4 Philippe Joutard: ‘Mémoire collective’. In: Christian Delacroix et al.: Historiographies: concepts et débats, Paris, Gallimard, 2010, p. 776.

2.1  25 Years of Pantopon – Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Pantopon Drucksachen’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.3.1.PNP-104161 (1911)

2.2 Somnifen F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Somnifen Drucksachen’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.3.1.SOM-104370 (no date)

2.3  ‘Nervous … then Sedormid “Roche”’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Werbedrucksache für Sedormid’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.2.1.DIV-104555 (1928)

2.4  ‘Sedobrol Roche. To give instead of the regular soups’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Sedobrol Drucksachen’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.3.1.SED-104348 (no date)

2.5  ‘Librium. The world of the neurotic’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 59, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202901 (1974)

2.6  ‘Limbitrol. Liberation, blooming, mood improvement, dynamism’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Photo-Documentation Médicale Roche’, 28, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2202870 (1968)

2.7  ‘Librium. Many million patients later …’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 45, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202887 (1971)

2.8  ‘Librium. Recapturing the party spirit thanks to Librium’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 55, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202897 (1973)

2.9  Menrium Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 28, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202870 (1968)

2.10  ‘Lexotanil. The subtle adjustment’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Werbedrucksachen’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.2.1.DIV-105824 (1980)

2.11  ‘Valium Roche relaxes mind and body’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 45, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202887 (1971)

2.12  ‘Afternoon tea pain – a logical remedy: Librax’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Librax: Werbedrucksachen’, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, PD.3.1.LBX-107275 (1965)

2.13  ‘Mogadon. Double Security!’ F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, ‘Image. Medizinische Bilddokumentation’, 55, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, BU.0.2-202897 (1973)

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Do Archivists Have the Right to Write History?

Thus, objectivity cannot be the goal of history. Actually, history should take subjectivities into account, and acknowledge them as a necessary evil. We agree with David Eakins when he explains that ‘partisanship no more eliminates the possibility for objectivity than the supposed lack of motivation guarantees it’,5 for to explain is already to be partisan. Primo Levi wrote about his time in a concentration camp, ‘perhaps one cannot, even more, one must not, understand what happened, because understanding something is almost justifying it’.6 Explaining is already, implicitly, finding excuses. This is a good reason why, for example, the Roche archivist finds it difficult not to sound partisan when he speaks about the Seveso disaster.7 We would like to defend partisanship in the writing of history. The fact that the archivist’s personal implications in the writing of his company’s history are obvious does not forbid him to write this history: quite the opposite. It is impossible to make abstraction of these implications, of the fact that he is a part of the history he is trying to understand. The archivist is well aware of these implications, which also allow him to take them into consideration and then try to be impartial. On the contrary, the historian who believes he is neutral will not try to understand his motivations; he thus will not be able to take them into account. So much so that, at the end of the day, the risk will be much higher for him to be influenced by his own personality, as he will not try to purge himself of all preconceptions. In our defence of partisanship in the writing of history, we would like here to remind the reader that, to exist, black history had to wait for a black historian, John Hope Franklin.8 The beginning of women’s history coincided with the rise of new forms of female militancy. As long as academic historians were recruited from the upper classes, the history of the popular classes was ignored, and nobody explained communism in France better than French communists themselves.9 Sociologist Erving Goffman puts it even more bluntly in his book Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates: ‘Describing a situation faithfully necessarily means presenting a partisan view’.10 And if Goffman has the right to present a partisan view on asylums, so has the Roche archivist, for you will certainly find little difference between the Roche Company and an asylum! 1234

1 2 3 4

5 David Eakins: ‘Objectivity and Commitment’, Studies on the Left 1 (1959): 53. 6 Primo Levi: If This Is a Man, London, Orion Press, 1963, pp. 395 and 396. 7 According to a personal experience in the German academic world: Lionel Loew: ‘Seveso 1976: Wahrnehmung und Kommunikationskrise’, at the Universität Konstanz, 23 March 2012. 8 Peter Novick: That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 472. 9 Philippe Joutard: ‘Mémoire collective’, Delacroix et al. 2010, 774. 10 Erving Goffman: Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York, Doubleday, 1961, p. 8.

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Advantages of partisanship: why should archivists write history?

We see many advantages in partisanship and in the involvement in his subject for the historian or the archivist. First of all, ironically enough, they make room for a kind of objectivity. The archivist will remain opposed to established institutions and conventional conceptions, which enables him to carry his inquiry along new paths that the so-called ‘neutral’ conservative scholar would not dare to go. And this point is fundamental. The daily involvement of the archivist grants him a thorough knowledge of the history of his company, but also of course of the archive. This knowledge is a decisive asset. It suggests hypothesis, it steers towards new documents and new facts which would remain unlooked at by other historians. He can tackle new domains, with new methods. For example, Roche’s archivist can attest that historians interested in Roche know very well about the success of the company with the benzodiazepine tranquillizers in the 1960s. Valium is known by almost everybody. Accordingly, the literature on benzodiazepines or on Leo Sternbach, inventor of Librium, the first psychotropic of its kind to come on the market in 1960, is abundant. And even if it is hard to find new questions on that topic, the benzodiazepine story still attracts the interest of many researchers. However, few will know that Roche was active in the field of the central nervous system almost from its beginnings. It started in 1909 with Pantopon, an excellent painkiller which presented all the alkaloids of opium, and thus had wonderful effects! (Fig. 2.1). Somnifen and Sedormid, two sedatives and mild hypnotics, followed. You can tell from the Sedormid advertisement in what cases you might need to use that product (Figs 2.2–2.4). Another example could be Sedobrol, a sedative bouillon to induce – as stated on the package – a ‘quiet’ restful sleep. This product was very popular in asylums, for example, as it could replace the ‘regular’ soup without the risk of the inmates noticing it. All these products were very interesting; they are all worth the work of a historian attracted to new stories and trying to understand the history of medicine or of Roche in the context of their time. Not only can the archivist thus discover and pass on previously unknown stories, he will also develop his own culture of the history of his company and become even more able to tackle original and hidden domains. As French historian Antoine Prost once wrote, ‘every time our historical knowledge on a domain increases, we are able to learn more from other fragments of sources’.11 In this case, the involvement of the archivist and his proximity with the subject is clearly an asset. Fully to use a historical document, you have to criticize it and you have to compare it with acquired knowledge on the subject and the moment and the context with which it deals. The greater your knowledge is of the subject, the more 11 Antoine Prost: Douze leçons sur l’histoire, Paris, Seuil, 1996, p. 81.

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able will you be to use the documents you have, and subsequently to derive from them new and relevant questions. And, as Henri-Irénée Marrou explained, the quality of the questions you derive from your sources ensures the quality, or lack thereof, of your history.12 Once again, being part of the company helps more than it limits the archivist in his duties as a historian. And, not only does the position of archivist help one to be a better historian, but being a historian also makes one a better archivist. As a historian, one asks oneself questions, which allows one to understand how the historical records one is in charge of as an archivist will be used or whether newly received items will have a chance to be used – something which will influence their selection or not for permanent or long-term preservation; in other words, how the records should be preserved. The historian within the archivist will also research documents, try to find correlations between them, use the electronic catalogue. In fact, by doing so, he will be testing the system, maybe finding ways to improve it – something which, at the end of the day, can lead to new understanding of what is at stake in his duty as archivist entering new items in the historical archive’s catalogue, for example. Indeed, the way records are selected and sorted, how they are classified, if some documents are gathered or separated, or the manner in which they are presented are all choices that generate meanings and influence the historical researches that will follow. Thus, we believe that the archivist has the right and should try to write the history of his own company. To be part of this history is both a limit and an asset, and sociologists, for example, are more inclined to focus on the advantages of the situation. Participant observations, which aim to gain a close familiarity with a given group of persons or with their practices through intensive involvement, were once common in anthropology. It is also the case with symbolic interactionism,13 and we would like now to explain how the latter can be seen as a tool for the archivist who intends to write the history of his company and, at the same time, wants to avoid being labelled as partisan. Howard Becker, who started from the idea that biases are inevitable in all studies on human subjects, proposed to report all the subjectivities in a given situation to gain full understanding of a problem. He defended a sociology able to, as he said, ‘violate society’s hierarchy of credibility by questioning the monopoly on the truth claimed by those in positions of power and authority’.14 By violating the hierarchy of credibility, by granting the same importance to all discourses, to 12 Henri-Irénée Marrou: De la connaissance historique, Paris, Seuil, 1954, p. 69. 13 For an introduction, see e.g. David Matza: Becoming Deviant, London, Transaction Publishers, 2010 [1969]. 14 Howard S. Becker: Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, London, Free Press, 1963, p. 207.

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all subjectivities, it is possible to reduce the risk of being biased as a result of one’s involvement as an employee, because then we won’t grant more importance to our company’s point of view than to other ones. For example, the historian intending to conduct a study of benzodiazepines in the 1960s should take into account the discourses of doctors and scientists, but also of patients. We should also document the defenders of their use as well as the critics, without giving more importance to one kind of discourse over another. If we follow on from this example, we could then study the scientific literature on the use of benzodiazepines at the end of the 1960s and separate the sources into two groups: both will share the fact that 18 per cent of the US female population took benzodiazepine drugs in the late 1960s.15 But, for the first group of studies, the statement will be that 18 per cent of the US female population (thank god) took benzodiazepine drugs in the late 1960s; the second one will be focused on the fact that 18 per cent of the US female population (goddammit) took b­ enzodiazepine drugs in the late 1960s. The first ones are more likely to be focused on the advantages of the benzodiazepines: benzodiazepines are effective against stress; the risk of overdose is much smaller than with barbiturates (ask Marilyn Monroe: she OD’d on Nembutal, a barbiturate); patients are less likely to develop an addiction. The second group will share another opinion, of course. Malcolm Lader thus wrote, in a controversial paper published in 1978, ‘it is more difficult to withdraw from benzodiazepines than it is from heroin’.16 Well, even if it is hard to find evidence of that, both opinions should still be taken into account and be given the same importance. We refuse to hierarchize the discourses, to see some as ‘better’ than others. We try to see them as kinds of discourses that some disapprove of yet others value, studying how these perspectives are built up and maintained, and what they reveal about the groups that defend them. Deciding right from the start which group holds the truth would be denying that conflicts occurred: it would forbid us to understand what is really at stake in the discussion about the use of benzodiazepines. The same kind of observation can be made about a study focused on the discourses of the population taking that kind of psychotropic. In fact, you would be conducting different studies if you are interested in the young female population in San Francisco at the end of the 1960s, where more than 40 per cent took benzodiazepine drugs,17 or if you limit your research to more conservative parts of the country. 15 H. Parry, M. Balter, G. Mellinger, D. Manheimer: ‘National Patterns of Psychotherapeutic Drug Use’, Archs Gen. Psychiatry 28 (1973): 769–83. 16 Malcom Lader: ‘Benzodiazepines – The Opium of the Masses?’, Neuroscience 3 (1978): 159–65. 17 G. Mellinger, M. Balter, D. Manheimer: ‘Patterns of Psychotherapeutic Drug Use Amongst Adults in San Francisco’, Archs Gen. Psychiatry 25 (1971): 385–94.

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We can imagine that the hippie communities in San Francisco would offer a completely different interpretation of their use of benzodiazepines from other groups, as they were used to taking drugs such as cannabis, LSD, ‘magic’ mushrooms or mescaline to clean ‘the doors of perception’18 and explore various states of consciousness (Fig. 2.5). Benzodiazepines provided new forms of liberty (Fig. 2.6) or the chance to live up to their ideal of ‘peace and love’ (Fig. 2.7). They would value their consummation of Librium or Valium differently from the young mother in a small town, for example (Fig. 2.8). The latter would be more inclined to account for her use of tranquillizers by the social pressure of being a good, efficient and multi-tasking mother able to cope with the duty of organizing wonderful birthday parties, of being a beautiful and satisfied wife – always there for her husband (don’t forget we are in the 1960s) (Fig. 2.9), or by the social pressure to behave herself with distinction (Fig. 2.10). But you could also find other explanations as to the reasons why people resorted to benzodiazepines if you focus your study on older couples. They would have a much higher probability to link the use of tranquillizers to the values of social order (Fig. 2.11), integration into the community (Fig. 2.12), or security, meaning, here, both effectiveness and lack of OD risks (Fig. 2.13).

Conclusion

It is impossible to ignore the moral implications of a historian’s work. Selecting one group rather than another is already integrating ideological stances at the core of the research within the history in progress. In every case, it is essential to grant credit to all subjectivities, for only in this way can you avoid ethnocentrism and the risk of imposing your own conception of the problem. For example, the Roche archivist may be attracted to medical and scientific debates when dealing with the use of psychotropic substances. And it seems almost natural to consider the doctor or the psychologist as the authority on the topic. They are the ones who prescribe benzodiazepines depending on the patient’s symptoms. In this case, what draws attention to the patient’s condition are behaviours that are seen and described as ‘inappropriate’. But the decision as to whether a given behaviour is appropriate or not must often be a lay decision. Diagnostic decisions, particularly when dealing with anxiety or depression, can become ethnocentric, the doctor using his own culture’s point of view to judge the patient’s state of mind. But environmental, personality, genetic and biochemical aspects are all major factors in mental illnesses and the patient or another doctor could have a completely different interpretation of the situation that will then 18 Aldous Huxley: The Doors of Perception, London, Chatto & Windus, 1954.

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interfere with their decision to prescribe or not to prescribe benzodiazepine drugs. The patient can be diagnosed as ill by the practitioner even if the patient considers himself healthy (for example, in an asylum); the opposite being also true. Once again, the historian/researcher must not accept one definition over another, even if it comes from an accepted authority, for agreeing with one point of view means barring from the outset an understanding of different ones. What is true in a Euclidean space is not so anymore in a Riemannian space. In other words, it is not possible to pass judgement without specific reference to the system to which it applies. The historian must demystify discourses. He must know who speaks and recognize signs of power in order not to accept the objectivity or reality of one group without questioning it.19 This is exactly what stands at the core of the archivist’s activity when trying to write one’s own company’s history and wanting to avoid being labelled as partisan. In order to write history in an original and heuristic way, to fight against presupposition and the involvement inherent in his position as employee, he should then try to multiply the points of view and consistently pit them against one another.

19 See e.g. Jacques Le Goff: Histoire et mémoire, Paris, Folio, 1988, p. 304.

3

Historical Writing: No More Tales of Heroes and Myths!

The Application of Social Science Theories in Corporate History Thilo Jungkind Social Science Theories in Corporate History

Added value for science and practice – attempts to convince

In interpreting how companies function and survive in specific (historical) situations, modern corporate historiography should make use of interdisciplinary theories and concepts.1 Looking beyond the narrow perspective of purely economic, commercial and business considerations, concepts and theories drawn from the social sciences provide a broader view of many questions and the associated approaches to resolving problems, which benefit not only academic research, but also corporate archives and organizations in general. In this context it is very important for a company history not to treat corporate history as a presentation of selected internal phenomena and activities – the company’s leading figures, inventions and deeds – for external consumption. Both scientific analysis and curatorial decisions on what to include in the corporate archives need to take account of a company’s social environment. This forms the basis for generating, storing and making available knowledge about the complex (historical) contexts of entrepreneurial actions. However, corporate historiography in the scientific sense, in particular that of companies in German-speaking countries, still makes a practice of avoiding this two-dimensional perspective. The reason lies in the mainstream preference for economic theories, which by their nature are reductionist and, hence, offer a very narrow perspective of issues and questions. Companies, too, are responsible in as 1 Berghoff Hartmut: ‘Wozu Unternehmensgeschichte? Erkenntnisinteressen, Forschungsansätze und Perspektiven des Faches’, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 49 (2004):  131–49. For an Anglo-Saxon perspective, see Geoffrey Jones, Jonathan Zeitlin (eds): The Oxford Handbook of Business History, Oxford University Press, 2008. 39

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much as company publications and Festschrifts are self-congratulatory: they focus exclusively on the company’s achievements. However, the audience for both company histories written in-house and scientific research projects set up to deal with specific issues is a globally minded, extremely well-informed and critical public that is ready to participate in the discussion. This public would feel duped unless a corporate history dealt with critical issues in a company’s past or was firmly embedded in a critical analysis of social contexts. An interdisciplinary approach facilitates and widens the diversity of knowledge and in particular the awareness of the historical context in which knowledge about the company’s actions was obtained and disseminated. The organization can use its knowledge of specific patterns of company behaviour and functional procedures in the past as a comparative advantage. This advantage is lost in a purely economic, commercial or business approach, since such an approach reduces the company to its economic functionality. Such an approach makes it impossible to view companies as the social actors that we are familiar with, and which they have always been since the first industrialized company. They are corporate citizens, and hence collective citizens.2 The historically substantiated assumption of this role by the company as a legitimate member of an expanding society, as a social structure with socially recognized strategies for action, is what makes it a key economic actor, not only as a construct of theoretical and conceptual assumptions, but also as verified by empirical studies.3 Therefore, not only the company archives in its function as a store of knowledge, but also operational areas such as marketing, internal and external communications and organizational, strategic and cultural corporate development, need to be constantly aware of the society in which the company has long been embedded by treating society’s expectations of the company as economically relevant. Newer functional areas such as corporate social responsibility departments are beneficiaries of the company’s internal knowledge and society’s knowledge about the company. As this knowledge is constantly changing, so are the roles assigned to the company. Accumulating a store of knowledge has a foundation in history. This historical 2 Lutger Heidbrink: ‘Unternehmen als politische Akteure. Eine Ortsbestimmung zwischen Ordnungsverantwortung und Systemverantwortung’, ORDO 63 (2012): 203–33. See also Josef Wieland: ‘Corporate Citizens sind kollektive Bürger’. In: Holger Backhaus-Maul et al., Corporate Citizenship in Deutschland: Gesellschaftliches Engagement von Unternehmen. Bilanz und Perspektiven, 2nd edn, Wiesbaden, 2010, pp. 131–38. 3 See also the collection of articles by Günther Ortmann et.al. (eds.): Theorien der Organisation: die Rückkehr der Gesellschaft, Opladen, 2002. For a recent empirical study of corporate history, see: Thilo Jungkind: Risikokultur und Störfallverhalten. Gesellschaftliche Einflüsse auf das unternehmerische Handeln von Bayer und Henkel seit der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 2013.

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dimension is necessary on the one hand to operationalize expectations of how a company should act and on the other to ensure historical access to knowledge about whether and how the company fulfilled these expectations. Thus, the archive is responsible for preserving knowledge about corporate activities beyond the historical context in which they occurred and about the processes of decision-making that led to them. In other words, archivists record the historical decision-making process and its consequences, always on the assumption that these decisions are made in historical and social contexts that in turn influenced these decisions. For this reason, corporate archives must preserve both the sociocultural context and its influence on corporate policy. Company history written on the basis of such considerations first falls outside the typical old-fashioned Festschrift and, second, does not focus exclusively on the hard facts of doing business. However, the historian needs a conceptual framework for corporate historiography and an archival approach of this nature. I should like to present two theoretical concepts that in my opinion master this challenge.

Mark Granovetter’s embeddedness approach

Corporate historians who want to combine social and cultural theories and questions with their research have to give conceptual and theoretical emphasis to a central requirement of the ‘cultural paradigm’ of corporate historiography. This paradigm states that companies do business in historically and culturally determined contexts that influence their ability to act and function.4 Accordingly, companies are ‘miniature societies’ within a surrounding society. These two sites of social intercourse are in an interdependent relationship. This basic assumption is an important precondition for applying Mark Granovetter’s network-oriented approach to companies and their embeddedness in their socioeconomic, institutional and sociocultural contexts.5 According to this reading of Granovetter’s concept, networks both within companies and between companies and their social environment are in reciprocal relationships and thus also serve as guidelines for corporate actions. Granovetter’s economic sociology-based approach criticizes economic theory because it rationalizes out existing social relations.6 He mentions in particular 4 Clemens Wischermann: ‘Von der “Natur” zur “Kultur”. Die Neue Institutionenökonomik in der geschichts- und kulturwissenschaftlichen Erweiterung’. In: Karl-Peter Ellerbrock, Clemens Wischermann (eds.): Die Wirtschaftsgeschichte vor der Herausforderung durch die New Institutional Economics, Dortmund, 2004, pp. 17–31. 5 In the following I call this complex of relationships ‘social environment’. 6 Mark Granovetter: ‘Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of

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the economist Oliver Williamson as having an abstract understanding of how individuals are embedded in existing social networks and the ramifications this has for monitoring and enforcing social activity, which in Granovetter’s view also includes economic activity.7 Observable daily routine in companies and between companies and their social environment underscores Granovetter’s criticism of the view that social relations are regulated exclusively by contract. The second criticism of economic abstraction refers to the explanation of cooperative behaviour in economic theory. According to economic doctrine, cooperation only takes place because individuals always behave rationally. This view ignores fundamental aspects of social relations. But rational behaviour cannot completely explain phenomena such as trust, power, fairness and willingness.8 Granovetter suggests that affiliations with organizations in general and with companies in particular should be viewed as social networks, in contrast to the undersocialized view of economics that views companies solely as contractual networks.9 Granovetter’s approach describes a situation in which real people with goals, emotions, values and intentions interact daily in an existing network. Relationships based on trust and cooperation emerge in this network not because of calculations of personal gain, but because such relationships already exist in the network. ‘Norms – shared ideas about the proper way to behave – are clearer, more firmly held and easier to enforce the more dense a social network.’10 Within a cultural pattern, people do not act only rationally, i.e., for their own gain, they also act socially, as predetermined by their normal, familiar environment, because they do not think any other way. Thus, embeddedness in a social network is an instrument for regulation and enforcement, but in a comprehensible form of personal interaction that is in turn rooted in set rules and cultural patterns that as a rule emerge from a company’s diverse social environment, and thus in this way are absorbed by the company. Divergent behaviour may be punished within the network by a loss of reputation, although Granovetter simply mentions this as an assumption. A company’s embeddedness in institutional structures and cultural patterns coincides to some extent with the assumptions of Douglass C. North, a winner Embeddedness’, American Journal of Sociology 91 (1985): 481–510; Granovetter: ‘The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (2004): 33–50. 7 See Granovetter: ‘Economic Action’, p. 489. 8 See Granovetter: ‘Impact’, pp. 33–34. 9 See Granovetter: ‘Economic Action’, p. 490. A social network consists of a finite number of actors, their properties and reciprocal relations. Networks have flat hierarchies with, as a rule, positive network externalities. See Georg Erber, Harald Hagemann: ‘Netzwerkökonomie’. In: Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.): Neue Entwicklungen in der Wirtschaftswissenschaft, Heidelberg, 2002, p. 278. 10 Granovetter: ‘Impact’, pp. 33.

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of the Nobel Prize for Economics.11 Whereas the assumed rationality of North’s institution-based economic rules causes actors that comply with them to restrict their economic activity, Granovetter focuses on social relations and tries to explain the pursuit of economic goals in terms of them. Once again, the difference lies in the assumption of rationality. The actions of people, and thus also of companies, within known cultural patterns are not always rational, they are also social. The actors’ economic actions are determined by personal, time-dependent relations in companies and between companies and their social environment, and change as these relationships change. Thus, the pursuit of economic goals is accompanied by non-economic goals such as recognition, status and power; in short: it is about the integrating effects of social relations between companies and their social environment. Economic activity is embedded in society and cannot be explained solely by calculations of individual gain, nor do economic institutions automatically arise on account of external circumstances; they are social and cultural constructs.12 Thus, relations within the networks are also incentives, driving forces that co-determine common cooperative action within the organization, thereby reducing uncertainty about opportunistic behaviour.13 Economic trade-offs are a mixture of individual activities and community-oriented behaviour which (according to sociology) is based on trust within social relationships and leads to greater cooperation. This lowers company’s transaction costs.14 The network relations between companies and their social environment pay off in terms of lower integration costs. These soft factors are a shared resource for the company and its civil society environment. They bring competitive advantages for the organization and savings in social capital for its social environment as they can rely on working together: Social structures, especially in the form of social networks, affect economic outcomes … social networks affect the flow and the quality of information. Much information is subtle, nuanced and difficult to verify,

11 For a good account of North’s theory, see Ingo Pies: ‘Theoretische Grundlagen demokratischer Wirtschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik – Der Ansatz von Douglass North’, Discussion Paper 2008-8 of the Department of Economic Ethics, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, 2008. 12 See Granovetter: ‘Economic Action’, p. 497. 13 See Jens Becker: ‘Was ist soziologisch an der Wirtschaftssoziologie? Ungewissheit und die Einbettung wirtschaftlichen Handelns’, Zeitschrift für Soziologie 25 (1996): 125–46 (p. 127). For the view of a corporate historian, see Christian Marx: ‘Netzwerkhandeln und Unternehmensführung bei Paul Reusch. Aspekte der Corporate Governance im Konzernaufbau der Gutehoffnungshütte (1918–1942)’. In: Susanne Hilger and Achim Landwehr (eds): Wirtschaft – Kultur – Geschichte: Positionen und Perspektiven, Stuttgart, 2011, pp. 65 –91. 14 Martin Fiedler: ‘Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist teuer: Vertrauen als Schlüsselkategorie wirtschaftlichen Handelns’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27 (2001): 576–92.

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so actors do not believe impersonal sources and instead rely on people they know ... social networks are an important source of reward and punishment, since these are often magnified in their impact when coming from others personally known ... trust, by which I mean the confidence that others will do the ‘right’ thing, despite a clear balance of incentives to the contrary, emerges, if it does, in the context of a social network.15 Mark Granovetter’s contribution to social science emphasizes the joint responsibility of all members of a company, how economic activity occurs as social activity, and thereby ensures a company’s functionality. From this perspective, Granovetter’s theory complements classical economic theory by depicting a common orientation in terms of shared values and norms as a success factor. Not without good reason, Granovetter takes as his starting point social relations and networks within companies and between companies and their social environment. Values conveyed within both subgroups powerfully influence economic activity. One of Granovetter’s main concerns in ‘Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness’, his acclaimed article in the mid-1980s, was to criticize theories of rational choice and their explanations of economic activities. Granovetter’s article triggered a discussion that continues today. But there is another problem: if corporate functioning, decisions and, thus, ultimately the survival of a company do not depend solely on criteria of efficiency, as taught by economic theory, i.e., if corporate decisions have to take account of sociocultural values and norms, then these sociocultural expectations have to be operationalized and their impact on the corporate organization estimated. This was solved with the help of neo-institutional theory, which was recently introduced into German corporate historiography.16

The impact of social expectations on corporate conduct

The central tenet of neo-institutional organizational theory – neo-institutionalism for short – is similar to Granovetter’s. It is as follows: ‘Organizations exist in an environment of institutionalized expectation structures that permanently impact the shape of organizations’.17 Social expectation structures, understood as the rules of a society, and thus of transformed business organizations and cultures that act in accordance with these rules or, at a corresponding cost, opt not to do so, 15 Granovetter: ‘Impact’, p. 33. 16 Jungkind: Risikokultur, pp. 33 ff. 17 Peter Walgenbach, Renate E.  Meyer: Neoinstitutionalistische Organisationstheorie, Stuttgart, 2008, p. 11. See also Konstanze Senge: Das Neue am Neo-Institutionalismus: Der Neo-Institutionalismus im Kontext der Organisationswissenschaft, Wiesbaden, 2011.

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can themselves be understood in terms of historical development. In particular, neo-institutionalism’s theoretical approach to institutions allows for better empirical verification of the relationships between companies and their social environment and the impact of these relationships than the network theory approach. Why and in what way companies in general change in how they function and act is related to wider institutional and cultural parameters created and constantly transformed by a social environment. All the knowledge a company possesses about lawful or unlawful acts, i.e., in terms of society’s expectations, depends on path-dependent patterns of action within the society in which the company operates. Neo-institutionalism facilitates institutional and cultural macroanalysis of social expectations and simultaneously provides analytical instruments to help interpret the impact of these social expectations on institutions’ behaviour. Thus, this approach can be used at any stage of research into a company’s history at which the company interacted with its social environment. In my opinion this means always, as such interaction is ongoing, be it positively or negatively. Owing to its reliance on functionalist, often formal, mathematical models of the world, behavioural economics, in particular rational choice theory, is not in a position to explain these interrelationships, which makes it impossible statistically to verify the impact of these variables. By contrast, Granovetter’s fundamental insights into the embeddedness of social activity in the process of economic exchange provide the basis for neo-institutionalism, which is able to operationalize these reciprocal influences and make it possible to assess their impact. Current debates about social recognition of corporate actions make it clear that there is a need for such analytical instruments on the part of companies and company historians. Examples include, say, the discussion in large parts of Europe about abandoning nuclear power and the question of the extent to which the international banking and financial system has been responsible for the global financial crisis since 2008. Applying the historical neo-institutional approach, the science of corporate history can help to reappraise first the extent to which companies fulfil social expectations and, second and more important, how these expectations influenced the development of new corporate strategies. In other words, how did companies manage to remain functional in the face of heavy criticism, or did their actions even fulfil the expectations and social semantics placed on them, for example on the question of risk? In respect of operational corporate policy, the historical neo-institutional approach can help to promote a targeted, honest management of the company’s legitimacy and responsibility by learning from the mistakes of unsuccessful past strategies that involved the loss of image, (ostensibly) ethically questionable decisions or poor communications strategies on the part of the company. Knowledge about past mistakes and in particular how they arose saves the transaction and integration costs that would arise if the historically rooted social expectations were ignored. Once again, it is the task of the company archives to present the historical decision-making

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process within the context of the social environment in which it took place, or to record as a source of knowledge the reasons why company decisions are viewed as problematic, thereby providing guidance for those responsible for the strategic implementation of corporate policy in the present. Each corporate action must be interpreted within its context. Similarly, this means that company historians must point to the specific context within which business activity takes place and changes. The result is that path-dependent patterns of corporate behaviour are either transformed or continued.18 This leads to constant negotiations and arrangements both within companies and between companies and the expectations of their social environment. A company’s social environment and its expectations regarding specific corporate actions become economically relevant factors that need to be considered or, at the corresponding cost, ignored. In the following I shall present specific instances to flesh out these theoretical considerations and in the process show how corporate historians, archivists and decision-makers can make use of them.

Operationalizing the social environment

The insight that companies operate within specific ‘organizational fields’ is particularly interesting.19 An organizational field is a mobile social structure that both directs institutional change around the company in question and at the same time interacts with this change so that it itself is altered by this change.20 Organizational fields thus become an operationalizable historical context within which a company acts. Field or environmental analysis of companies can facilitate assessments of the influence of these factors on the research topic in question. To place the topic in context we first need to ask the following questions: what body of knowledge existed in this field, what discussions took place, were there any patterns of interpretation and, finally, were there any (formal) institutions within the field? To do this we can use Scott’s multidimensional analysis of institutions (Fig. 3.1). After this initial assessment of what expectations society has of the company, the next step for a company history is to ask why an independent company operating in a liberal market economy should integrate the expectations of society into its activities. In this regard, the grey column on the right plays an important 18 John W. Meyer, Brian Rowan: ‘Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony’, American Journal of Sociology 83 (1977): 340–63. 19 Paul DiMaggio, Walter W. Powell: ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Col­ lective Rationality in Organisational Fields’, American Sociological Review 48 (1983): 147–60. For a good account, see Raimund Hasse, Georg Krücken: Neo-Institutionalismus, 2nd edn, Bielefeld, 2005. 20 Walgenbach, Meyer: Organisationstheorie, pp. 72 ff.

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Dimensions of Institutions Regulative

Normative

Cultural–Cognitive

Basis of compliance

Expedience

Socially obligated

Taken-for-grantedness Shared understanding

Basis of order

Regulative rules

Binding expectations

Constitutive schema

Mechanism

Coercive

Normative

Mimetic

Logic

Instrumentality

Appropriateness

Orthodoxy

Indicators

Rules, Laws Sanctions

Certification Accreditation

Common beliefs Shared logics of action

Basis of legitimacy

Legally sanctioned

Morally governed

Comprehensible Recognisable Culturally supported

3.1  Dimensions of Institutions, after Scott ‘Three Pillars of Institutions’, in William R. Scott: Institutions and Organizations: Ideas and Interests, 3rd edn, Los Angeles, 2008, p. 52

role, for it is precisely the cultural-cognitive dimension of institutions that generates perceptions of the social environment and value orientations towards the company. It is not easy to manage both aspects and thus subtly influence corporate decisions, or it is precisely their subtlety that makes it complicated to factor them into corporate decision-making. Neo-institutionalism also offers a plausible explanation for this and, from the company’s point of view, an approach to a potential solution.

Striving for and achieving legitimacy

Neo-institutionalism rejects fundamental economic models that make assumptions about exogenously consistent orders of preference and factor them into optimality models. The theory does not use output or demandoriented assumptions to explain how companies act and function. Strategic or rational action is viewed as a possible – and not, as in universalist theories of economic action, as a universal – principle, for the economic rationality of utility maximization itself is only one possible, socially constructed and, hence, historically and culturally determined rationality.21 21 Ibid., p. 126.

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As the company, in keeping with the concept of organizational legitimacy, complies with efficiency criteria, its success depends on rational cultural strategies. There are two ways of creating and maintaining legitimacy: when contradictions and conflicts arise between the requirements of the operational business and the expectations of the social environment, so-called decoupling creates superficial agreement; in other words, appearances are kept up to satisfy the organizational field.22 However, it can be shown empirically that people outside the company who have expectations can be fooled only some of the time.23 In neo-institutionalism, the concept of organizational legitimacy justifies both a company’s decoupled behaviour and behaviour that takes place out of genuine conviction. Accordingly, organizations need more than just material resources and task-relevant information; their actions need deep social acceptance and credibility.24 Consequently, an organization and its actions are viewed as legitimate when its activities appear desirable and right within the context of social values, norms and ideas. This is a clear demonstration that a social environment confers legitimacy in accordance with its convictions. Legitimacy is viewed as a necessary condition for the company’s survival, which is ensured by integrating context-dependent, socially legitimated strategies into corporate policy. Thus, neo-institutionalism presents a counterposition to rational choice theories. Rational actors and autonomous decision-making forfeit legitimacy to social actors who define their interests institutionally. Interests and strategic behaviour are moved from the centre and treated as inferred cultural categories. It is the task of the company historian to find out what these are and investigate their impact on companies’ actions and functioning. And it is the task of the company archivist to preserve the results of these actions as established by the historian. This assigns to the archive and its curatorial tasks the crucial role of storing the important knowledge regarding the company’s decision and perceptions thereof. Thus, company archives decide what expectations, if any, of the social environment were relevant to the way the company’s actions were perceived in the historical context. To conclude, a practical case study: the archival reappraisal of the Seveso disaster and the benefit for Roche in respect of its understanding of crises and its credibility. 22 Meyer, Rowan: Formal Structure, pp. 348–49. 23 See e.g. Frederick G. Hilmer, Lex Donaldson: Management Redeement, New York, 1997, in particular, pp. 64–89. 24 William R. Scott, John W. Meyer: ‘The Organisation of Societal Sectors: Propositions and Early Evidence’. In: Walter W. Powell, Paul DiMaggio (eds): The New Institutionalism in Organisational Analysis, Chicago, London, 1991, pp. 108–40. See also the collection of articles in Andrea Maurer, Uwe Schimank (eds): Die Gesellschaft der Unternehmen – Die Unternehmen der Gesellschaft. Gesellschaftstheoretische Zugänge zum Wirtschaftsgeschehen, Wiesbaden, 2008.

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On 10 July 1976, an industrial accident occurred in the ICMESA chemical factory near the small town of Seveso in Lombardy, in northern Italy, that resulted in the release of dioxin.25 ICMESA was a subsidiary of Givaudan, which was, in turn, a subsidiary of Hoffmann-La Roche. In the ensuing period, Roche went through a series of crises over its credibility and legitimacy, primarily triggered by a social environment that was becoming increasingly critical of the technical risks associated with chemical production. This public viewed the Seveso disaster as proof of its assumptions that any form of chemical production was extremely dangerous and the companies involved would never admit it.26 In this case, public opinion and its associated expectations viewed the Roche Group as the adversary. Up to that point, the company had practised a strategy of restraint in critical situations. This does not mean that up to that point the decision-makers adopted the ostrich approach, or that the company never accepted financial responsibility for wrongdoing. It simply means that the company’s history of success prevented it from understanding how to deal with social expectations or indeed that social expectations had changed and needed to be taken account of. This attitude in response to the emergency triggered by the events in Seveso was most noticeable in the lack of communication strategies. I would say that Seveso was one of the most complex events in the industrial history of the twentieth century, a point that Roche never really recognized. Recurring accusations, inconsistencies and crises kept the company on tenterhooks through to the mid-1990s. Seveso was simply a power struggle between society’s changed expectations of large companies in general and Roche in particular. In this context, it must be assumed that in the Seveso case the company constantly reached the limits of its own power, though this was never accepted. Roche was repeatedly driven to despair both by its frequent defeats in these showdowns on the one hand and its new helplessness in recognizing and dealing with its social environment as a legitimate actor in the new order between companies and their social context on the other. As the archive was recently able to acquire all the relevant documentation, the Roche Historical Collection and Archive is committed to reappraising Seveso. Figures 3.2 and 3.3 depict the key questions of how the Seveso documentation can be integrated into the existing filing plan and prepared for further processing. The archival and curatorial objective is to depict the complexity of the event. Therefore, the attempt will be made to preserve the dominant historical expectations of the social environment and Roche’s reaction to them. The archive team is in agreement that this is the only possible way to illustrate the decision-making processes on the one hand and the critical handling of the question of the company’s credibility on the other hand. In the context of this question, it is, of course, crucial to preserve 25 For an account of the disaster and its consequences, see Jungkind: Risikokultur, pp. 248 ff. 26 Egmont R. Koch, Fritz Varenholt: Seveso ist überall: Die tödlichen Risiken der Chemie, 2nd edn, Cologne, 1978.

Media handling Save and serve the social expectations

Trials credibility in the legal sense?

3.3  Maintaining Credibility in a Crisis

Disposal of contaminated waste (barrels), renaturation

3.2  Maintaining the Development of a Crisis

Case study How could that happen? (chemical, technical)

Aspects of humanity (cleaning, compensation, restoration)

Media handling what were the social expectations and did we serve them?

Scientific rehabilitation (chemical, medical) what can we learn and how can we avoid something similar?

Rehabilitation

Corporate policy What do we do now and how should we react to the social expectations?

Accident

Compensation what did it cost and thus, are we credible?

Preparing for consequences (esp. legal) Are we credible?

What we do: from the accident to the cleaning of the reactor in 1982: maintaining the development of the crisis (and credibility)

Corporate policy how can we gain new credibility and legitimacy

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accounts of the recurring organizational, legitimacy and communication crises, as well as the way they were managed. There have long been indications that the negative consequences of the Seveso events were the result of the company’s inability to learn from the disaster. From a financial and humanitarian point of view, Roche did all in its power to compensate for the consequences of the accident. Ultimately, the company accepted responsibility for the accident; however, it wanted to keep precisely this fact under wraps. Seveso is a prime example of the fact that after a tragic event a company needs to behave responsibly, not attempt a cover up or refuse to accept its obligations. At a time when attitudes were critical of industry in general and the chemical sector in particular, the company was unable to present itself as credible and responsible. This is largely a consequence of the lack of knowledge of the company’s image in social expectations, and how it can react to this in its communications. The Seveso Project of the Roche Historical Collection and Archive has set itself the task of recording the complexity of the event, the reasons for the crises at Roche and the way they were managed, and a critical analysis of the question of Roche’s credibility. To accomplish this it will apply a (scientific) historical, neo-institutional approach. The process will also record the company’s subsequent development path and knowledge resources for decisionmaking in similar circumstances today. Although this process should enable the company to draw lessons from the history of Seveso with regard to communication strategy and responsibility and legitimacy management, we all hope that our new knowledge will never have to be applied.

The Biographer’s Power and Private Archives Birgitte Possing The Biographer’s Power and Private Archives

The biographical turn and democracy

Today, the historical biography has become an important public tool in understanding how historical and public personalities have had an impact in history. In the Western world, the market is overwhelmed by biographies, in entertainment, business, media, literature and history. We can explain this as an element of the individualistic or individualizing zeitgeist following the demise of the Grand Narrative. The overwhelming presence of biography has rendered it a kind of compass for human life. We call it the biographical turn. This turn has not only happened because we live in a post-Freud world with an inclination to psycho-historical analysis. It has also happened because the decades around the turn of the millennium saw the biography becoming part of the democratic project in an increasingly globalized community. Biography expresses interest in the individual, and its place and agency in culture and society. Thus, we are talking about the biographical turn in history, meaning that it has become still more important to understand how and why historical biographies influence our understanding of history, present times and the future.

The biographical truth or the biographical fiction

The biographer’s challenge is that the notion of biography encompasses more than a pure life depiction. It encompasses the events of a life, the narrative of a life, and the interpretation of its characteristics. The historical biography represents one of many ways of telling history. Furthermore, it is a genre with many possible narratives: we can understand, tell and depict the life, uncover the myths and go behind the masks of a real person having lived and having left his or her mark in 53

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history. But which way of telling a life is right? Which way is wrong? Even though we are talking about the naked, the unmasked, the harsh, the pure, the real, the subjective or the ultimate truth that build on true knowledge, documentation and on archives, the making of biography is neither simple nor easy. In 1939, Virginia Woolf complained: ‘How can one make a life out of six cardboard boxes full of tailors’ bills, lovers’ letters and old picture postcards?’ This question has been and still is the central question for all biographers: which sources, which interpretation and which narratives are important and relevant in the making of a historical portrait in a biography? It is the central question, but it is also a question that you cannot answer in general terms. The nature of the answer depends on the agenda of the biographer, his/her access to archives and sources, and on the relation between the biographer and the protagonist. Many biographers are not equipped to take up this challenge. Because, still, the biographical turn has not been followed by a well-developed critical tradition, and, still, our institutions of higher education do not offer any specific training in the all-round study of biography. As expressed by the British historian Nigel Hamilton: Its ethics, like the history and theory behind it, thus go largely unaddressed, while at a practical level there are still relatively few courses offered to those who wish to write a biography, whether big or small. Would-be biographers are thus left largely to their own devices, scrabbling for advice and examples in every direction.1 The result of this scrabbling around is that the actual protagonist of a biography, a deceased personality, might be exposed to a non-professional biographical gameplay with his or her life, agency and reputation without being able to defend him- or herself because he or she is dead. Despite this gameplay, though, I still see the cornucopia of biographies as a democratic element of history. Historical biographies fascinate and captivate the general audience because they tell stories of human individualities. For the general audience, biography has become a kind of an Owner’s Manual on how historical personalities have dealt with the challenges of life. And that is the reason why it is important to know what is true and what is not; what is documented history and what is interpretation; what is reconstruction and what is deconstruction. In this chapter, I am talking about neither fiction nor autobiographies. I am talking about knowledge- and research-based biographies. In this area, biographers in the international community have begun to rally in order to find an answer developing the interdisciplinary analytic field known as biographical studies. On the one side we have the genre, this being the empirical 1 N. Hamilton: How to do Biography – A Primer, Cambridge, MA, 2008, p. 2.

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narratives of individual lives as they can be read from antiquity to the present day, and, on the other side we have the analytical field, which this genre comprises, and which is the study of the genre, its theories, methodologies, narrative techniques and archetypes. With this distinction we are on the threshold of being able to identify concepts and to classify archetypes of ‘the making of biography’. The biographical field is by its very nature interdisciplinary, because a biography borders on many other genres, subjects and narrative traditions. In focusing on biography you will see that despite differences between the disciplines of history, literature and social sciences, it is possible to build bridges between archetypes, methodologies and narrative techniques of biography. Let us have a look.

Definition and archetypes

A biography is the depiction of a life. It is non-fiction, and a life story of a real, historic lived life, written or told by someone other than the central character. But it is not only a pure depiction of archival traces left behind, it is also an interpretation of life. A biography is always a reconstruction of a life, it is a told life. Deconstruction, reconstruction and narration are intertwined, and the old concepts of truth and lies, faction and fiction are questioned: ‘By means of biographical texts, it can be shown that there are other accounts, other individuals, and other truths than those which were formerly attributed credence’.2 The human narrative is like a piece of soap slipping out of your hand when grasping it. And that, too, makes it attractive and fascinating as a genre: we WANT to grasp and comprehend. The way in which lives have been told have varied wildly and changed over the years. Looking back, it is a long story from antiquity to the present,3 and, over two thousand years, the genre has distilled a series of archetypes that all of them present today. They can be conceptualized as follows. The didactic (or mirror) biography, so termed because it serves as a mirror for magnificent human qualities (canonizing) – or the opposite – wretched human characteristics (vulgarizing), as displayed by great army commanders, politicians or heads of state. The hagiography, a hero or martyr epic, designed to glorify heroes or saints, irrespective of how the central characters lived their real lives. The opposite, the villainography is vivid and alive, too. More nuanced archetypes, with the focus on the human characteristics rather than the context, can be written as the portrait of a personality, which focuses on the main characteristics of a nuanced, candid and perhaps ambiguous personality 2 Lisbeth Larsson: Sanning och Konsekvens, Stockholm, 2001. 3 See my articles on Biography: Historical, International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001, 2013.

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changing during his or her lifetime. Or, as the template of the Bildungsroman, the evolutionary development story, so that the biographer creates an organized coherence in a (disorganized) life. As a more advanced biographical archetype, we find the modern life story allowing the interpretation of certain characteristics of the life and work of the protagonist, either as a life-and-times biography or as a prism biography, the latter focusing on something other than the main characteristic (type, class, culture, gender). The most recent addition to the biographical archetypes is the postmodern, the polyphonic or event biography, characterized by its breach with the traditional biography’s chronology and coherence. An archetype in its own right is the prosopography or collective biography, about a group or a network of persons (business people, farmers, nurses, authors of a distinct period or category, or whatever). Every archetype is rooted in a historical period, every archetype has its own tools and methods, and, as you can see, every archetype has its own special relation to documentation and sources. The biographer has to make a conscious choice between them, otherwise it is easy to lose one’s way in the making of a historical portrait. All archetypes exist today, side by side, and they tell quite different stories and truths about the same life. What is the best, and the worst, about knowing that? The worst thing is that most biographers are unaware of the archetype, its challenges and possibilities. We are, as biographers, more or less consciously writing ourselves into an archetype. In the Scandinavian countries, most academic biographers are doing personality portraits, evolutionary development stories or life-and-times biographies, while journalists tend to publish didactic, quickly written biographies having a rather abandoned relation to the ‘man behind the mask’. One hundred years ago, Oscar Wilde wrote: ‘Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. Today we vulgarise them’. This quotation still works today. Some biographers are tempted to create rather simple images of their protagonist as either hero or villain. On the other hand, many biographers are publishing more ambiguous portraits of the protagonists. That is the best: that today both the audience and most of the serious biographers are critical readers knowing that a historical biography is an interpretation rather than the truth and the whole truth about a protagonist. The fastidious part of the general audience takes interest in the protagonists’ longings, doubts and rational as well as irrational behaviour and thinking. Once again, I see this as part of the democratic aim in a globalized society.

The biographical challenge

Many historical biographers make the chronological exposition of a life the controlling framework of the narrative. That is all very well given that a biography

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is about a physical life, which starts with birth and ends with death. But the idealistic idea of a coherent, chronologically advancing life was abandoned by twentieth-century pioneering biographers, with Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf in the lead, and followed up and confirmed by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the American historian Joan Scott and the American philosopher Judith Butler at the end of the century. Few people’s lives actually start on a course that holds for an entire lifetime. Therefore, every biographer must decide on the relationship between chronology and the main idea (the plot). Since the turn of the millennium the biography has served purposes other than straightforward chronological description of a life, given that modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries culturally liberated the individual. The historical biography has changed from being an approach to history to an inherently interdisciplinary and self-assertive genre calling itself the ‘new biography’. This has been influenced especially by feminists, postmodernists and race theorists, all of them having focused on the diversity and complexity of personalities, movements and institutions decrying ‘essentialism’: ‘The subject of biography is no longer the coherent self but rather a self that is performed to create an impression of coherence or an individual with multiple selves’.4 Modernity created awareness that the individual person has had choices, has had the possibility to lead many lives, having more than one identity. David Macey’s biography of Michel Foucault was a brilliant example of this: ‘Foucault lived many lives – as an academic, as a political activist, as a child, and as a lover of men’.5 Gilbert Badia’s biography of Clara Zetkin6 is another brilliant example of the art of biography, telling Zetkin with several identities: as a political leader, a passionate rhetoric, a socialist, a feminist, a passionate lover, a mother and an educator. Ambiguity, contradictions and biographical polyphony have had pride of place for the genre during the last twenty or thirty years in the Western world. This is not merely a phenomenon invented by the modernists and the ­postmodernists of the twentieth century. This understanding of one person’s multiple lives in reality goes all the way back to sixteenth-century Michel de Montaigne (1580): People studying human activities always find themselves in trouble trying to understand these activities, because usually they seem so oddly self-contradictory that one should not believe it was possible.7 4 J. B. Margadent (ed.): The New Biography: Performing Femininity in Nineteenth-Century France, Berkeley, CA, 2000, p. 7. 5 D. Macey: The Lives of Michel Foucault, London, 1993, p. iv. 6 G. Badia: Clara Zetkin, féministe sans frontières, Paris, 1993. 7 M. de Montaigne: Essays, translated by Charles Cotton, New York, 1910.

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and nineteenth-century Francois-René Chateaubriand (1839): Man has not one and the same life. He has many lives placed end to end, and that is the cause of his misery.8 Both of them refer to the individual’s self-contradictory actions and many lives. Today, on the other hand, historians are reclaiming a certain truth of a historical identity warning against the postmodernist dissolving of personalities. And thus we walk forth and back. Despite this debate, the linear cradle-to-grave-convention weighs heavily in the idea of biographical research. At best, the narrative resulting from this is ‘it went like it went’, because that ‘is how it went’. This a priori determinism colours many biographical narratives: we find it everywhere, even in brilliant biographies of famous men that deliberately show that through forces in the cradle their protagonists were already focused, determined, goal-directed and strong before they could rise by their own will. That might be too much of a direction to project into the life of your protagonist, just because he or she grew into fame as an adult, as in Ole Lange’s Stormogulen [The Great Mogul].9 The biographer takes a stand in relation to his or her protagonist. The technique required of the biographer is to find a stance as friend or adversary, mouthpiece or challenger. The biographical attitude has varied in the work of past biographers: in 1759, Samuel Johnson wrote: ‘He that writes the life of another is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt or to aggravate his infamy’.10 In the run of the twentieth-century this either-or position was abandoned. Now, it was seen as an obligation to criticize the protagonist sharply: ‘A man’s biography should be written by an acute enemy’ (Arthur Balfour).11 Or Oscar Wilde: ‘Formerly we used to canonize our heroes. Today we vulgarize them’.12 A third position of empathy, wishing to explain both the bad and the good deeds of the protagonist, developed in the late twentieth century: ‘Although there are many reasons to select a subject for study, including the need to understand the bestial and violent as well as the virtuous and noble, most biographers choose to write about people they care about and can identify with’ (Blanche Wiesen Cook).13 8 F.-R. Chateaubriand: The Memoirs of Chateaubriand, Harmondsworth, 1965. 9 O. Lange: Stormogulen: C. F. Tietgen – en finansmand, hans imperium og hans tid 1829–1901, Copenhagen, 2006. Cf. my ‘Biography: An Unloved, but Much Pursued Courtesan’. In: Perlinge, Sjögren, Biographies of the Financial World, Möklinta, 2012, pp. 15–36. 10 Samuel Johnson, The Idler, 24 November 1759. 11 Observer, 30 January 1927. 12 Oscar Wilde: ‘The Critic as Artist, with some remarks on the importance of doing nothing’. 13 Blanche Wiesen Cook: ‘Biographer and Subject: A Critical Connection’, Women’s Studies Quarterly 11.1 (1983): 4–8.

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Empathy and identification can also be seen as ‘cold empathy’, as Robert Gerwarth has argued in his brilliant biography on Reinhard Heydrich (1904–42), the Nazi with the ‘iron heart’.14 This book could not have been written twenty years ago. Understanding and analysis should not be reduced to lies or truths. The truths are changing over time. In 1945, the Danish literary professor F. B. Jansen wrote: ‘It is a necessity for the self-affirmation of any cultural society to rethink and re-write the understanding of its greatest personalities once or twice every century. Every generation has to take its stand, consciously, detailed and completely’. Thus, the perspective of the biographer has changed en route from Johnson to Balfour and Wilde to Wiesen Cook and Gerwarth. Some have written in order to scorn, rile or criticize their subject; others because they wish to revere and applaud their subject or because they have fallen in love with their subject(!). Thus the basic positions in the lengthy Western biographical tradition have flowed back and forth. In the twenty-first century we intend neither to canonize nor to vulgarize. Some do both. Others again try to stay sober, unbiased and open-minded. Personally, I prefer the last take. But the important thing for the biographer is to take a stand, realizing the archetype of the biography he/she is making. Otherwise the protagonist and his/her traces, evidences, remnants and reputations uncritically can take the lead in the making of the biography.

Biographical ethics

The making of a biography of a historical figure is a far bigger responsibility than any other kind of treatise. It is difficult dealing with the unwieldy ethical accountability vis-à-vis an increasing public pressure on the right to invade the private lives of famous personalities. This is also the case for academics. Whether we like it or not, every biographer is a puppeteer for and an ethical judge of the subject of the biography. The biographer is playing a pedagogic game with a real life, one that has actually been lived. Not much has been written about the ethics of the matter, even though it comes under hefty debate when the moral expectations of the readers are disrupted. The New Zealand biographer Michael King maintained that one should tread carefully when invading lives and private lives (2001), whereas others, such as the American biographer Carl Rollysson, found this ‘higher form of cannibalism’ desirable (2005). Others argue for both sides, like the Anglo-American historian and biographer Nigel Hamilton (2008). Personally, I follow King in that the documentary biographer has an ethical responsibility for the editing of the portrait. That is to say, and out of respect for the descendants, the critical biographer does not have the freedom as a novelist creating a fictional character. As an experienced biographer, I do know that it is a 14 Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich, Cambridge, MA, 2011, p. x.

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challenging and difficult balance. My point is that the biographer is in a position to make knowledge public and to keep knowledge private: taking a choice, making a decision.

Private archives and the historical biography

In the Western world we have legal provisions for the protection of privacy; there are similar regulations applying to archive material. These protections and regulations being challenged more and more frequently, in printed and electronic media alike, we as scholars are challenged: privacy is an awkward area for legislation because it has moved with modernity. The borderlines between what is considered private and what is considered public have moved radically during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. How to cope with this issue? Should we reveal everything about our protagonists? Since the turn of the millennium, the general public expects nearly everything relating to sex, tenderness, solicitude and love to be made known. Whereas faith and secret business networks may be seen as belonging to the private sphere. Fifty years ago, the opposite was true. Two thousand years ago, everything was in the public domain. For example, the Roman historian Suetonius’ biographies The Twelve Caesars (c.69–122) and his accounts of famous whores(!) went more than close to the intimate lives of these protagonists. If this revealing of intimate privacy has become politically correct today, we might have to be aware! With some justice, we can ask if our civilization has progressed or regressed as regards what we should know and want to know about public personalities. We find no general answer to this question. The point is that the biographer holds the keys to the particular form of respect or disrespect for the subject that should radiate from the portrait.

Private archives and a memo list for biographers

The biographer can de- and reconstruct any life story. But archival documentation offers the possibilities of securing not an objective but a sober, unbiased approach to the truths, the myths and the lies about the protagonist. Thus, I will end this chapter giving a memo list for the serious historical biographer not afraid of facing the complex, fragmented, contradictive reality of the protagonist’s life: § Read all literature (to understand and contextualise). § Trace all unpublished sources (to trace activities, thought patterns, doubts, longings, visions of the protagonist).

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§ Conduct interviews and contrast sources/stories with other sources (to create the nerve or drama of the biographical story). § Decide on your archetype and biographical stance (to help to understand the aim of the biography). § Find the plot of the biography (to make the biography attractive to the general audience). In this way we will find the relevance of the cultural richness of private archives.

Company History as an Opportunity and Challenge for University Academics: The Example of the Günther Quandt Group from the Nineteenth Century to 1954 Joachim Scholtyseck The Günther Quandt Group

I would like to present the case study of the Günther Quandt textile, electrical and defence engineering group, a family enterprise whose roots go back to the middle of the nineteenth century.1 The Quandt family, a major BMW shareholder, attracted public attention in 2007 when a German television documentary appeared to suggest that it had new archival information on the Quandts’ activities during the Third Reich. The success of the documentary and the following public outcry forced the Quandt family to confront their history. The documents presented in the documentary were not new, and anyone interested in the group’s history could have read articles and books on the subject. The name Quandt had been mentioned in various studies since the 1950s, when a book by the economic journalist Kurt Pritzkoleit published details about the reclusive Günther Quandt. The journalist Rüdiger Jungbluth also wrote a well-researched biography of the Quandt family that was published in 2002, five years before the film that claimed to shed new light on the origins of the Quandt family’s wealth. Although Jungbluth’s book sold well, it attracted little media attention. Whereas a book is easy to overlook and forget, images of parading soldiers, swastikas and the marriage of Günther Quandt’s former wife Magda to Joseph Goebbels offer much greater opportunities for media speculation – and misinterpretation. It is now a well-known fact that the television documentary presented a one-sided, and at times even false, view of the Quandts’ history, but that was of little account in 2007.2 1 This chapter is largely based on Joachim Scholtyseck: Der Aufstieg der Quandts. Eine deutsche Unternehmerdynastie, 2nd edn, Munich, 2011. 2 Ralf Stremmel: ‘Zeitgeschichte im Fernsehen. Die preisgekrönte Dokumentation “Das Schweigen der Quandts” als fragwürdiges Paradigma’, Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 58 (2010): 455–81. 63

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With a view to damage control and in the hope of emending the family image, learning the full truth about the family history and coming to terms with the past, the two main branches of the Quandt family decided to fund a research project in which an independent historian would study the allegations in detail and establish the origins of the family fortune. From the start it was obvious that a significant part of the study would deal with the family’s activities during the Third Reich. The Quandts provided me with files and documents from their archives and agreed to publish the results of the study without any interference. They kept their promise, as I was sure they would. However, to be on the safe side, I also had it included in the written agreement. The history of companies poses numerous challenges for university historians. The opportunity to publish a study based on archives of companies or families that were previously inaccessible is, of course, very attractive in itself. The more prominent the company, the more closely the work will be scrutinized by an interested and critical audience. Academic freedom is extremely important for independent researchers. In the case of research on companies active under a totalitarian regime it is a prerequisite, as the chances of uncovering unsavoury activities in the records are very high. The question for modern business historians is where to draw the line between the requirements of academic research and the demands of modern history marketing? For university historians, the answer is easy: if academic historians subordinated themselves to companies’ marketing strategies they would inevitably lose their reputation as independent researchers. On the other hand, companies must accept that facts may be made public that do not meet their hopes of an unblemished success story. The confrontation with historical reality may be much more painful for family-owned companies than for anonymous joint stock companies in which it is much easier to pass the buck. In order to avoid such irritations, an atmosphere of trust is helpful. More importantly, however, are precise agreements. Both branches of the Quandt family had to agree unconditionally to grant me unrestricted access to the family archives. At the same time, they waived the right to make changes to the contents of the study and agreed that it would be made available to the public without reservation. On the publication of my book in 2011 the relevant files were placed in the safekeeping of the Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Darmstadt, where they are permanently available for future research. It remains to be seen whether this procedure is a suitable model for other research projects on company history. The Quandts were one of Germany’s many corporate dynasties that long avoided dealing with their past. Until the 1990s, it was the practice of German companies to neglect their activities in the period from 1933 to 1945. Many companies had purged the Nazi years from their internal history books and anniversary Festschriften, while their executives ignored the period in speeches to employees or did not dare question their superiors. The past, they hoped, would simply go away. This was also true of the Quandt family, who traditionally had

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always kept a low profile. They had literally cultivated their silence and refused requests for interviews for decades – for fear, at least in part, of having to confront the grim reality of a prior generation. In the 1990s, many major German corporations changed their views about coming to terms with their past. In the banking industry, Deutsche Bank was the first to commission an exhaustive independent study of their history. In the automobile industry, Volkswagen and Daimler-Benz opened their archives. In insurance, Allianz took a fresh look at the company’s history between 1933 and 1945, and others followed suit – for instance, Bertelsmann in the media and Degussa and BASF in industry, to name just a few. Threatened by class action lawsuits in the USA, in 2001, many companies paid millions into a public fund to compensate former forced and slave labourers. BMW and Altana, two companies in which the Quandt group held shares, were part of this initiative. The documentary, which was seen by millions of viewers, raised the question of whether the Quandts owed a large part of their fortune, which ran into billions, to the brutal exploitation of forced labourers. A closer look at the material in different archives in Germany, other European countries and the USA, showed that this was unlikely. The Quandts had obviously been rich before the National Socialists came to power. The wealth and financial success of the Quandt family had a long history going back to the middle of the nineteenth century. Emil Quandt was an ambitious manager of the cloth manufacturer Gebrüder Draeger, who through hard work and marriage to the daughter of a textile industrialist had a successful, if unspectacular career as the owner of a medium-sized textile business in the Brandenburg town of Pritzwalk, north-west of Berlin. He built his fortune as a supplier to the German railway, postal service and army. The precise arrangements he made for his heirs laid the foundations for the future generations of his family business. Günther Quandt, the eldest son, had a different temperament to his traditionally minded and conservative father. In the sources he appears as an energetic man who wished to expand the family company. He modernized and rationalized the firm and soon broke out of the narrow confines of the Brandenburg cloth industry. During the First World War, he held an important position in Berlin in wartime resource management of the cloth industry. He used his position to extend his nationwide network of business contacts. Tentative attempts to enter into the potash industry during the war illustrate his interest in other areas of industry. During the years of inflation and hyperinflation in 1922 and 1923, he was constantly on the look-out for new business possibilities. The money he made from clever business decisions and speculation enabled Günther Quandt to acquire an industrial empire. In 1922, the successful investor bought shares in a profitable battery company, AFA, the biggest supplier of stored energy in central Europe – and key to a prosperous and promising world market in the electrical industry. The acquisition, in which luck and clever calculation played

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equal parts, and which he presented as a strategic step in his memoirs and later accounts, paid off in the long term. Quandt was widely travelled and visited the USA a couple of times. He was not interested in politics – as long as politics and economics were kept separate. At the end of the 1920s, he acquired the Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabrik (DWM), an arms supplier in dire straits because of restrictions on the production of weapons under the Treaty of Versailles. This group included two other companies, Dürener Metallwerke, an important aluminium producer, and Mauser-Werke, an equally important manufacturer of precision pistols. Quandt’s entrepreneurial and financial success was not limited to the years of the Weimar Republic, but continued in the period of National Socialism – a development which Quandt consistently denied after the demise of the Third Reich. He met Adolf Hitler for the first time in 1931, when Hitler was trying to improve relations with Germany’s distrustful industrial elite. Quandt, a millionaire by then, was unimpressed. The archival material makes it clear that he had little in common with the crude blood-and-soil ideology, although for a time he took an interest in the ideas of Italian fascism. He accepted the Weimar Republic, but did not defend it when it was weakened and under attack from leftand right-wing extremists. In the spring of 1933, after the Nazis won the elections, in a demonstration of brown revolutionary power, Quandt was arrested, imprisoned and sidelined for several months. Thus, Quandt learned about the risks and uncertainties of a dictatorship the hard way; even his most important company, AFA, was at one point in danger to be placed under the supervision of a government commissioner. He later used this episode to claim that he was a member of the anti-Nazi resistance, but that is a fabrication. Although he joined the Nazi Party, Günther Quandt remained aloof from party activities. However, he subsequently used a network of party officials and Wehrmacht officers to build up contacts for lucrative state contracts from 1933 until the end of the Second World War. His main connection with the Brown Shirts was of a private nature and dated back to the last years of the Weimar Republic. After Quandt divorced his second, much-younger, wife Magda, she married Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels, in December 1931; Hitler was Goebbels’s best man. Magda gained custody of her and Quandt’s son Harald, and she subsequently had another six children. In 1945, she killed her children and then herself in the Führer’s bunker. Examining Quandt’s attitude towards the National Socialists’ Jewish policy and the treatment of Jewish employees in the Quandt Group reveals a dark picture. Despite his numerous contacts with Jewish bankers in the years before the National Socialists’ rise to power, he did not object to the regime dispossessing Jewish businessmen. Although not anti-Semitic, he was unscrupulous in his acquisition of Jewish firms when they were offered to him by the government

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bureaucracy. One notable exception was the appointment in 1935 of Georg Sachs, a Jewish scientist, to the board of directors of Dürener Metallwerke as an armaments expert. Moreover, when it became impossible to keep him on the board of directors, Günther Quandt personally helped him to emigrate to the USA. However, it is not clear whether, at the time of Sachs’s appointment to the board, Quandt was even aware of his non-Aryan roots. In general, racial considerations did not play a role in Quandt’s employment policies. However, his behaviour was undeniably opportunistic when Jewish supervisory board members were forced to resign well before the end of their term of office, whereas he tried to retain members whose professional competence he valued for as long as possible. Outside of his enterprises, Günther Quandt accepted the racial policy of the regime without hesitation. For instance, in 1933, he was involved in removing Jewish members from commercial and business organizations in Berlin. For example, he took a similar approach to Aryanization, carried out in cooperation with various government authorities in the case of the Henry Pels company, a mid-sized machine-tool manufacturer in Erfurt. Common decency and commercial respectability were not notable factors in the Aryanizations carried out under the aegis of Günther Quandt; on the contrary, he was ruthless. Outwardly, these transactions were concluded in accordance with recognized contractual practices, as in the case, for instance, of the Volt electrochemical factory. However, Quandt must have known that lowering the purchase price and setting low valuations gave him unfair advantages that were unlawful, even though the use of trustees as ­intermediaries served to gloss over the criminal aspect of these activities. AFA, still the core of the Quandt industrial group, was the leading battery producer in Europe during the motorization boom in the 1930s. Thanks to its production and geographic agreements with British and American companies, the company made handsome profits. The battery branch significantly expanded its research and development facilities to produce high-quality batteries for submarine torpedoes, airplanes and, later, V-2 rockets; little wonder that American and French companies hired dozens of AFA engineers to work for them after 1945. In the Second World War, AFA assumed control of several battery companies in Belgium and France. In the space of a few years, Quandt also became one of the most important German arms and aluminium producers. Although his DWM and Dürener Metallwerke factories produced mainly civilian goods up to 1939, they subsequently became important suppliers of ammunition, rifles and artillery for the German army. After the invasion of Poland, Günther Quandt also bought a huge plant for the DWM in Poznań. Quandt’s consistent focus on a greater European economic area, as reflected in his expansion and investments in the war years, is evidence that his corporate strategy assumed the long-term success of the National Socialist regime. Driven by concerns about competition, which for him loomed as large as they were unwarranted, AFA persistently pursued acquisitions and participations in the

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European accumulator and battery industry, be they voluntary or coerced. The company exploited the war to develop new markets from which it had previously been excluded by bilateral agreements with other battery manufacturers. In the case of DWM, the other focus of the Quandt Group, continual investment in new armaments factories in Berlin and Lübeck, and above all in Poznan, showed that even in 1943 Quandt was still thinking about expanding his empire. By this time private and even parastatal banks had become much more cautious and refused to extend him any more credit. Quandt’s persistence, which was unsuccessful in this case, is evidence that he clearly expected that he would still be able to operate these production plants after the war had ended. For this reason he felt that further expansion of these factories would pay off, despite the dramatic ­deterioration in the military situation of the Third Reich. The companies in the Quandt group employed forced labourers, prisoners of war and concentration-camp inmates. They preferred not to use foreign labour and sought to retain their highly qualified, well-trained and skilled German work force. When the latter were drafted into the army, the Quandt group companies willingly accepted forced labour as a solution to their manpower shortage. According to rough estimates, more than 50,000 forced labourers worked for the various firms in the group, a figure that does not include Wintershall, a company in which Quandt held a significant minority interest. At the beginning of the Second World War, the companies initially employed voluntary workers from Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands, where unemployment was high. Many additional workers came from Mussolini’s Italy, which was an ally until 1943. Although regarded by many German fellow workers as inferior, these workers were formally paid the same wages as German workers and had the same social benefits. But the labour situation rapidly deteriorated, and forced labour began to replace voluntarily workers as early as 1941. When Italy switched sides after the fall of Mussolini in 1943, Italian workers were regarded as ‘military internees’ and treated as badly as workers from Poland and the Soviet Union. AFA later used slave labour from concentration camps in at least three of their factories in Hanover, Berlin and Vienna. For a short time in 1943, the company managed to fend off attempts by the SS, eager to turn a profit, to force AFA to use concentration-camp inmates at its Hanover plant, but eventually acquiesced. However, it did manage to avoid using slave labour at its main plant in Hagen. While it is impossible to provide a quantitative answer to the question of whether this exploitation paid off on balance, there can be no doubt that Quandt and his senior management assumed that the use of forced labour under the then prevailing circumstances would be profitable. They made use of the existing possibilities to improve living and working conditions only if they served to improve performance, which was monitored and optimized in many of the group’s factories.

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In most cases, Günther Quandt did not have to confront the issue of forced labour directly, as the treatment of labourers was formally the responsibility of the management of the company or plant in question or of the camp administration and the SS. In hierarchical terms, plant managers bore final responsibility for working conditions. However, this in no way excuses the Quandts: both Günther and his son Herbert knew about the practice from the very beginning. Occasionally, Günther Quandt dealt personally with employment details, such as approving the procurement of wooden barracks; on another occasion he even sought to exploit the work of these foreign labourers as an argument for further loans to expand his armaments factories. Herbert Quandt was a director of Pertrix GmbH, a subsidiary of AFA in Berlin-Schöneweide, a company that used female slave labourers, including Polish women who had been transferred from Auschwitz. In December 1944, when it must have been obvious that Germany would lose the war, Herbert Quandt travelled to Silesia, where a new labour camp was about to be constructed. At the end of the Second World War most of the Quandt empire either lay in ruins or was expropriated, in particular the companies in the Soviet zone of occupation. In 1946, Günther Quandt was arrested by the American Military Command and interned. As the Americans decided not to put him on trial – he was not deemed important enough to be tried at the Nuremberg Military Tribunal – he was handed over to the German authorities. The Spruchkammer, the German denazification panel, lacked the evidence available to archivists and historians today. Consequently, some months later he was judged to be a fellow traveller – namely someone who accepted the Nazi ideology but did not actively participate in crimes. Günther Quandt was released in January 1948. Even in internment, the family patriarch supervised the preservation and rebuilding of his industrial empire in the shattered society of the early post-war period. He still regarded himself as an innocent victim and immediately resumed his industrial activities. Constantly worried that the younger generation would oust him, he was so mistrustful that he even accused his own son Herbert of wanting to force him to retire from the management of the group. He started his comeback soon after the end of the war, initially working for the Western Allies. By 1947/48 he could start to think about his own independent corporate future once more. He reappointed numerous managerial employees who had worked – some for decades – in one or other Quandt Group plant and had contributed to the business success of the company’s AFA and DWM divisions. The Quandts’ success story during the German economic miracle was built on rather solid foundations, not least because the assets secured in the various family holdings were largely intact and, despite widespread destruction and dismantling, some plants still had sufficient equipment to operate. In addition, the group’s financial experts succeeded in retaining ownership of some of the plants constructed almost exclusively with armaments loans during the war years. The currency reform and need to wipe clean corporate balance sheets in the Federal

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Republic of Germany left the group with just a fraction of the huge debts it had accumulated up to 1944. In addition, a large part of the plants’ raw materials had survived. All of this created a comfortable foundation for the group’s rapid economic success during the boom years of the 1950s. The family patriarch, who died in 1954, was an opportunist and, although not an ideologue, had become part of the Nazi regime. He was inextricably involved in the crimes of the National Socialists. It is striking to note how effortlessly he was able to adjust to political and economic circumstances and his environment. In this he was similar to Hermann Josef Abs, his long-time business partner at the Deutsche Bank, whom Lothar Gall, a German historian, calls ‘a man for all seasons’.3 The primacy of thought in the categories of ownership was so dominant that there was hardly any room for questions about law and morality – a disposition which is a challenge, not only for businessmen, in the ‘Age of Extremes’ (Eric Hobsbawm). ‘Not wanting to know the details’4 was a widespread psychological mechanism among entrepreneurs at that time, but Quandt’s adaptability certainly went further than most. Whereas, for example, it would have been virtually impossible for an entrepreneur who wanted to remain in business to refuse to use forced labour, Quandt was under no obligation to participate in any form of Aryanization, and he could have paid at least the enterprise value for the companies he acquired. The situation was much the same in respect of attempts, some successful and some not, to gain control of companies in occupied countries through equity participations. These efforts were undertaken in the wake of the advancing Germany army. Some of their attempts at Aryanization and equity participation failed on account of bureaucratic resistance and national interests in areas occupied by Germany; but one has to keep in mind the fact that managers of the Quandt Group deliberately drew attention to possible takeover candidates in Jewish ownership and that these companies were subsequently subjected to particular pressure. The rise of the Quandts over several generations can be explained by their sound management and skill in exploiting available business opportunities to master the threats and crises that battered the German economy in the first half of the twentieth century. This was the case at the end of the First World War in 1918, in the interwar period, including hyperinflation in 1923 and the Great Depression in the early 1930s, and in the post-1945 period of currency reform. However, the family’s advance during the Third Reich is particularly relevant, a period that raises pertinent questions about responsibility, civil courage and political 3 Lothar Gall: ‘A Man for all Seasons? Hermann Josef Abs im Dritten Reich’, Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 43 (1998): 123–75. 4 Ralf Banken: ‘Kurzfristiger Boom oder langfristiger Forschungsschwerpunkt? Die neuere deutsche Unternehmensgeschichte und die Zeit des Nationalsozialismus’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 56 (2005): 183–96 (p. 189).

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morality. It is striking to observe how effortlessly Quandt was able to adapt to the political and economic environment from the German monarchy through to the early Federal Republic. In times of dictatorship arbitrariness takes precedence over the rule of law. The origins of evil in the behaviour of private companies in the Third Reich were for the most part not spectacular. They are based ‘on the unchanged central mechanisms of an economic order rooted in private ownership, in other words, capitalism, and specifically competition and an interest in the long-term survival of the individual company as an autonomous social organization’.5 Thus, the question about entrepreneurial typologies, and in particular whether Quandt is an example of Schumpeter’s ‘creative entrepreneur’, can be answered in the affirmative: although a financial tycoon, he was a dynamic thinker, an example of Schumpeter’s entrepreneur with the characteristics of farsightedness and initiative, the desire to be successful, to experiment with innovation and a disposition to act. ‘The ability to subject others and bend them to one’s purposes, to command people and to overcome obstacles is what – even in the absence of particularly outstanding intelligence – leads to success’.6 From a political perspective, by contrast, and applying Schumpeter’s concept, the question can only be answered negatively: Quandt was one of those industrialists who did not have any ability for policy-making because they were completely absorbed with the general ledger and cost calculations.7 In this context, the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann once provocatively asked whether the internal business environment of companies was sufficiently stable to allow for the possibility of learning and standing the test of time.8 Relevant though this remark may be for large organizations, questions about the moral responsibility of individual entrepreneurs in the Third Reich need to be formulated differently. The dramatic shift in the frame of reference opened up potential courses of action that in normal circumstances would have been deemed immoral, but which suddenly seemed to be legitimate. Looking back, Quandt’s business partner Hermann Josef Abs sought to answer the question about the behaviour of businessmen in the Third Reich by saying that the fiercely competitive environment of the interwar period had seduced them into ‘letting themselves go’, and in most cases they had succumbed to opportunism.9 Applied to Günther Quandt, however, this does not go far enough, and Abs, who knew the man well 5 Christoph Buchheim: ‘Unternehmen in Deutschland und NS-Regime 1933–1945. Versuch einer Synthese’, Historische Zeitschrift 282 (2006): 351–90 (p. 389). 6 Joseph A. Schumpeter: Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Reprint of the 1st edn of 1912, Berlin 2006, p. 164. 7 Joseph A. Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3rd edn, New York, 1950, p. 137. 8 Niklas Luhmann: Die Wirtschaft der Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, p. 31. 9 Hermann Josef Abs in conversation with Joachim Fest: Karl B. Schnelting (ed.): Zeugen

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from numerous negotiations, is unmistakably defending his own interests when he gives such a mild judgement. Quandt mistakenly viewed his behaviour in the National Socialist state as ‘unpolitical’ because he was not interested in matters that did not affect his business interests; he concentrated on what he knew best: the management of his companies. Such one-sidedness is relatively innocuous and socially acceptable when the rule of law holds sway, as it did to a certain degree under the Hohenzollern monarchy and indisputably so in the Weimar Republic and later in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the situation was quite different under the National Socialist regime: here the consequence of Quandt’s ‘natural’ egoism, which he never questioned, was moral indifference. Economic thinkers such as David Hume and Adam Smith recognized early on that containing this egoism is a fundamental obligation for society. With the rise of National Socialism, these considerations acquired an unprecedented relevance. Whereas Friedrich von Hayek in his 1944 programmatic work Road to Serfdom trusted in the separation of powers and the rule of law as a sufficient guarantee against the abuse of power,10 and thus in the ability to constrain the ubiquitous threat of social inhumanity, the lawyer and economist Franz Böhm took the view that economic competition is the most ingenious way to prevent states, institutions and individuals from misusing their power, because it keeps both state domination and corporate power in check.11 From their own experience of the behaviour of corporate elites, Hayek and Böhm were aware of how topical their considerations were. Friedrich Flick’s business practices, for example, which were just as ethically indifferent as Günther Quandt’s,12 resulted in the loss of ‘humility’ and, as Fritz Redlich once put it, let entrepreneurship degenerate into the ‘nemesis of creativity’.13 In normal times the honourable businessman knows how to behave. In a dictatorship, by contrast, the ethical yardsticks associated with safeguarding freedom loose their attraction.14 Whereas under the rule of law a whole range of tools are available – and also are applied – to keep corporate misconduct in check, in a dictatorship the powers of the state are employed as the regime deems fit. This facilitates political opportunism and a bottomless decline in morality. des Jahrhunderts. Porträts aus Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main, 1981, pp. 11–56 (p. 36). 10 Friedrich von Hayek: Der Weg zur Knechtschaft [1943], Munich, 2007, p. 11. 11 Cited by Peter Graf Kielmansegg: Nach der Katastrophe. Eine Geschichte des geteilten Deutschland, Berlin, 2000, p. 437. 12 Werner Plumpe: ‘Flicks Karrieren. Ein Kapitel deutscher Unternehmensgeschichte aus dem 20. Jahrhundert’, Neue Politische Literatur 53 (2008): 5–14 (p. 12). 13 Fritz Redlich: ‘Der Unternehmer als “dämonische” Figur’ [1953]. In: Redlich: Der Unternehmer. Wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtliche Studien, Göttingen, 1964, pp. 45–73 (p. 73). 14 See Paul Kirchhof: Der freie oder der gelenkte Bürger. Die Gefährdung der Freiheit durch Geld, Informationspolitik und durch die Organisationsgewalt des Staats, Stuttgart, 2010, p. 14.

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However, in addition to the necessary social constraints on the part of the state, each individual should have certain limits that he or she is unwilling to transgress. Günther Quandt failed to observe these ethical yardsticks, as did his son Herbert, even though the latter’s failings were certainly less serious than the father’s. It would certainly be presumptuous and almost naive to expect businessmen to have behaved differently from most other Germans between 1933 and 1945. However, companies today express their responsibility specifically by avoiding the self-stylization and self-exoneration that for many years characterized most companies’ approach to their National Socialist past. This also includes the realization that it was possible to behave differently in the Third Reich and that even in those times some businessmen did not lose sight of traditional standards of behaviour. This insight is by no means new. The public prosecutor of the denazification panel in 1948 had enough time to form his own opinion of Günther Quandt. Many decades later, his assessment holds even after exhaustive examination of numerous files, documents and books: Quandt, he stated, could not personally harm anybody: rather, he seemed to be the embodiment of what is generally understood by the term ‘a glutton for work’. Despite his ‘considerable personal modesty’, his attitude to money was different from that of other people: in particular, Quandt was intoxicated by the pursuit of power and with creating an industrial empire … obsessed with his own activity and … the belief in the importance of his own work, not because there is anything fundamentally moral about work, but because the creation of his empire is the absolute good and everything that runs counter to this creation is bad.15 The prosecutor concluded that, in Quandt’s case, the end justified means that people generally shrink from using in private life. The history of the rise of the Quandts is essentially the history of their industrial empire. In particular in the case of Günther Quandt, the towering figure of the family company in the period with which we are concerned, private life played a minor role.16 Ultimately, apart from the accumulation of assets and companies and the value that he attached to factors such as luck and coincidence, he was curiously non-committal about his private thoughts and life. Günther Quandt was not a person to keep a record of his innermost thoughts, let alone mention them in his correspondence with his few friends. In some respects this 15 Statements of the Prosecutor, Appendix to the Minutes of the Proceedings of 29 April 1949, Central Bavarian State Archives, Munich, Denazification Panel file, Günther Quandt, Carton 1362/5. 16 Wilhelm Treue: Herbert Quandt. Ein Unternehmer der dritten Generation, Bad Homburg, 1980, pp. 125–27.

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also holds for his sons, who were not inclined to discuss their past any more than he was, or did so extremely selectively at best. This attitude is particularly important in the debate about the darkest period of the family’s rise, the years under National Socialism. After 1945, Günther Quandt and his son Herbert conveyed the impression that they were simply cogs in the wheels of a repressive system. However, they must have been aware of the obvious contradictions between the policies of the National Socialist regime, the legislation in force prior to the regime, and the ideal of the honest businessman – even if only at the level of common sense, an admittedly ill-defined concept, but one nonetheless rooted in experience.17 Given the behaviour of people during the National Socialist regime, it is worth recalling an observation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s: ‘Much knowledge and learning is neither a necessary means of culture nor a sign of it and, if necessary, runs remarkably well with the opposite of culture, with barbarism’.18 This may be a depressing insight, but it also opens up opportunities: it remains an ongoing task for historians to record and evaluate the thinking, responsibility and omissions of entrepreneurs in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The rise of the Quandt family, therefore, is an example that gives us food for thought.

17 Dietmar Petzina, Werner Plumpe: ‘Unternehmensethik – Unternehmenskultur: Herausforderungen für die Unternehmensgeschichtsschreibung?’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 34 (1993): 9–19, esp. pp. 9 and 12–13. 18 Friedrich Nietzsche: ‘Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. Erstes Stück: David Strauß, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller’. In: Karl Schlechta (ed.): Friedrich Nietzsche. Werke in drei Bänden, vol. 1, Darmstadt, 1954, p. 140.

4

Scientific Credibility and Getting Across the Message: Can we Bridge the Gap?

Between Credibility, Mutual Trust and Corporate Interests: Regional Business Archives as Partners of Historical Research and Economic Business Karl-Peter Ellerbrock Regional Business Archives

Regional business archives are a peculiarity of the German archival situation.1 They perform sovereign tasks by storing the historical records of the chambers of commerce in accordance with the guidelines of the archival laws of the federal state. They are also a depository for numerous company archives. A great deal of trust and persuasiveness are needed to convince the owners of the companies in question to grant researchers unrestricted access to these sources. The present chapter first gives a retrospective on the emergence of regional business archives in the context of the development of archival practices in the German economy. I will then adduce three concrete examples from the daily work of the regional archives in order to show the principles and strategies that we, as regional business archivists, adhere to.

The beginnings

It was roughly at the time when historians started to abandon their concept of the ‘Great Powers’ (Leopold von Ranke) in favour of a structural approach to history as advocated by Karl Lamprecht in his German History (which focuses increasingly on social, economic and cultural questions) that the slogan ‘ad fontes!’ became more popular and also started to be used to refer to documents created by the economy. It was in 1905 that the first economic archives were

1 See, more generally, Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: ‘Wirtschaftsarchive in Deutschland: Zu den Anfängen und zur gegenwärtigen Rolle der regionalen Wirtschaftsarchive vor den Herausforderungen von Strukturwandel und Globalisierung’, Archiv und Wirtschaft 1 (2005): 16–25. 77

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founded in Essen by Krupp.2 The Siemens and Bayer archives in Munich and Leverkusen were founded in 1907. In 1905, Lamprecht’s disciple Armin Tille wrote a 110-page treatise recommending the foundation of ‘regional business archives’, a vision that was put into practice with the foundation of the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschafts­ archiv in Cologne in 1906, which was the result of an initiative launched by the chambers of commerce in the Prussian provinces of Rhineland and Westphalia.3 Later on a regional business archive for the Saar Area was founded in Saarbrücken. In the 1930s, under the Nazi regime, companies were threatened by the prospect of the forced surrendering of their historical records to state archives when Albert Brackmann, general director of the Prussian state archives and since 1935 also director of the Reichsarchiv, presented ‘Suggestions for a Reorganization of the German Archives’ to the Ministry of the Interior in December 1934. He called for the supervision of non-state archives, including business archives. His successor Ernst Zipfel (from 1936) continued these endeavours, but he failed diverse drafts of a law aiming to protect archival sources that would have allowed easier access to company records. In the meantime, particularly in the mining industry, several archives had been founded because companies were afraid the Nazi regime would gather insights into entrepreneurial processes of planning and decision-making as well as exact details of finances and planning. Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG played an important role here. Their general director Ernst Poensgen was personally committed to this cause and successfully ensured economical autonomy in archival matters by founding archives with the support of the Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (RWWA) in Cologne and the Krupp-Archiv. In 1938, he employed Hedwig Behrens as a full-time specialist to respond to questions concerning company archives. She managed the newly created ‘Advice Centre for Company Archives’ and did pioneering work in this area. Further concerns like Hoesch in Dortmund established their own company archives at that time. In this context, in 1941, Dortmund’s Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv was founded as a last bastion of resistance of the Dortmund Chamber of Industry and Commerce against the measures of the Nazi regime. It also made it possible to protect precious historical documents in the Westphalian industrial area and in the County of Mark from the Allies’ approaching air strikes. It is deplorable that the Second World War brought about irretrievable loss here; Saarbrücken’s institute even fell victim to the lucrative post-war trade in waste paper. 2 Ralf Stremmel: Historisches Archiv Krupp. Entwicklungen, Aufgaben, Bestände, 2nd edn, Berlin, 2009. 3 Armin Tille: Wirtschaftsarchive, Berlin 1905. Ulrich Soenius: Zukunft im Sinn – Vergangenheit in den Akten. 100 Jahre Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv zu Köln; 1906–2006, Cologne, 2006.

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Apart from the collections of university research institutes like the Thünen archives in Rostock or Cologne’s Schmalenbach archive and a variety of archives belonging to traditional chambers of commerce like Hamburg, Bremen or Leipzig, the foundation of company and regional business archives at that time established the essential characteristics that have continued to influence economic archives to this day. In 1969, the mining archives in Bochum were founded as the first archives for a specific branch of industry.

Regional business archives in Germany

German chambers of industry and commerce – independent public institutions managing the regional economy, which, apart from public authorities, even today represent the main responsible body – played a major role in the creation of the first regional business archives. In accordance with federal archive legislation, the commitment of the chambers of handicrafts has also increased over the past number of years. Looking at Germany today, apart from the corporate archives, we find eleven regional business archives which are institutionally independent from one another but which work closely together, namely: § Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Cologne (founded in 1906); § Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Dortmund (founded in 1941); § Baden-Württembergisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Stuttgart (founded in 1980); § Bayerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Munich (founded in 1986); § Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Darmstadt (founded in 1992); § Sächsisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Leipzig (founded in 1993); § Niedersächsisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Wolfenbüttel (founded in 2005); § Hanseatisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Hamburg (founded in 2008); § Wirtschaftsarchiv Berlin-Brandenburg (founded in 2009); § Thüringisches Wirtschaftsarchiv in Erfurt (founded in 2009); § Stiftung Wirtschaftsarchiv Nord-West-Niedersachsen in Emden (founded in 2009).

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Legislation

Let us first have a look at the legal foundations of the archives. The Bundesarchivgesetz provides regulations for the organization of material stored within German archives and refers to ‘imminently federal corporations, institutions and foundations as well as any other federal offices’ (§ 2). The archive laws of the Federal states also include Chambers in their regulations. All German Chambers are thus legally obliged to have their stocks of documents attended to by professionals. This is a brief sketch of the legal foundations of the sovereign tasks of the regional business archives. However, the regional business archives also collect the records of companies, economic organizations and associations. The plurality of perspectives on the regional economic history, i.e., the perspectives of chambers, associations, companies, but also of specific personalities like engineers, politicians, syndics and entrepreneurs and their written records, are an important unique characteristic of the regional business archives. There is no legal basis for this, which is probably better given our liberal economic constitution. The implications are as follows. In the Federal Republic of Germany there is also no legal bond between business archives and the Federal Government or the Federal states. In accordance with §903 BGB the documents that are created and/or stored by a certain enterprise are private property. Deadlines for safekeeping result from commercial and tax laws as well as from social legislation (especially personal files, certificates of social security, etc.). Trade documents like order receipts and delivery notes as well as account books, inventories and balance sheets have been eligible for the classical period of expiration of ten years, according to §44 HGB (Handelsgesetzbuch) since the nineteenth century. For some branches, like the chemical, iron and steel industries, there are several special regulations that essentially depend on the respective patterns of production. In this context professional associations have developed several catalogues fit to help enterprises better to organize their registries. Whenever an enterprise deposits its stocks of documents with regional business archives without arranging for any further regulations (possibly in the form of a depository contract), these stocks are treated as part of ‘other public archive material’ and are subject to (regional) regulations. But this is not the rule because the public usage of these holdings is usually arranged by agreements between the regional business archives and the original owners of the archival deposits.

Holdings

The structure and form of the holdings to be found within the individual archives reflect the vast scope of material collected. The Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv,

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for example, keeps about 900 individual holdings today, and these comprise about ten kilometres of shelves.4 With the help of these documents we can trace the regional economic structures of the Westphalia-Lippe region for over 300 years, and chart the kinds of industry typical of this region: like the metalworking industry in the Sauerland and the Siegerland, the textiles industry in the Münsterland and bicycles and tobacco from Minden-Ravensberg. The history of skilled craftsmen, factories, mines, department stores and the retail trade is documented in accounting books, sample books, posters, films, photos and files. These documents also prove Westphalia’s connection with the other economic regions in Germany, Europe and overseas markets since the seventeenth century. As you can see, the elaboration and sharpening of a representative collection profile, which comprises types and branches of industry, as it is implied in the structure of our holdings, is a decisive and permanent strategic objective of the regional business archives. Thus far, this has worked well in in the Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv. We have no large gaps in our historical transmission. The involvement of Sparkassen, Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken and of their associations in two big projects led to important strategic successes in the past years. The development of further archives of associations (Verbandsarchive) is on the agenda of our archival development plan 2020, as well as selective acquisitions in the area of crafts and trades. In addition to our regional activities in Westphalia we also plan projects on a federal level. In September, a workshop entitled ‘The History of Crafts and Trades. Crafts and Trades in the Conception of History: Problems of Archiving, Sources and Research’ will be held in Berlin. We hope for further initiatives to improve the rather desolate state of research into the history of crafts and trades so that modern historical and interdisciplinary research appropriate to the economic importance of crafts and trades can be established on the basis of this archival foundation.

Networking

Networking is essential for the success of our work. I have already spoken on this important topic at Deutscher Archivtag 2006 under the name ‘Archive Marketing: Target Groups and Networks Between Scientific Communication and Event Culture’, so I can refer you to that publication and restrict myself 4 Ottfried Dascher (ed.): Das Westfälische Wirtschaftsarchiv und seine Bestände, Munich, 1990. For an up-to-date inventory, see www.archive.nrw.de. See also Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: ‘Gedächtnis der Wirtschaft. Das Westfälische Wirtschaftsarchiv und seine Beiträge zur wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtlichen Forschung. Einige Beispiele’, Jahrbuch der historischen Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 2007, pp. 43–47.

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to some basic statements.5 The most important target group of the ‘archive marketing’ of regional business archives are companies and entrepreneurs. The network of chamber organizations, i.e., Industrie- und Handelskammertag (IHK) and trade corporations, is indispensable for the success of our daily work. It comprises full-time as well as honorary offices, i.e., entrepreneurs. You have to take into account that the general meetings alone, that is, the parliaments formed by entrepreneurs of the regional economy, represent about 700 companies in the Westphalian IHKs. If one includes the trade corporations, more than 300 representatives of the trades must be added on. The complicated election regulations guarantee a representative reflection of the regional economic structures. The individual chambers, presidents as well as managing directors, are involved in different committees of the WWA, i.e., in the board of trustees (Stiftungsvorstand), in the committee (Kuratorium) and in the extended board of directors of the Gesellschaft für Westfälische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Society of Westphalian Economic History), our support association. Of course, the connection with the IHK Dortmund, which founded us and in which we were included as a separate department up to 1969, when we became an independent foundation, is particularly tight. This is not only shown by the fact that we keep a common building and that the IHK takes care of the personnel and fiscal administration as well as of the building administration. There also exists a tight intermeshing as regards the personnel of the two institutions. The chief manager of the IHK Dortmund is chairman of the board of trustees of the WWA, whereas the director of the WWA is a member of the management of the IHK. The GWWG, mentioned above, with its course of lectures and its two renowned monograph series, is an important drive-belt connecting us with the scientific research community as well as with the interested public, especially with companies and entrepreneurs. I do not want to elaborate on the importance of these networking activities for our daily work here, but restrict myself to the remark that mutual ‘trust’ plays a key role in the assumption of the records of companies as well as of those of associations and individual persons if these sources are to be made available to historical research with the fewest restrictions possible. This leads me to my first example.

5 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: ‘Archivmarketing: Zielgruppen und Netzwerke zwischen wissenschaftlicher Kommunikation und Eventkultur’. In: Heiner Schmitt (ed.): Archive und Öffentlichkeit. Tagungsdokumentation zum 76. Deutschen Archivtag 2006 in Essen, Fulda, 2007, pp. 175–82.

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Corporate history and corporate interests: three examples from the daily work of a regional business archive Case study of economic decline: the brewing industry in Dortmund

In Dortmund in the 1990s, against a background of structural changes and globalization in the brewing industry,6 five hitherto independent companies or brewing concerns were gradually integrated into the Oetker concern, with the Radeberger group as lead company.7 In those days the WWA preserved more than two kilometres of historical records from destruction and gathered them in the Dortmunder Brauerei-Archiv (Dortmund Brewery Archive), with financial support from the brewing industry.8 The exploration of these sources is by now well advanced. The collection was first presented to the scientific community in 2007 within the framework of a conference entitled ‘The Beer Market and Beer Consumption in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’. The records were opened to historical research without any restrictions. Apart from the wide range of historical contributions, the conference sought a dialogue with the economy – with success. Thus, the current beer market analysis undertaken by the management consultancy firm KPMG was vividly discussed and Ulrich Kallmeyer, then chairman of the Radeberger group, emphasized the value of historical research for entrepreneurial practice in his opening speech: ‘Those who want to be successful in the German beer market must understand its culture and its history’. By now several theses on the subject have been written, some of which were also published. The recently published volume on the history of the Westphalian brewing industry not only fills research gaps on the basis of the holdings of the Dortmund Brewery Archive, unique at least in Germany, but offers new perspectives for historical research.9 Using the example of an unsuccessful marketing policy (for example, the trend towards ‘Pils’ was not recognized), it also analyses the causes of the economic decline of the once leading brewing industry in Dortmund, which lost its entrepreneurial independence in 2004. These research projects are undertaken in full agreement with the brewing industry in Dortmund, which also gives constructive support. 6 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: ‘Company Archives and Globalization: The Case of the Brewing Industry’, imprese e storia 35 (2007). 7 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: Das “Dortmunder U”. Vom industriellen Zweckbau zu einem Wahrzeichen der westfälischen Industriekultur, Münster, 2009. 8 Nancy Bodden, Kalus Pradler: ‘Das Dortmunder Brauerei-Archiv im Westfälischen Wirtschaftsarchiv’. In: Karl-Peter Ellerbrock (ed.): Zur Geschichte der westfälischen Brauwirtschaft im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Kleine Schriften der Gesellschaft für Westfälische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. 34, Dortmund, 2012, pp. 9–25. 9 Ellerbrock: Zur Geschichte der westfälischen Brauwirtschaft.

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Currently, the brewing industry supports a dissertation now in progress which investigates the importance and the consequences of the increasing consumption of bottled beer for the marketing policy of the breweries in Dortmund between 1950 and 1980. The dissertation explores the causes of entrepreneurial mistakes. The middle-class family business Kaldewei in Ahlen and the topic of forced labour

The Westphalian family business Kaldewei, European market leader in the production of steel bathtubs and owned by the family for four generations, hired the WWA to build a historical archive and to write a scientifically grounded company history. The chapter on the Nazi regime and forced labour was first to be omitted, not least because speculations about Kaldewei’s employment of forced labourers circulated in the local press. These accusations were initially countered by a stubborn silence. The WWA first formed a basis for intense discussions by compiling facts from the historical records on the employment of forced labourers. In fact, Kaldewei had been involved in the National Socialist System. With the contextualization of this fact and the explanation of current research on the relation of the Nazi regime to the economy, the WWA convinced the owner that a critical coming to terms with the past would not lead to public stigmatization, but, on the contrary, offer the chance of a differentiated perspective and, above all, put a stop to the speculations. Indeed, the sources analysed showed that, despite legal regulations and decrees, Kaldewei had used their limited room for manoeuvre to influence the working and living conditions of the forced labourers in a positive way and to create humane conditions for them as far as it was possible (equal treatment in the portioning out of food, payment of a Christmas bonus). It was also revealed that the father of the current owner had been a member of the Nazi Party, something which previously had been vehemently denied. In this case, too, the analysis of the historical business records showed that this alone is not a sufficient proof of a Nazi attitude, as it came to light that party expulsion proceedings against Kaldewei were pending owing to his repeated refusal to comply with the guidelines of the Nazi authorities. The history of the Kaldewei company is currently being written.10 Thus, a lack of knowledge and the resulting fear are the main reasons for the refusal of companies to deal with their own Nazi past.11 The example of the textile company Konen from Munich has shown the positive results of a forceful way of dealing with this topic. In the framework of a company anniversary, about two years ago, the Aryanization of this formerly Jewish company had simply 10 The author is Nancy Bodden and the book is to be published by Aschendorff-Verlag. 11 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: ‘Quellen zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus im Westfälischen Wirtschaftsarchiv’, Archiv und Wirtschaft 2 (1999): 70–80.

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been ‘forgotten’, which led to a negative campaign against the company. With the help of our colleagues from the Bavarian Business Archive, this chapter in the company history was subsequently reappraised and an extensive account of it was published. As a result, the negative campaign was stopped and, what is more, the company was praised for its frankness, even in the national press. Existential crisis and generational conflict: the middle-class family business Crespel & Deiters in Ibbenbüren

The WWA also built a company archive for the middle-class business Crespel & Deiters in Ibbenbüren (Münsterland) and produced a company history which is available in the bookshops.12 This project, too, was premised on an unbiased and critical scientific appraisal of the past. Of course, this company, founded in 1858, which had developed as a wheat starch factory from an important supplier for the textile and shoe industries to the German market leader as a supplier of raw materials for the food industry (Maggi, Bahlsen, Dr. Oetker and the German wholesale bakery were among its customers), has lived through economically difficult periods. An existential crisis came about in the late 1980s after the world market for wheat starch had completely changed in structure and the ‘old’ business model was no longer working. The overcoming of this crisis (the losses of these years are accounted to the last penny) coincided with a change of generation, a highly sensitive topic. With unvarnished frankness I could draw attention to the economic core as well as to the strategic reframing, which can of course be read as a critique of the ‘old’ business policy. Like many German middle-class world market leaders, Crespel & Deiters pursues the strategy of global niche dominance and has developed into the world market leader for special glue for the corrugated cardboard industry. It registers two-digit growths in the shades of the logistics boom. Crespel & Deiters’ dealing with their own company history, ranging from the building of a company archive to the critical coming to terms with their past, is exemplary and has also had a positive effect on their self-conception. Their business culture has become more authentic. I quote from the preface to their history: Despite some gaps and tragic losses, e.g. of most of the older company books and balance sheets due to water damage, numerous precious documents concerning the company history could be preserved. The trade association of the German starch industry in Berlin, with which we maintain close connections, hired the WWA to explore their historical 12 Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: Auf Stärke gebaut. Geschichte der Firma Crespel & Deiters 1858–2008, Münster, 2008.

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sources. Both holdings are now open to research. Without this archival foundation the appraisal of the history of Crespel & Deiters would not have been possible. It is an important concern for us to be in touch with our tradition. However, we do not consider this a nostalgic retrospect, which is solely concerned with the bright sides, but the professional and critical appraisal of the company history. The present book shows that ours was by no means a continual story of success. Some setbacks had to be coped with, not a few crises had to be mastered. In spite of this, or rather, precisely because of this, we are proud of our history. Each crisis is also a chance, but it takes courage for change, courage for innovation and above all also for investment to be successful. It is not often that mental barriers have to be broken down in order to do this. This is the historical task passed on to the succeeding generations by the founders of the company 150 years ago. Understood in this way, the maintenance of tradition is an integral part of our business culture. Tradition and trust are closely connected and neither of these values can be cheaply imported from China in the global competition. That is why we are glad to have a well-ordered company archive at our disposal. Without our company archive, a great deal of the history of Crespel & Deiters would have long since fallen into oblivion. But we continue to cultivate the ‘memory’ of our company beyond the occasion of our anniversary. With the help of the WWA, we will continue it in a systematic fashion in the future, confronted with the challenges of the electronic age.

Summary

The above examples were intended to show that we as regional business archives in Germany abide by the principle of independent scientific work. However, we are not sitting in an ivory tower, which would be fatal for our work. Our close institutional connection with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce and our networking activities allow us to participate actively in the economic world. We see ourselves as a partner of the companies and nurture a culture of dialogue and discussion. We inform the companies about important and above all delicate developments concerning their histories, as far as the sources explored by us allow. We then discuss strategies to open the archival deposits to scientific usage, as unrestricted as possible. This form of cooperation is the basis for the acquisition of archival holdings which aims at the elaboration of a dense and representative profile of the historical transmission of the regional economy. If a company objects to the scientific usage of their holdings we do not integrate them into our archives.

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In these cases it is of course possible that we explore the company archive, which, however, has to remain in the company. It must be taken into consideration that future decision-makers will decide differently. Of course, we engage in active archival marketing in the sense sketched out above and we are open-minded about new ways of popularizing history. Together with the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, we have a Facebook page: we plan to post stories and interesting documents concerning the history of Westphalian economy there every two weeks. However, the public educational mandate of the archives should not be forgotten. Cultural education and being in touch with young learners is an important concern for us. Thus, in cooperation with the district authority (Bezirksregierung) responsible for the school system, we offer programmes for teachers on the topic ‘Archives and School’ so as to carry economic knowledge into schools. And to this end we have established formal education partnerships with two local schools. It is our credo to inform people with our specialized and independent scientific work, while we are convinced that it will do no harm to arouse public attention. However, the latter should not be an aim by itself. The employment of the archives as a historical marketing instrument or as a service provider for anniversaries must not leave the realm of serious science. The current history boom is conducive to an event culture, especially in the age of dumbing down in the media. Images of history produced in that context are for the most part independent of the science of history and of the archives. So archives and historical research have a special responsibility here because they have to battle to a certain extent against the prevailing taste.

Don’t Waste your Money! Forget the Jubilee Book! The Case for an Integrated Anniversary Approach: A Corporate Archivist’s View Thomas Inglin The Jubilee Book

Most organizations preparing to honour a milestone anniversary are likely to have a preconceived notion that celebrating an event of this magnitude can be accomplished with a beautiful published book. Given the volume of information and the documents to which I have access, it is a safe and easy solution that a corporate archivist like me might logically come to. Combining the shared history of employees, customers and shareholders is a lot of work and very time-consuming, even though the result is a positive and exciting thing in a company history. However, what I quickly discovered, having participated in the planning and execution of a centennial anniversary, is that an organization’s archives and history – and the stories held within – can and should be used in more than just print form. Instead, these unique moments in history can be used to develop a set of storylines that set the wheels in motion not only for an unconventional approach to an anniversary but also one that is fun, effective and increases an organization’s visibility in all respects. Zurich Insurance Company was founded 1872 as a subsidiary of the Schweiz transport/marine insurance company under the name Versicherungs Verein [insurance association]. Today, Zurich is active in 170 countries worldwide. This way of doing business internationally is deeply rooted in the DNA of the company that did business on an international level right from the start. When Zurich entered accident and liability, by the end of the first business year the company already had agencies in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia, followed by Belgium (1877), France and The Netherlands (1878) and Italy (1881). The first wave of international expansion was concluded in 1885 by entering Spain. It then took twenty-seven years for the next step in international expansion. And the step that followed was definitely a decisive one for Zurich. In 1912, Zurich entered the USA. 89

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Zurich Insurance Company plc celebrated its North American branch’s 100th Anniversary in 2012. As the Head Archivist at the corporate headquarters in Zurich, I had known for a long time that our organization had applied for a business licence in the USA in December 1912. I realized early on that an auspicious occasion like this would have to be celebrated and saw the opportunity to inform our overseas colleagues of our work, which often takes place in obscurity. I knew the items in our head office archive would be of decisive importance, especially with regard to the establishment of the branch office. The company’s centennial offered a unique opportunity in many respects and our team collaborated to put together a plan that would spotlight those opportunities using an integrated approach. We used the anniversary as the starting point for a wide-range of activities. Our internal project team had less than a year to complete the planning, since our initial start was significantly delayed. Since there was no archive in the US headquarters in Schaumburg, and above all no specialized staff, it soon became clear that we would have to hire outside help. We found it in a company that makes its living processing and selling history: the History Factory. They made it clear from the outset that they were not planning to write a conventional anniversary book that hardly anyone would read anyway, but saw the anniversary as an opportunity better to familiarize employees, customers and shareholders with the history of the company using all available channels. Research was conducted to uncover stories that were easy to sell and that tied together the past, present and future with fresh, durable insights and storytelling. Some of the stories, although with a tenuous connection to the company, were compelling nonetheless. What we learned – and later embedded into the campaign – were that those stories demonstrated our company’s connection to the American landscape: § A company later acquired by Zurich was the lead insurer for the construction of the Hoover Dam: a structure that virtually every American is likely to know (Fig. 4.1). § As the insurer and risk manager, Zurich also played a major role in the construction of Madison Square Garden in New York City (Fig. 4.2). § Our American colleagues were particularly taken by the discovery that Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent some time working for one of our company’s former subsidiaries before becoming President of the USA. To top it all, at the time, we were even in possession of the desk at which FDR sat while an employee (Fig. 4.3). These stories, and the many more uncovered, offered the chance to tie together four quarterly themes that aligned and subtly spotlighted our organizational

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4.1  The Hoover Dam One company taken over – admittedly much later on – by Zurich (Fidelity and Deposit Company) was the leading insurer for the construction of the Hoover Dam

4.2  Madison Square Garden, New York As the insurer and risk manager, Zurich also played a major role in the construction of Madison Square Garden in New York

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4.3  The Desk of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

focuses. With those in mind, we set to work to create and execute a plan that would seamlessly transition from one theme to the next while impacting all of our constituents. We started with a digital archive that included all of the important documents and accompanying images scanned and saved electronically in a database. This made it possible to use the sources for other purposes irrespective of time and place. From here, everything else fell into place: § A company Anniversary intranet page was established by our internal communications team. The content started slowly, but we added information weekly so that by the Anniversary’s date the site contained the complete North American history along with old ad campaigns, a timeline, film snippets from employee interviews, an event calendar and a page with all media clippings. § An exhibit in our US headquarter lobby that still stands today and honours our corporate organization’s history as well as the integration of the acquired companies (Fig. 4.4). § A travelling exhibit that gave colleagues in other cities an insight into the company history. It rotated content quarterly, along with the Anniversary themes.

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4.4  The Lobby of US Headquarters, Schaumburg A large exhibition was put together in the lobby of the US headquarters in Schaumburg

4.5 Modified Double-Decker Buses

§ Employee ‘Ambassadors’ numbering nearly 300 were self-appointed actively to support the anniversary at more than thirty various locations. § An integrated marketing communications campaign adapted the company’s history and anniversary. This included publishing regular blogs and Tweets, double-decker buses wrapped in giant posters (Fig. 4.5), giant posters (Fig. 4.6), advertising films, newspaper ads and even short messages on elevator displays. We even received publicity from the uncovered FDR desk. § Community outreach programmes that gave employees the opportunity to do special charity work inspired by the anniversary.

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4.6  Giant Posters

And, of course, we produced an anniversary book in both hard copy and digital form (Fig. 4.7). .

4.7  Anniversary Book

While we could have produced just the book, it is quite likely that we would have not achieved the same results as those from the integrated campaign approach. The impact was meaningful, with some impressive results: § 5,000 items, including texts, images and video, were electronically stored by the anniversary close. § 61% of all employees actively participated in one of the anniversary activities. § 82% of all employees stated that they were more familiar with the company history after the anniversary year. § 50,000 hits were counted on the anniversary web portal within the space of six months. § 9,231 hours of employee charity work were logged during the anniversary year. With many organizations around the world achieving milestone anniversaries in the coming years, there is indeed an opportunity to educate their network of stakeholders and celebrate the occasion. How each chooses to do so is their mission, but as a Head Archivist for a global organization, I now understand the importance of ensuring the moment does not take place in obscurity. Instead, using an integrated approach to understanding one’s organizational heritage through storytelling is a worthwhile endeavour. For my organization, the process, the plan and the results were a remarkable example of how history can be made into a fantastic and measurable value for the company if it is ‘sold’ properly. The History Factory’s team was one of the primary reasons our Anniversary was so successful. They sold us on the importance of an integrated approach that made known the unique, historical angles of our corporate heritage. Their motto, ‘Focus on the people behind the stories and the relevance today’, was clearly reflected in all of the Anniversary projects, and supplemented by a team of historians with research skills, copywriters and graphic designers as well as exhibition and anniversary book specialists. They all aligned with a common goal and collaborated strongly to ensure we were proud of our history and our Anniversary. The most surprising lesson, however, was that their encouragement was correct: approaching an anniversary with intention is more effective than a conventional anniversary book.

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The Global Scale of Corporate History: Changing Expectations in Changing Environments

Archives and Collections in the Twenty-First Century: From Drab to Sexy Alexander L. Bieri Archives and Collections in the Twenty-First Century

In a vaulted cellar populated by spiders and toads, a beam of gloomy light picks out the archivist as he sits at his lectern surrounded by piles of documents – a gaunt figure, with skin as pale and dusty as the sheets of parchment on the table. For a long time, this was the popular image of archivists, and it lives on in people’s imaginations. However, now that everybody is talking about the ‘knowledge society’, some people are starting to wonder whether archives are still so dusty and musty and antiquated. To answer this question, we need to go back to the nineteenth century, the beginning of so many technical revolutions. As the middle classes went from strength to strength, they wanted to slake their enormous thirst for knowledge; indeed, knowledge was the defining element that distinguished them from the nobility. In the preceding centuries, collecting was a way for scholars to pass the time. If they were fortunate, they were allowed to build up cabinets of curiosities for noble patrons; the primary function of these cabinets, however, was to provide entertainment and amusement. Not until the nineteenth century did the idea of opening collections to the general public in the form of museums, and hence as an educational tool, take hold in society. Whereas art museums continue to enjoy enormous popularity, other collections are experiencing difficulties as a consequence of the media revolution. Ethnological collections were once more popular than any other museums: visitors could dream of exotic places and escape from everyday life for a while. Today, many ethnological museums have the aura of warehouses of foreign arts and crafts, and children rightly ask why they have to look at ceramic jars that have been removed from their everyday context when they can watch a film about the culture in question on the Internet. In other words, collections – and archives are also collections – are changing, with regards to both their social utility and people’s perception of them. 99

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In order to fulfil its tasks as well as possible, the Roche Historical Collection and Archive is also adapting to the social development outlined above. Ten years ago, the archive drew up a novel role concept that takes account of some of the radical changes brought about by the Internet and the way data are handled. By making huge amounts of data available, one major consequence of the spread of the Internet has been to destroy the value of information as such. Prior to this, simply getting hold of information was an arduous task. Today the art lies in filtering out the right information at the right time from the mass of information and placing it in a useful context – a task that is infinitely more difficult to resolve. At the same time, the quantity of duplicated information is growing disproportionately. On television, for example, more and more stations are showing the same old documentaries. On the other hand, the amount of original, newly commissioned information is decreasing. All of these trends can be succinctly summarized in two quotes. One is from the British philosopher Francis Bacon (1561–1626): ‘Real knowledge is knowledge that looks at the causes’. The other is from the American author and futurologist John Naisbitt (born 1929): ‘We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge’. Archives, which, unlike records offices (or what is known as ‘records management’ today), facilitate contextualized and networked research that, moreover, has been curated in respect of a specific topic, are in a position to overcome these difficulties. They transform disjointed information obtained directly from source into usable knowledge. Thus, archives do not contribute to the flood of information, but structure it in such a way that it becomes manageable. In this role, archivists are perceived as brokers who help their clients to find essential information and to contextualize it into usable knowledge as quickly and coherently as possible. For clients this means considerable time and efficiency gains. As a result of its new role concept, utilization of the Historical Archive’s services has steadily grown over the past ten years. Hence, archives are in a position to create a unique value, namely knowledge for specific applications. The fact that both the fragments of information as such and the facts required to contextualize them are taken from source gives archives an unusual authority in definition and interpretation. This is inevitable if only because archivists not only choose what to present to researchers, but also make the initial choice of what documents to preserve. Historians deeply disapprove of this aspect of archival activity and frequently point out that they would like archives to retain every piece of correspondence. Acquiescing to this demand would inevitably mean the cessation of all historical endeavours, as it would be impossible to catalogue such huge collections by keywords. Nor would a full-text search be an advantage. Even if some day it were possible to search through thousands of documents in a short time, the number of results generated would be unmanageable owing to frequent repetition of words. Therefore, the appraisal so despised by historians is a prerequisite for meaningful historical evaluation in the first place. It is also archivists’ unique core competence.

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And what image do archivists have today? Myspace and Facebook went online shortly after 2003, the first iPhone made its debut in 2007, and since then social media have become a huge phenomenon. Continual data processing has infiltrated our daily lives, turning all of us – and young people in particular – into archivists: we curate our online profiles, we decide which photographs to keep and which to discard, we create playlists of our favourite music and we have to filter the fragments that we find relevant out of the flood of information. Today, archival activities have become mainstream and are practised by all of us in our daily lives every day. The difference is that archivists deal with this at a professional level and, in contrast to some occupations, in which computerization has trivialized once specialized professions, among the general public the reputation of archivists continues to improve. Archivists are by definition generalists, who need a thorough knowledge of their inventories before they can perform their job competently and consistently. This means that training can last several years, which explains why this activity has not suffered from the trend to amateurism that has afflicted other occupations. When a fully trained archivist with a university qualification takes charge of another inventory, he or she returns to square one, so to speak. Furthermore, an archivist’s work cannot be automated. In particular, no computer in the world is able to evaluate inventories. In archiving, ‘evaluation’ means assessing whether or not a specific document or object should be included in the collection. This decision is crucial for the character of the collection and must be made by an archivist with a great deal of experience. Finally, an archivist cannot rely exclusively on what interested researchers in the past. An archivist’s work includes gauging which aspects and topics could potentially be interesting in the future. If everything were collected, the inventory would inevitably become unmanageable and, hence, not be interesting at all. This is a difficult balancing act and requires skills such as anticipatory and synaptic thinking, the cultivation of taste and emotional integrity as well as other skills that, at least from today’s perspective, can be accomplished only by human beings. Whereas automation is conceivable or already reality in many other fields, in the world of archives this will remain no more than a future fantasy for quite some time. It is precisely this aspect that fundamentally distinguishes an archive from records management, which does not look after a curated collection, but instead uses standardized descriptors to sort documents on the basis of pre-defined criteria. Therefore, records management has more in common with a warehouse than with a museum, whereas in the case of archives things are the other way round. Dream jobs that enjoy a brief period of extraordinary popularity are a recurring phenomenon. Later, it is often difficult to imagine what the former attraction of these careers was. Who knows, perhaps in our information and knowledge-based world the occupation of archivist, the ‘data pilot’, will be the dream job of the twenty-first century? At any rate, there is ample evidence that the archivist’s image is changing.

The View from the Ivory Tower: The Academic Perspective on the Strategic Value of Corporate History and Heritage Paul Lasewicz Corporate History and Heritage

Is there a strategic justification for corporate archives? That is a good question. Many corporate archives exist as an act of faith – organizations know a corporate archive adds value, but quantifying that value is difficult. As a result, executivelevel perceptions of an archive tend to be largely of a warm, nostalgic nature. Executives may believe that an archive is a nice thing to have – a belief perhaps born out of their own long service in the company – but they may not have any sense of how a corporate archive can enhance a company’s bottom line. And even that favourable, warm, nostalgic perception by executives is not a given. For example, take General Electric’s legendary CEO, Jack Welch: one of his maxims was ‘Forget the Past, Love the Future’.1 Welch, one of the world’s most influential CEOs in the 1980s and 1990s, was renowned for his cost-cutting measures, which included ruthless reductions in the employee headcount; in his early days as CEO, he dismissed 100,000 employees.2 So drastic were these layoffs that pundits nicknamed Welch ‘Neutron’ Jack, for the resemblance between his restructuring of GE and the results of a neutron bomb explosion. The neutron bomb, if deployed, has the capability of destroying life while not harming physical structures. Similarly, Neutron Jack’s restructuring of GE eliminated people while leaving its buildings untouched. Welch’s maxim, with its absolute denial of value in a corporate past, is hardly a resounding statement of support for the business value of corporate 1 Rowlinson et al. 2010. 2 ‘Neutron Jack Exits’, New York Times, Opinion, 9 September 2001. www.nytimes. com/2001/09/09/opinion/neutron-jack-exits.html (accessed 20 April 2013); Holusha, J., ‘A Softer “Neutron Jack” at G.E’. New York Times, Business Day, 4 March 1992. www.nytimes. com/1992/03/04/business/a-softer-neutron-jack-at-ge.html (accessed 20 April 2013). 103

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history, and it pithily demonstrates the type of executive attitude that places corporate archives at risk. Welch was a bottom-line-focused executive who based his decisions on tangible, measurable results. He would not be swayed by arguments based on intuited, unquantified, unproven value statements that the traditional business case for corporate archives has historically been grounded in. Now, we as corporate history practitioners know in our hearts that this business case exists. But this lack of a persuasive statement of strategic business value is the Achilles heel of any corporate archives, because in difficult economic times, even promising projects are subject to budget cuts, let alone ‘nice to have’ functions. To give you an example of this in action, in the early 1990s, IBM had two very promising business products being introduced by our Personal Computer division. One was the world’s first smart phone, the IBM Simon, the first model of which was selling very well despite a $900 price tag. The other was a visionary tablet computer design called the IBM Personal Communicator, which was a mobile technology which pioneered many of the mobile content applications we take for granted today. But IBM was in the midst of losing $16 billion over a three-year period, and the company recognized that it could no longer afford to invest in these two innovative technologies, where the visionary product was too far ahead of the marketplace. So you can imagine how a ‘nice to have’ function like the IBM Archives fared during this difficult, near-death period. The Archives staff was reduced from five to one, and the department put on its own ‘death watch’ by computer science historians. The IBM example is not unique among corporate archives, and it illustrates the lack of a convincing business case for corporate archives, one that is capable of protecting an archive’s function in both good times and bad. What corporate archivy needs is a compelling, irrefutable statement of the strategic business value capable of convincing the Neutron Jacks of the corporate world that an archive is a ‘must-have’ rather than a ‘nice-to-have’ function. This then became my quest. I went on a search for this Holy Grail of Corporate Archivy – the irrefutable business justification of the strategic value of a corporate archive. But where to look? I was not sure, but I knew where not to look. I knew the answer was not going to come from our professional circles – historians and archivists. These practitioners know archives, but they do not know what motivates C-level executives.3 For example, a recent advocacy piece for the use of 3 A tentative attempt to capture executive perspectives on the integral role of history in a corporate mission was made in the mid-1990s in O’Toole 1996 (The Records of American Business). The effort was most notable for its demonstration that even executives supportive of archives could not quantify the strategic value of organizational pasts. A former DuPont CEO, focused on the societal value of business records, conceded that ‘histories do not contribute to profits’. A Kraft Foods executive couched the case in terms of cost avoidance and improved quality of information – a statement of process efficiency rather than of strategic value. (This

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the history in business, a 2012 Harvard Business Review article on corporate history, provides several compelling examples of how businesses have used their past.4 But none of these examples demonstrated a quantifiable return on investment – they tended to illustrate the use of history to smooth cultural transitions or understand decision-making processes. Nor could any of the examples serve as a universal justification – they tended to be one-off examples that were specific to the individual company and therefore had little chance to be replicated elsewhere. I have to say upon reading the article that even I – already a true believer - was not convinced of the need to start a corporate archive. Quite unexpectedly, I was contacted by a business academic last December on a reference request. He was kind enough to share with me a bibliography for an article he was researching, and I was struck by how some of the titles seemed to have relevance to what I was thinking about. I downloaded several of the articles, and as I read them I realized that this was a path worth exploring, for several reasons. First, academics tend to search for universal truths. This aspect of their research means that the applications they write about and the conclusions they draw are intended to be replicable outside the unique confines of the specific organizations they study. Second, they write often, and in depth. This publish-or-perish mentality means that this body of literature could serve as a source of state-of-the art examples of the use of organizational pasts for corporate history practitioners to draw upon. Lastly, and most importantly, they are not archives acolytes per se – they are writing for a business audience, using the language of business.5 This means that while the organizational pasts that they discuss may not be new to our eyes, the way they frame the value statements of such pasts would be. And that could prove very useful to those of us faced with justifying our existence. So I began to research what business academics have written – not about archives but about the strategic value in and application of organizational pasts. In total, I read more than eighty articles from a spate of disciplines – organization theory, organizational management, change management, marketing, communications, business ethics, organizational memory studies, institutional theory, administrative science, political culture, economics and sociology, to name a few. The breadth and variety of terminology used by these academics was concept of cost avoidance as the financial justification for an archive has long been a staple of corporate archives writings and practice (see Gardner 1982). But it does not carry as much weight with modern executives who value revenue generation over cost savings.) And a former Philip Morris CEO who claimed credit for starting a corporate archive characterized its value as largely historical rather than strategic. O’Toole 1996, ch. 4. 4 Seaman, Smith 2012. 5 The importance of archivists understanding what executives read was briefly touched upon but left unexplored by a former director of the Ford Archives thirty years ago. Bakken 1982.

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mind-boggling. Here is a list of the terms that I found across disciplines that I considered to be of relevance to this topic: reputation, status, historical legacy, positive association, negative association, institutional theory, institutional story, symbolic resources, social remembering, organizational memory, collective memory, organizational mnemonics, social memory studies, collective memory, collective identity, sense making, sense giving, revisionist history, rhetorical history, schematic narrative, forgetting, corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate reputation, corporate expression, brand promise, brand personality, brand image, brand experience, brand relationships, brand communities, corporate identity mix, corporate brand belief, corporate character, legitimacy, facticity, nostalgia, synthetic authenticity, authenticity, organizational identity, packaged past, decentring, re-centring, emotional crafting, re-presenting, invented tradition, brand community, brand heritage, cultural heritage, heritage quotient Fortunately for my purposes what the terms are or how they are defined is less important than the overriding commonality that they have: they are all conceptual statements of the strategic value that can be found in the use of the past by organizations. This characteristic does indeed make them very useful to those of us looking to craft an executive-level business justification for corporate archives. That there is any strategic value at all in an organizational past has only been recently recognized in business academic literature. Except for a few outliers over the course of the twentieth century, this was a concept that emerged and gained academic credence in the 1980s. Prior to this, the business value of the past was seen as being too difficult to measure empirically, and therefore of little utility to the day-to-day management of a business.6 However, in the 1900s, a theory emerged from the field of economics that postulated that ‘history matters’, that an organization’s current position cannot be fully understood unless its past was understood. This theory became known as path dependency.7 The evolutionary perspective that characterized path dependency was well received in economics, and even found acceptance in a number of other academic disciplines.8 6 This is necessarily a characterization that summarizes the majority of the literature, for a few contradictory examples can be found over the years. For example, in 1965, Arthur Stinchcombe hypothesized about the influence a firm’s founding conditions had on its subsequent character, practices, values and traditions. Suddaby et al. 2010. 7 David 1985; Arthur 1989. 8 Scholars from sociology, history, economics and management found the theory a useful lens through which to view organizational, institutional, technological and industrial evolution. Garud and Karnøe 2001.

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Ironically, and unfortunately (at least to corporate history practitioners), these path-dependent theorists often saw organizational history as a restrictive aspect of corporate culture. For them, a celebrated corporate history made it harder to break free in new directions by binding a firm more closely to its past decisions. It introduced structural rigidity, an ‘organizational sunk cost’ that limited options, closed minds to new approaches, and created a corporate culture ossified by traditions, routines and processes. In this light, history was seen as a competitive disadvantage, with negative internal cultural impacts. ‘A stubborn loyalty to one’s past history of success can make core competencies become core rigidities’.9 Path-dependent theorists described competitive advantage even in highly successful firms as a set of historical circumstances which conferred unique and non-replicable advantages – access to materials, proximity to transportation, an uniquely talented leader, and so on.10 In this conception, the strategic lesson they drew from the past was that history is immutable. A firm’s history is not a manageable, flexible or even relevant resource, for it ‘will be very difficult, if not impossible, to imitate’.11 I have to admit, I was stunned to learn of this path-dependent school of thought in business literature, and the implications of what it has meant and continues to mean for business history practitioners. For the last thirty-five years, corporate archivists have been battling strategically to position their content (and themselves by extension) as valuable corporate assets. Yet at the same time – to the extent that path dependency has been and continues to be taught in business schools (and anecdotal evidence suggests it is) – graduates are left with the impression that not only does corporate history have zero strategic value but that it is actually a negative. These graduates are now the executives running our companies, which goes a long way towards explaining the difficulties we have had – and can expect to continue to have – as we try to gain executive support for archive functions and activities. Fortunately for practitioners of corporate history, path-dependent theory is not without its critics, whose writings are based upon closer examinations of how organizations use history. These academics believe that ‘The way corporations are using history in practice stands in sharp contrast to the ways history is characterized in theory, both in strategic management and organization theory – that is as a source of rigidity or resistance to change’.12 The writings of these authors do not form a coherent school of thought, as is 9 Foster et al. 2011. Of interest is that a similar academic debate played out in the 1990s over the heritage industry, where old countries that increasingly reflected on their own pasts were seen as either being conservative and unable to face their future or, conversely, active, engaged and better able to ‘question [both] its origins and future’. Strangleman 1999. 10 Suddaby et al. 2010. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid.; Brunninge 2009

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the case with the path-dependent theorists. Their topics are too broad and varied for that. However, they are linked by their rejection of the predeterminism of path dependency and in that they believe that traditional organizational research ‘has not yet fully explored the mechanisms by which history can be used to gain competitive advantage’.13 So, for my purpose, I will treat them as a single body of literature, hereafter referred to as the ‘Critics’. However, it is important to note that despite their ‘historic turn’ in the academic literature, these Critics still struggle with identifying a tangible value on the use of the past in organizations. One study indicated that there is little empirical evidence that demonstrates financial value for intangible things like corporate reputations, and that it was too early to make robust estimates of the dollar value that can be attributed to a corporate reputation.14 Nevertheless, this same study indicates a general empirical relationship between good reputations and better than average financial performance. Another author concluded that ‘As a competitive advantage, the heritage of a brand can result in the willingness to accept higher prices and higher consumer loyalty’. And numerous authors note that heritage content can be a powerful tool for influencing internal and external stakeholders. I am compelled here to cite an example of this from IBM’s own past, where at data-processing departments worldwide IBM was seen as a safe, defensible purchase: ‘Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM’. While this is an anecdotal example of the positive value an organization’s past can hold in the current marketplace, I am happy to say that researchers are getting closer to developing more tangible value statements. A 2011 survey by the business consulting firm Weber Shandwick of 575 senior executives in the USA, United Kingdom, China and Brazil found that the executives estimated that on average 60 per cent of their firm’s market value is attributable to reputation, and that 86 per cent of those surveyed have made efforts to improve their firm’s reputation over the past five years.15 So, while there clearly are valuation ambiguities, there remains a positive sense of the strategic importance of corporate history. As I looked at some of the major themes evident in this literature, there was little that I did not recognize. In fact, there were several things that I had done myself over the course of my career. But, frankly, new applications are not the issue – how these applications can be framed in terms of strategic value is. An archive 13 Brunninge 2009; Suddaby et al. 2010. Other authors indicate that certain disciplines are by nature disinclined to value history. One criticizes sociologists over their professional scepticism about the value of history, with the result that ‘in most organization studies, archives are not seen as part of an organization’s memory’ (Rowlinson, Hassard 1993). Another calls out management scholars for using ‘history only to illustrate its irrelevance’ (Stager Jacques 2006). And a third notes that management scholarship has been dominated for a couple of decades by ‘basically ahistorical research’ (Brunninge 2009). 14 Dowling 2006. 15 Weber Shandwick 2012.

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is rarely central to an executive’s core priorities. Unlike government archives, or university archives, or historical societies, preserving and providing access to inactive information is not a mission critical function in a business organization. So what we need to do as corporate archivists is to frame our business case in terms of things that executives do care about. And what do they care about? They care about strategic concepts like corporate identity mix. But before I consider the contributions that organizational pasts make to this strategic concept I want first to look at the difference between history and heritage. It is important to outline this concept, because understanding this history–heritage dichotomy is critical to understanding how academics perceive history is best used by corporations. Heritage Organizational Activity

History

Organizational Activity

5.1  The Application of Corporate History: Heritage – the Intersection of Historical Fact and Organizational Activity

For path-dependency theorists and numerous other scholars, history is best defined as the facts that are evident in an organization’s past and the documentation it preserves. While an element of subjectivity may pop up in what an organization decides to keep and what not to keep, for the most part this is an objective process.16 However, for most of the Critics this is too limited a view of history. ‘History is not an objective “master narrative” but, rather, is a curious mix of objective and subjective reality’.17 The Critics subscribe to a more utilitarian use of the past – let us call it ‘heritage’. For the Critics, heritage is the application of history (Fig. 5.1). Heritage is a thematic story, deliberately and selectively culled from a company’s larger pool of historical facts. Heritage 16 Lowenthal 1998a. 17 Suddaby et al. 2010.

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is interpretive, artfully and accurately curated to reach specific constituencies in support of organizational messages and agendas. Heritage clarifies history, making it more accessible to key constituencies. Heritage is malleable, able to shift thematic emphasis to reflect changes in strategic priorities, business climates and operating environments. For the Critics, it is the concept of heritage that is central to the strategic value an organization’s past holds for its current operations. For them, heritage is an active tool in the hands of skilful managers trying to influence key internal and external stakeholders, rather than a passive, immutable constraint on strategic options. One of the strategic applications of corporate heritage found in the writings of the Critics is in the area of corporate identity mix. The term ‘corporate identity mix’ encompasses a wide range of intangible, usually externally facing assets of a corporation – reputation, brand, public image, values, ethics and other similar characteristics. Collectively, these intangibles ‘are important assets in enabling organizations to exploit opportunities and mitigate threats’, and serve as a source of ‘sustainable competitive advantage’.18 Numerous studies have begun to quantify the value of these intangible assets. Several authors performed a statistical analysis of a survey of 126 customers indicating that corporate investments in intangibles such as reputation, identity and brand can positively influence customer perceptions even for those in an ongoing relationship, where they serve to buffer customers’ actual experiences.19 The previously mentioned Weber Shandwick study is another, where a survey of executives estimated that on average 60 per cent of their firm’s market value is attributable to reputation. One study of March Madness, the US National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college basketball tournament, demonstrated (through a statistical examination of the process and results of invitations in the 1980s and 1990s to participate) that an organization with a historical legacy of high status will benefit from the privileges of that high status even in periods where its competitive performance does not warrant those privileges.20 Another author noted that, conversely, ‘A risk to its reputation is a threat to the survival of the enterprise’.21 The importance of heritage to these intangibles is uniformly accepted by these studies, particularly in an era where change in the business environment is inevitable. While organizations accept that change and adaptation to change are unavoidable, ‘It is not considered wise public relations, however, to present an organization’s identity as constantly changing. Constituents (and media 18 Barney 1991; Abratt, Kleyn 2012; Morin 2010; Balmer 2011; Fombrun, Shanley 1990; Washington, Zajac 2005; Gioia et al. 2002; Foster et al. 2011. 19 Money et al. 2010. 20 Washington, Zajac 2005. 21 Firestein 2006.

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intermediaries) want a sense of continuity, an air of stability’.22 One study incorporated a historical component in its definition of reputation when it stated that ‘Reputation is an outcome of interactions between stakeholders and the organization over time’.23 Numerous authors have also concluded that heritage plays a significant role in brand, conveying a sense of stability, authenticity and emotional/symbolic attachment.24 One study, a statistical analysis of 458 questionnaires, noted that brand heritage was a key driver in terms of brand perception and consumer behaviour: The heritage of a brand adds the association of depth, authenticity, and credibility to the brand’s perceived value. In addition, as a basis for distinctiveness in positioning, the heritage is helpful for building a special relationship with a consumer or a range of non-consumer stakeholders.25 Another study demonstrated the integral contribution IBM’s heritage makes to the company’s key brand characteristics.26 Several studies that focused on individual firms elaborated on how the use of heritage helps successfully to implement strategic identity mix goals. The heritage tourism industry was cited as being particularly adept at packaging history in order to create emotional connections with the consumer.27 Studies of Cadbury, Bang & Olufsen, Scania and British Rail indicated how these firms used their heritage better to position themeselves in the marketplace.28 A study on reputation noted that oil and other extraction companies necessarily became leaders in reputation management because they had to generate a ‘social licence to operate’ – in the face of constant scrutiny by regulators and the public they had to demonstrate a history of values and ethics.29 A study of the Cunard line’s brand heritage both prior to and after its acquisition by Carnival Lines ‘suggests that the historical status of older companies is often explicitly linked to their brand identity and consumer appeal’.30 22 Gioia et al. 2002. 23 Abratt, Kleyn 2012. 24 Hakala et al. 2011; Urde et al. 2007; Rowlinson, Hassard 1993. 25 Wiedmann et al. 2011; Barney 1991; Liedtka 2008; Morin 2010. 26 Lasewicz 2012. 27 Ooi 2002. 28 ‘The success of the company’s invented culture is indicated by the continued acceptance of its constructed history by business historians and corporate culture writers alike’. Rowlinson, Hassard 1993. Cf. Ravasi, Schultz 2006; Brunninge 2009; Strangleman 1999; Firestein 2006. 29 Firestein 2006. 30 Hudson 2010. Another study noted how the city of Sante Fe, New Mexico, deliberately created what became known as the Sante Fe Style by decreeing in 1912 that all new buildings were to feature certain accurate but not yet pervasive local historical architectural features. This reinterpretation of the past created a ‘new’ more homogeneous past as the years went by

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So valued is the concept of heritage in corporate identity mixes that there have been examples where firms – in lieu of utilizing their own heritage – have incorporated broader, national heritage themes into their corporate or product brand identities. One study demonstrated how Canada’s restaurant chain Tim Hortons associated their brand with two deeply rooted aspects of Canadian heritage – hockey and the military – to create authenticity and consumer appeal for its brand. Another study demonstrated how an expansion hockey team, the then brand new Edmonton Oilers, similarly integrated ties to Canada’s hockey heritage into its marketing efforts in order to grow and create a cohesive, crossnation fan base.31 A third study showed how the US drinks brand Jack Daniels tapped into imagery and characteristics from America’s rural frontier society in order to reposition its bourbon as a democratic drink of common people rather than the upper-class elixir that it had been traditionally marketed as.32 By connecting a firm’s history to broader social and cultural values shared by external stakeholders, at the level of community or the nationstate, narrative accounts of a firm’s history may be used to appropriate the legitimacy of broader socio-cultural institutions … [and] create substantial and sustainable competitive advantage.33 But, as I have mentioned earlier, the writings of these Critics, however helpful they are to those of use trying to build a compelling statement of the strategic value of corporate history, still fall short of providing tangible evidence of that value. They are getting closer, but they still fail to provide the kind of value statement that will convince the Neutron Jacks of the business world who are looking for measurable contributions to top and bottom lines. So let me turn our attention to a recent example of how a company’s heritage can contribute to those bottom lines. This is an example that I am personally familiar with – IBM’s 2011 centennial. In 2005, I raised senior management’s awareness of a looming centennial, and authored a corporate position paper that outlined specific dates upon which to mark the date. The following year, the IBM Corporate Archives was reorganized from the corporate secretary’s responsibility into communications, and I prepared – one wag noted that ‘Sante Fe was a place fast becoming what it should have been’. ‘If we cast ourselves into the future, we can affect the interpretation of the past when the future arrives’. Gioia et al. 2002. 31 Foster, Hyatt 2008. 32 Holt 2006. 33 Foster et al. 2011; Muehling et al. 2004. Holt goes so far as to suggest that more than appropriate the legitimacy of a socio-cultural institution, brands could come to serve as powerful metonyms for those institutions – modern embodiments of cultural characteristics that were thought to be lost forever, embodiments that hold brand appeal for a society to let the characteristics slip into the past. Holt 2006.

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a white paper outlining best practice for corporate anniversaries. In this paper I outlined potential strategic and tactical objectives. In 2008, IBM’s marketing and communications function began market research and strategic planning for the event. From the very beginning, senior management saw the centennial as a strategic business opportunity to improve IBM’s current position in the marketplace and to support the company’s future aspirations. They saw the centennial as an opportunity to address weaknesses in IBM’s brand and market position with key global constituents. Specifically, these included information technology decisionmakers, investors, employees and the general public. Management decided that core centennial messaging was to focus on three key brand attributes in which IBM trailed its competitors: innovation, leadership, and social impact. Tactical planning for the centennial started in 2009 and continued into 2011. Major deliverables were identified – a global forum on the challenges of the twentyfirst century that was hosted in New York City and featured heads of state and other world leaders, high-visibility executive speeches, a global day of employee volunteering, several films, a book, a website, exhibits and innumerable local events. IBM Archive content was foundational to most of the major centennial deliverables – I was a member of the centennial core team, and together with my Archive colleagues provided curated heritage content and imagery that supported the key messaging and strategic objectives of the majority of the deliverables. This heritage content was closely aligned with the three strategic centennial themes – innovative technologies, inventing the modern corporation, and making the world work better. The centennial initiative launched in January 2011 and continued until October of that year. By any account, the business results were spectacular. And, for our purposes, they provide measurable demonstration of the business value the strategic application of heritage can generate for a company. So let us take a look at what those results were. One of the more strategic parts of the centennial puzzle was increasing the appreciation IBM employees had for the company. With about half of the company’s more than 400,000 employees being with IBM for less than five years, few if any had a sense of how important the company has been historically. And employee loyalty, particularly in growth markets where IBM was a less familiar brand, was not as strong as the company would like. So the centennial was seen as a vehicle that could revitalize employee morale and strengthened employee ties to the company. On both accounts the centennial was a success. ‘Pride’ and ‘proud’ were two of the words most used in employee feedback on the centennial. And the centennial markedly improved employee attitudes about the company, especially in growth market areas. An end-of-year global employee survey quantified these improvements. Of the more than 30,000 employees who responded, 90 per cent

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felt they had a better appreciation of IBM’s impact on the world and 70 per cent felt more confident of IBM’s future. More than 65 per cent of respondents felt they had a better understanding of what it meant to be an IBMer and 60 per cent were more willing to recommend IBM as a place to work. While these numbers are more tangible metrics of the strategic value of an organization’s past, it is still difficult to place a specific dollar figure on the value of these improvements in employee attitudes. So let us look at another area of centennial impact – public relations. The statistics for the media relations side of the business were equally impressive – more than 5,700 traditional media articles in 100 major publications from around the world. Over 77 per cent of these were feature stories, which exceeded the target number by 50 per cent. More than 70 per cent of this coverage was positive, which also exceeded the pre-centennial goal. And the articles successfully hammered home the three message objectives: 71 per cent portrayed IBM as a technological innovator, 41 per cent portrayed the company as a transformational leader, and 37 per cent portrayed IBM as having a positive social impact. The centennial book also exceeded expectations, selling 625,000 copies by the end of the year. It continued to demonstrate its influence by going on to also sell well into 2012. It was printed in eight languages, and reached ‘top ten’ lists in Canada, Germany, Japan and the USA. On the social media side, the centennial films on YouTube received 1.2 million views. The centennial website received 2.3 million views, and visitors spent 80,000 hours on the site. IBM trended top twenty on Twitter on its 16 June anniversary date, with more than 43,000 tweets. These impressive results exceeded expectations in terms of both reach and message penetration. And I will point again out that all three of these public relations focal points were heavily grounded in heritage content. These numbers are perhaps more tangible statements of value of organizational past. Nevertheless, while closer to a measurable contribution to top and bottom lines, they are not quite statements of dollar value. So let us look at a few indicators of the impact the centennial had on the IBM brand and our selling environment, which is perhaps the most important part of the centennial puzzle. The Interbrand survey – an accepted global measurement of corporate brand value – had their annual valuation of the IBM brand increase by eight points, an impressive jump for what was already the world’s second most valuable brand. But perhaps a better assessment of the extent of the contribution corporate history made to IBM in 2011 is found in a third-quarter global survey of 5,600 information technology decision-makers at companies with more than 100 employees. I found these results to be both insightful and exciting. But, before I reveal what they are, let me provide some context as to why the third-quarter timing of this survey is so important. The centennial was a year-long

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programme, but its messaging and content were heavily weighted towards heritage in the first half of the year. That means that the numbers from this survey, coming as they did so soon after IBM’s target selling audience experienced their deepest exposure to IBM’s heritage content, stand as a clear, tangible assessment of the impact that IBM history had on our brand and on the sales environment. And what did this survey reveal? It indicated that in regards to IBM’s key brand differentiators, those respondents who were aware of the centennial rated IBM 15 percentage points higher than those who were familiar only with IBM’s primary marketing campaign, Smarter Planet. Those who were aware of the centennial were 60 per cent more likely to say that their consideration of IBM as a vendor had improved as opposed to those who were unaware. And – most significantly – those who were aware of the centennial rated themselves 40 per cent more open to doing business with IBM than those who were aware solely of Smarter Planet. Wow. These numbers demonstrate that IBM’s centennial dramatically enhanced the impact the company’s primary marketing campaign had on its most important target audience. Is this the Holy Grail? Is this the irrefutable statement of value that will convince Neutron Jack and those of his ilk? To be truthful, it is too soon to say. We need more empirical evidence. The IBM centennial, while a compelling example of tangible contribution, could be unique and hard to replicate elsewhere. And this contribution is still hard to translate into dollars. But let me give it a try. How does $7 billion sound? IBM’s revenues and net income reached record levels in 2011 of $106.9 and $15.9 billion. Both were up 7 per cent in a difficult economy.34 Are you listening Neutron Jack? Can the Archive claim credit for this? Not entirely. There is still no clear measurement of the value the Archive added to this initiative. But, clearly, the use of IBM heritage was foundational to a very successful effort to improve the company’s standing with key constituencies –in terms both of corporate identity mix and tangible fiscal returns. It is also clear to me that IBM’s senior executives now see the company’s past in a different light from the way they had before. They see it as a strategic asset, a significant marketplace differentiator that our competitors cannot match. They understand the role that IBM’s Archive plays in managing and making this asset accessible. And that will go a long way towards justifying the function in the years to come. To conclude, I believe that the academics who argue that corporate history can contribute to corporate identity mix and other areas of strategic business value are on the right track. To the extent that heritage is incorporated into high-value activities, it contributes to the revenue-generation process. An organization that has command of its history can effectively leverage that history during good, bad 34 IBM 2011 Annual Report. www.ibm.com/annualreport/2011/financial-highlights.html.

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and transitional periods to improve how it is perceived by its key constituents – the industry, regulators, clients, employees and the public. And that is a value statement that even Neutron Jack could not argue with. References

Not all the references listed below are cited in this chapter. However, many have relevance to the topic of the strategic value of organizational pasts, and so have been included in this list. Abratt, R., Kleyn, N. (2012) ‘Corporate Identity, Corporate Branding and Corporate Reputations: Reconciliation and Integration’, European Journal of Marketing 46.7/8: 1048–63. Adkins, E. (1997) ‘The Development of Business Archives in the United States: An Overview and a Personal Perspective’, American Archivist 60: 8–33. Arthur W. Page Society (2012) ‘Building Belief: A New Model for Activating Corporate Character and Authentic Advocacy’. www.awpagesociety.com/ insights/building-belief/. Arthur, W. B. (1989) ‘Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events’, The Economic Journal 99.394: 116–31. Bakken, D. (1982) ‘Corporate Archives Today’, American Archivist 45.3: 279–86. Ballantyne, R., Warren, A., Nobbs, K. (2006) ‘The Evolution of Brand Choice’, Brand Management 13.4/5: 339–52. Balmer, J. M. T. (1998) ‘Corporate Identity and the Advent of Corporate Marketing’, Journal of Marketing Management 14.8: 963–96. —. (2001) ‘Corporate Identity, Corporate Branding and Corporate Marketing – Seeing through the Fog’, European Journal of Marketing 35.3/4: 248–91. —. (2009) ‘Scrutinising the British Monarchy: The Corporate Brand that was Shaken, Stirred and Survived’, Management Decision 47.4: 639–75. —. (2011) ‘Corporate Heritage Identities, Corporate Heritage Brands and the Multiple Heritage Identities of the British Monarchy’, European Journal of Marketing 45.9/10: 1380–98. Balmer, J. M. T., Dinnie, K. (1999) ‘Corporate Identity and Corporate Communications: The Antidote to Merger Madness’, Corporate Communications 4.4: 182–92. Balmer, J. M. T., Gray, E. R. (2003) ‘Corporate Brands: What are they? What of them?’, European Journal of Marketing 37.7/8: 972–97. Balmer, J. M. T. and Greyser, S. A. (2006) ‘Corporate Marketing: Integrating Corporate Identity, Corporate Branding, Corporate Communications, Corporate Image and Corporate Reputation’, European Journal of Marketing 40.7/8: 730–41. Balmer, J. M. T. and Wilson, A. (1998) ‘Corporate Identity: There is More to it

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than Meets the Eye’, International Studies of Management and Organization 28.3: 12–31. Barney, J. (1991) ‘Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage’, Journal of Management 17.1: 99–120. Becker, S., Hvide, H. (2013) ‘Do Entrepreneurs Matter?’, IZA Discussion Paper 7146. http://ftp.iza.org/dp7146.pdf. Beverland, M. B. (2005) ‘Brand Management and the Challenge of Authenticity’, Journal of Product & Brand Management, 14.7: 460–61. —. (2006) ‘The “Real Thing”: Branding Authenticity in the Luxury Wine Trade’, Journal of Business Research 59: 251–58. Blankespoor, E., Miller, G., White, H. (2013) ‘Dissemination, Direct-Access Information Technology and Information Asymmetry’, Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University, Working Paper Series 135. Booth, C., Clark, P., Delahaye, A., Procter, S., Rowlinson, M. (2007) ‘Accounting for the Dark Side of Corporate History: Organizational Culture Perspectives and the Bertelsmann Case’, Critical Perspectives on Accounting 18: 625–44. Booth, C., Rowlinson, M., Clark, P., Delahaye, A., Procter, S. (2009) ‘Scenarios and Counterfactuals as Modal Narratives’, Futures 41: 87–95. Boutlis, P. (2000) ‘A Theory of Postmodern Advertising’, International Journal of Advertising 19.1: 3–23. Brown, S., Kozinets, R. V., Sherry, J. F. (2003) ‘Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: Retro Branding and the Revival of Brand Meaning’, Journal of Marketing 67: 19–33. Brunninge, O. (2009) ‘Using History in Organizations: How Managers Make Purposeful Reference to History in Strategy Processes’, Journal of Organizational Change 22.1: 8–26. Burnette, Jr., O. L. (1969) ‘Beneath the Footnote: A Guide to the Use and Preservation of American Historical Sources’, Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Chreim, S. (2005) ‘The Continuity-Change Duality in Narrative Texts of Organizational Identity’, Journal of Management Studies 42.3: 567–93. Clark, P., Rowlinson, M. (2004) ‘The Treatment of History in Organisation Studies: Towards an “Historic Turn”?’, Business History 46.3: 331–52. Connerton, P. (2008) ‘Seven Types of Forgetting’, Memory Studies 1.1: 59–71. Cutcher, L. (2008) ‘Creating Something: Using Nostalgia to Build a Branch Network’, Journal of Consumer Culture 8: 369–87. David, P. A. (1985) ‘Clio and the Economics of QWERTY’, American Economic Review Proceedings 75.2: 332–37. Davidson, H. (1967) ‘The Indispensability of Business Archives’, American Archivist 30.4: 593–97. Davis, F. (1979) Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia, New York, Free Press.

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Delahaye, A., Booth, C., Clark, P., Procter, S., Rowlinson, M. (2009) ‘The Genre of Corporate History’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Special Issue on Historical Approaches in Organizational Research 22.1: 27–48. Demil, B., Lecocq, X., Carlo Wezel, F. (2008) ‘The Curse of the Follower: Path Dependency and its Consequence in the Role Playing Game Industry’, working paper. http://lem.cnrs.fr/Portals/2/actus/DP_200803.pdf. Dowling, G. (2006) ‘How Good Corporate Reputations Create Corporate Value’, Corporate Reputation Review 9.2: 134–43. Firestein, P. (2006) ‘Building and Protecting Corporate Reputation’, Strategy & Leadership 34.4: 25–31. Fombrun, C., Shanley, M. (1990) ‘What’s in a Name? Reputation Building and Corporate Strategy’, Academy of Management Journal 33.2: 233–58. Fombrun, C., Van Riel, C. (1997) ‘The Reputational Landscape’, Corporate Reputation Review 1.1/2: 5–13. Foster, W., Hyatt, C. (2008) ‘Inventing Team Tradition: A Conceptual Model for the Strategic Development of Fan Nations’, European Sport Management Quarterly 8.3: 265–87. Foster, W., Suddaby, R., Minkus, A., Wiebe, E. (2011) ‘History as Social Memory Assets: The Example of Tim Hortons’, Management & Organizational History 6.1: 101–20. Gardner, D. (1982) ‘Commentary II’, American Archivist 45.3: 294–95. Garrouste, P., Iōannidēs, S. (2001) Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas: Past and Present, European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar. Garud, R., Karnøe, P. (2001) Path Creation as a Process of Mindful Deviation: Dependence and Creation, London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Gioia, D., Chittipeddi, K. (1991) ‘Sensemaking and Sensegiving in Strategic Change Initiation’, Strategic Management Journal 12.6: 433–48. Gioia, D., Corley, K., Fabbri, T. (2002) ‘Revising the Past (While Thinking in the Future Perfect Tense)’, Journal of Organizational Change Management 15.6: 622–34. Gioia, D., Schultz, M., Corley, K. G. (2000) ‘Organizational Identity, Image, and Adaptive Instability’, Academy of Management Review 25.1: 63–81. Golder, P. N. (2000) ‘Historical Method in Marketing Research with New Evidence on Long-Term Market Share Stability’, Journal of Marketing Research 37.2: 156–72. Goulding, C. (2000) ‘The Commodification of the Past, Postmodern Pastiche, and the Search for Authentic Experiences at Contemporary Heritage Attractions’, European Journal of Marketing 34.7: 835–53. —. (2001) ‘Romancing the Past: Heritage Visiting and the Nostalgic Consumer’, Psychology & Marketing 18.6: 565–92.

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Greener, I. (2004) ‘Theorising Path Dependence: How Does History Come to Matter in Organizations, and What Can We Do about It?’, working paper. Havlena, W. J., Holak, S. L. (1991) ‘The Good Old Days: Observations on Nostalgia and its Role in Consumer Behavior’, Advances in Consumer Research 18.1: 323–29. Hakala, U., Latti, S., Sandberg, B. (2011) ‘Operationalising Brand Heritage and Cultural Change’, Journal of Product and Brand Management 20.6: 447–56. Hewison, R. (1987) The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline, London: Methuen. Hobsbawm, E. (1983) ‘Inventing Traditions’. In: Hobsbawm, E., Ranger, T. (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press. Holbrook, M. B. (1993) ‘Nostalgia and Consumption Preferences: Some Emerging Patterns of Consumer Tastes’, Journal of Consumer Research 20.2: 245–56. Holt, D. B. (2004) How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding, Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. —. (2006) ‘Jack Daniel’s America : Iconic brands as Ideological Parasites and Proselytizers’, Journal of Consumer Culture 6: 355–77. Hower, R. (1937) ‘The Preservation of Business Records’, Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 11.3–4: 37–83. Hudson, Bradford T. (2011) ‘Brand Heritage and the Renaissance of Cunard’, European Journal of Marketing 45.9/10: 1538–56. Kantrow, A. M. (1986) ‘Why History Matters to Managers: A Roundtable Discussion’, Harvard Business Review 64 (January–February): 81–88. Kessous, A., Roux, E. (2008) ‘A Semiotic Analysis of Nostalgia as a Connection to the Past’, Qualitative Market Research 11.2: 192–212. Lasewicz, P. (1997) ‘Riding out the Apocalypse: The Obsolescence of Traditional Archivy in the Face of Modern Corporate Dynamics’, Archival Issues 22.1: 61–76. —. (2012) ‘Rooted in the Archives: The Contribution of Corporate Heritage to the IBM Brand’. In Sekai no Bijinesu Akaibuzu: Kigo no Gensen [Leveraging Corporate Assets: New Global Directions for Business Archives], Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, Inc. Levy, S., Robles, A. (1984) The Image of Archivists: Resource Allocators’ Perceptions, Study 722/01, Chicago, IL, Society of American Archivists. Liebowitz, S. J., Margolis, S. (1990) ‘The Fable of the Keys’, Journal of Law and Economics 33.1: 1–25. —. (1995) ‘Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History’, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 11.1: 205–26. Liedtka, J. (2008) ‘Strategy Making and the Search for Authenticity’, Journal of Business Ethics 80: 237–48. Lowenthal, D. (1998a) ‘Fabricating Heritage’, History and Memory 10.1: 5–24. —. (1998b) The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Cambridge University Press.

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Maielli, G. (2006) ‘History under Cover: The Problematic Relationship between Business Management and the Past’, Competition & Change 10.4: 341–56. Martin, D. (2004) ‘Corporate Reputation: Reputational Mythraking’, Journal of Business Strategy 25.6: 39–44. Money, K., Rose, S., Hillenbrand, C. (2010) ‘The Impact of the Corporate Identity Mix on Corporate Reputation’, Brand Management 18.3: 197–211. Mooney, P. (1986) ‘The Practice of History in Corporate America: Business Archives in the United States’. In: Howe, B., Kemp, E., Public History: An Introduction, Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Co. —. (1996) ‘Archival Mythology and Corporate Reality’. In O’Toole, J. (ed.), The Records of American Business, Chicago, IL: Society of American Archivists, pp. 57–64. Morin, J. (2010) ‘Creating Authenticity in an Increasingly Distrustful World’, Journal for Quality and Participation 33.1: 22–24. Muehling, D. D., Sprott, D. E. (2004) ‘The Power of Reflection: An Empirical Examination of Nostalgia Advertising Effects’, Journal of Advertising 33.3: 25–35. Nevett, T. (1991) ‘Historical Investigation and the Practice of Marketing’, Journal of Marketing 55.3: 13–23. Olick, J. (2009) ‘Between Chaos and Diversity: Is Social Memory Studies a Field?’, International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society 22: 249–52. Olick, J., Levy, D. (1997) ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint: Holocaust Myth and Rationality in German Politics’, American Sociological Review 62: 921–36. Ooi, C. S. (2002) ‘Persuasive Histories: Decentering, Recentering and the Emotional Crafting of the Past’, Journal of Organizational Change Management 15.6: 606–21. O’Toole, J. (ed.) (1996) The Records of American Business, Chicago, IL: Society of American Archivists. Overman, W. (1959) ‘The Pendulum Swings’, American Archivist 22: 3–10. Pascal, V. J., Sprott, D. E., Muehling, D. D. (2002) ‘The Influence of Evoked Nostalgia on Consumers’ Responses to Advertising: An Exploratory Study’, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising 24.1: 39–49. Peterson, R. A. (2005) ‘In Search of Authenticity’, Journal of Management Studies 42.5: 1083–98. Pettigrew, A. M. (1990) ‘Longitudinal Field Research on Change: Theory and Practice’, Organization Science 1.3: 267–92. —. (1997) ‘What is Processual Analysis?’, Scandinavian Journal of Management 13.4: 337–48. Rabchuk, G. (1997) ‘Life after the “Big Bang”: Business Archives in an Era of Disorder’, American Archivist 60: 34–43. Ravasi, D., Schultz, M. (2006) ‘Responding to Organizational Identity Threats:

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Seventy-Five Years of Toyota: Toyota Motor Corporation’s Latest Shashi and Trends in the Writing of Japanese Corporate History Yuko Matsuzaki1 Seventy-Five Years of Toyota

Introduction

In this chapter I introduce changing trends in the writing of corporate history in Japan in general and the use of corporate heritage and archives by the Toyota Motor Corporation in particular. My focus is twofold. First, I look at how so-called ‘scientific history’ has been interpreted and pursued in the context of the writing and compilation of company histories in Japan, where there has been a robust practice of publishing corporate histories despite a near absence within companies of professional historians or archivists with graduate education in history and/or archive management. Second, I look at how the expectations placed on corporate history are changing owing to the globalization of stakeholders on the one hand and the increased demand for information disclosure and compliance on the other.

1 This chapter was made possible by the kind cooperation and support of the Museum and Archives Department of the Corporate Citizenship Division, Toyota Motor Corporation; the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology; Professor Haruhito Takeda of the University of Tokyo; Tsunehiko Yui, professor emeritus at Meiji University and the director of the Mitsui Archives; Masuo Kawakami, secretary general and board member of the Japan Business History Institute; and the members of the Business Archives Association. All opinions expressed here, however, are my own and responsibility for any mistakes contained herein is mine alone. 123

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Trends in the writing of corporate history in Japan What are shashi?

Shashi literally means ‘company histories’ in Japanese. According to Katsuko Murahashi, an expert in the field, shashi are ‘corporate histories published under the supervision of a company and based on its own corporate records and archives’.2 Since the late nineteenth century, more than 13,000 volumes of shashi have been published in Japan and despite the current troubled economic climate approximately 200 companies publish new shashi every year. It must be noted that professional historians or archivists with professional training are, apart from a very few rare cases, almost non-existent within companies in Japan.3 Outside of Japan there are two ways to write and publish corporate history: (1) a company opens its archives to a scholar who takes on the responsibility of writing a history of the company that is published by a commercial publishing house;4 and (2) professionally trained in-house historians or archivists, often with higher degrees in their respective fields, write a history of the company that is published as an in-house publication by the company itself. The writing of shashi in Japan, however, does not follow either of these patterns. In most cases, employees with no professional training in history and/or archive administration will be placed in charge of compiling and publishing a shashi with support from university-based scholars and academic researchers or an external company that provides services and assistance in collecting records and materials as well as writing, editing and compiling manuscripts. The resulting publications are almost always self-published by the company itself. In general, a shashi compilation committee (or team) is organized on an ad hoc basis as part of preparations for a corporate anniversary. Someone from 2 Katsuko Murahashi, Shashi no kenkyu, Daiyamondo-sha, 2002, p. 12. 3 The Japanese confectionery company Toraya is one of the rare exceptions. In 1989, Toraya hired a mid-career professional historian with archival expertise who has spent the past twenty plus years involved in archive management and the writing of corporate history. Professional training of archivists in Japan is delayed in general. Although courses related to archives are offered by some universities, such as within the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, the first graduate programme in archival sciences (with masters and doctoral degrees) was established in April 2008 at Gakushuin University and it remains the only such course today. The Japan Society for Archival Science (JSAS) was established in April 2004 in order to promote and support research on records and archive management, the discipline of archival sciences and the education and training of archivists. JSAS recently launched a certification system for archivists with the first round of applications accepted at the end of 2012. The first cohort of archivists will be certified in 2013. 4 Examples from the United Kingdom include: The History of Unilever by Charles Wilson; The Pilkington Brothers and the Glass Industry by Theodore Barker; and Barclays: The Business of Banking, 1690–1996 by Margaret Ackrill and Leslie Hannah.

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top management will normally be named as the head of the committee and a member of staff will be appointed to care for the records and archives and to be in charge of the compilation and production of the shashi.5 Outside companies will often provide the necessary expertise for the project. Since shashi usually take the form of a book (or multi-volume set of books), the shashi support division of leading printing companies such as Dai Nippon Printing Company Ltd or Toppan Printing Company Ltd may provide expertise.6 Once a shashi is published, it is common for the compilation committee to dissolve. Although some companies may start an archive programme based on the archival materials collected for the publication of the shashi, others do not and following the dissolution of the committee boxes of materials are abandoned until the next anniversary, left without proper staff to take care for them. Since shashi are in-house publications not published by commercial publishing houses, their circulation is different from that of commercial publications. In most cases shashi are distributed as gifts to executives, employees, shareholders, customers and libraries (both public and special). Thus one of the distinguishing features of shashi is the fact that they can be categorized as so-called ‘grey’ literature. From timetables, industrial frameworks and public relations lingo to scientific business history: changes in the writing of corporate history

From the end of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth centuries it was common for shashi to be mere listings of business activities in chronological order. Another popular model for shashi was to give an overview of the development of the industry and only mention the individual company briefly within the larger history of the industry. An example typical of this latter trend is the fifty-year history of Kao Sekken, published in 1940. Since shashi were primarily advertisingor PR-oriented, the reliability of their content was not high. Changes began to appear in the middle of the 1960s. The Business History Society of Japan was formed in 1964 and this prompted the establishment of the Japan Business History Institute (JBHI) in 1968. Founded as a charitable foundation, the JBHI is a joint enterprise between businesses and academic business 5 Generally speaking, this member of staff will not be a trained historian or archivist. After being appointed they may attend a short training course organized by the company or a professional group, such as the Business Archives Association, where they will gain practical knowledge of collecting, arranging and cataloguing archive material. In the case of financial institutions and large companies with research sections, while they might not hire a professional archivist, there are usually staff with training as economists or economic historians. These staff often play a central role in the writing and editing of corporate history. 6 Such companies may include professional staff with higher degrees in history or archival sciences.

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historians and a company that provides expertise to support the publishing of shashi. One large change brought about by the JBHI is the involvement of leading business historians, mainly from the University of Tokyo, including Keiichiro Nakagawa, Yoshio Ando, Tsunehiko Yui and Kazuo Noda. Some of the founding members of the Business History Society had studied business history at Harvard Business School and other major graduate business schools in the USA. In order to produce a ‘scientific’ shashi, business historians have focused on and stressed above all the ‘decision-making process’ within the company. Shashi that clearly describe the decision-making process are those that cover the entirety of corporate activities and base their analysis on board minutes and other important core records. Business historians tend to have a low opinion of dividing the history of a company by department or section, classifying such histories as secondary, or ignoring them altogether. Instead, shashi written by business historians tend to adopt a standardized style as follows: (a) determine the company’s formative period and periodize the company’s history; (b) identify the business environment (business climate, competitors, etc.) and management policies; (c) identify business activities, such as product development or marketing that have been carried out specifically in accordance with management policies; (d) evaluate performance through financial statements. According to business historians, these elements are essential components for scientific shashi. Interestingly, this type of descriptive style shows deep similarities to the writing of cases in the case method used by business schools. This style for writing shashi has been shared among the companies that support the creation of shashi through various seminars. The number of leading companies following this style has increased: Kao’s 100-year history, published in 1993,7 and Ajinomoto’s eighty-year history, published from 1971 to 1972,8 are two typical examples of this style. Shashi that conform to the discipline of business history are often called honkakuteki shashi (本格的社史), a term that translates as ‘authentic’ or ‘fully-fledged’ company histories. The fact that it was written by an academic researcher gives a shashi credibility and thus benefits the company. Academic business historians also benefit from such a relationship as it allows them access to internal documents that are usually restricted or difficult to access.9 It is not a straightforward win–win situation, however, as there are minuses for both sides in this type of relationship. The 7 Nihon Keieishi Kenkyujo, Kao Kabushiki Kaisha Shashi Hensanshitsu (eds.): Kao shi 100-nen: 1890–1990, Tokyo, Kao Kabushiki Kaisha, 1993. 8 Nihon Keieishi Kenkyujo (ed.): Ajinomoto Kabushiki Kaisha shashi, Tokyo, Ajinomoto Kabushiki Kaisha, 1971–1972. 9 Alfred D. Chandler, a professor of business history at Harvard Business School, visited Japan four times during his lifetime. According to Professor Tsunehiko Yui, who once took Professor Chandler to JBHI, Professor Chandler was very envious to see that Japanese business historians could make use of raw data from enterprises. This illustrates the privileged access allowed to academic business historians who joined shashi writing committees.

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academic perspective of the researcher may create a narrative that differs, perhaps even significantly, from that of the company’s management and thus may not be acceptable given that shashi are usually in-house publications and management is thus responsible for content.10 In addition, the fact of being published to celebrate an anniversary forces the shashi to cover a set period. Just as it is difficult to focus scholarly judgement on contemporary history, recent business cannot be analysed and evaluated objectively since many stakeholders not only may be still alive, but still also active stakeholders. It is therefore perhaps unavoidable that shashi become, at least in part, mere chronological listings of business activities. From the corporate perspective, there is also the issue of lack of control over corporate information, usually inaccessible to outside users.11 Suggested ethical standards for in-house corporate archivists state that business archivists should have ‘a belief in the corporate ownership of company records’, ‘an awareness of confidentialities and sensitivities of business’, and ‘a commitment to bona fide historical research within the terms of access allowed by the organization.’ They should not ‘publish work based on company information without informing their employer’.12 Academic researchers and business historians do not necessarily share these professional ethics, however, and some researchers will go to the opposite extreme and stress the public nature of business archives. Since shashi written by business historians focus on the decision-making 10 Sensitive issues for businesses in modern Japan generally include: discrimination against Burakumin (historical social outcasts – in Japanese, the term ‘Buraku’ is thought to have negative connotations and is no longer used), environmental destruction or pollution and wartime mobilization. Though issues such as these used to be regarded as taboo and were not considered appropriate for inclusion in shashi, they are now sometimes discussed in shashi, particularily after the settlement of lawsuits or the passage of time. One example of such a mention is a case of the violation of privacy by a credit research company noted in the 100-year history of Teikoku Databank: A Century of Information: 100 Years since the Establishment of Teikoku Databank (Teikoku Databank Sogyo Hyakushunen Kinen Purojekuto Hyakunenshi Hensanshitsu, Joho no seiki: Teikoku Detabanku sogyo hyakunenshi, Tokyo, Teikoku Databank, 2000). 11 When the writer is an outside researcher, they will usually be provided access to the archives under a specific agreement arranged with the company. The deal will often cover issues such as deadlines, economic remuneration and confidentiality. Such agreements are not always formalized, however, as, according to Professor Haruhito Takeda, a scholar who has been involved in the writing of several shashi, in some cases no written agreement or contract is concluded. Financial institutions, especially prior to the collapse of the bubble economy, provide a different set of circumstances. In these types of companies access to records is restricted to internal economists and economic historians, owing to issues of customer confidentiality. 12 Stockford, Bridget: ‘Getting Started’. In: A. Turton, Business Archives Council (eds.): Managing Business Archives, Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1991, quoted in Lesley Richmond: ‘Balancing Rights and Interests: The Ethics of Business Archives’, Business Archives Principles and Practice 79 (2000): 38.

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process and management strategy, such shashi will most likely prove useful to CEOs and managers in the development of future management policies. In terms of readability, however, these ‘authentic shashi’ are not always easy for employees and the general public to read or understand. The post-bubble economy, globalization and the writing of shashi

Collaboration between business historians and companies has been largely beneficial for both sides as academic business historians came to enjoy privileged access to corporate archives (which fostered the development of business history as a scientific discipline) and companies gained the ability to publish more reliable corporate histories (which in turn enhanced corporate credibility). This mutually beneficial cooperation worked relatively well until sometime around the early 1990s, when the Japanese economy slid into recession and the drive for globalization accelerated. As a result, the expectation developed that shashi would be written and used in different ways than before.13 The most significant change was that shashi came to be seen as a tool for stakeholders, especially as a way of sharing common values and workplace methods among employees. There are, however, many challenges to ordinary employees reading or understanding shashi written by business historians. For example, ‘authentic shashi’ tend to be long, large, and thus too heavy to be easily handled or read. In addition, non-specialists can find them dry and difficult to understand as they contain mostly dense text with few images. This means that since the narrative is often academic or scientific it can be hard for employees to identify with the shashi. Technological advances have begun to solve these challenges, however, as the production of visual shashi has gained in popularity since the 1990s. Such shashi can be understood intuitively since they include many colour images or even moving images. Another development has to do with the increase of globalization. Many companies now produce and publish shashi not only for domestic Japanese readership but also for employees of group companies outside of Japan. In these cases the shashi will be written in or translated into English or the local language. In recent years, accountability, compliance and corporate social responsibility have come to push for a more active disclosure of historical corporate information. This is related to the problem of accessibility, as shashi are mostly 13 The fate of shashi by financial institutions suffered a somewhat different fate. Before the end of the 1980s, it was common for financial institutions to publish shashi every ten years. After the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, however, mergers and acquisitions intensified and most of these institutions found their research sections and other administrative departments trimmed or cut. The compilation and publication of shashi suffered as a result and many of these institutions no longer publish at all.

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in-house publications and thus it can be difficult for external researchers or others to locate or obtain a copy of a particular shashi. It is with this historical background in mind that I would like to look at the use of corporate heritage and archives by the Toyota Motor Corporation, which celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2012.

The Toyota Motor Corporation and shashi Corporate profile

Established by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937, the Toyota Motor Corporation celebrated seventy-five years of trading in 2012. Although the head office is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, in central Japan, the corporation includes fifty overseas manufacturing companies located in twenty-seven countries and regions throughout the world. In fiscal year 2012, Toyota’s total production reached 7,435,000 vehicles, with 7,352,000 vehicles sold in over 160 countries and regions throughout the world. The company has a total capital of 397.05 billion yen ($4 billion), sales of 18,583.6 billion yen ($185 billion), an operating income of 355.6 billion yen ($3.6 billion) and a net income of 283.5 billion yen ($2.8 billion). The company has 69,148 employees (325,905 in affiliated companies), 507 consolidated subsidiaries and fifty-seven companies under the equity method. Toyota’s main business activities are the production and sale of motor vehicles, but product line-ups include vehicles, spare parts and accessories, marine products and Toyota vehicle renting and leasing services.14 Toyota Motor Corporation fell into financial crisis in 1950 and responded by establishing Toyota Motor Sales Co. Ltd. in the same year and launching the Creative Idea Suggestion System in 1951. The various innovations implemented resulted in management reforms. Business expanded continuously – for example, the company’s first fully-fledged passenger car, the Toyopet Crown, debuted in 1955 and was exported to the USA for the first time in 1957 with the establishment of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. The Toyota Motor Company and Toyota Motor Sales merged in 1982 to form the Toyota Motor Corporation. New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) was established through a joint venture with General Motors and production began in Fremont, California, in 1984. Toyota Motor Manufacturing USA independently manufactured its first Camry at a plant in Kentucky in 1988, and the company continues to expand across the globe. It should be noted that domestic production has declined from a peak of 4,212,373 14 All facts and figures are for fiscal 2012 (April 2011–March 2012) or were true as of 31 January 2012, according to Toyota: Toyota in the World, 2012. www.toyota-global.com/ company/profile/in_the_world/pdf/2012/databook_en_2012.pdf (accessed 21 March 2012).

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vehicles in 1990, and that overseas production exceeded domestic production for the first time in 2007 (4,308,553 vehicles produced overseas versus 4,226,137 vehicles produced domestically within Japan). A similar shift in sales is also evident, with domestic sales declining from a peak of 2,504,291 vehicles in 1990 and overseas sales exceeding domestic sales for the first time in 1992 (2,411,977 vehicles sold overseas versus 2,231,117 vehicles sold domestically within Japan). Since then the proportion of overseas to domestic sales has continued to grow.15 Toyota and shashi: early publications and 50 Years of History (1987)

Toyota has published several shashi over the years. This was done in much the same way as many other companies in Japan, with the compilation and publication of shashi having been done by a team organized on an ad hoc basis. The Toyota Motor Company published Toyota 20-Year History16 in 1958, Toyota 30-Year History17 in 1967, Toyota History: Commemorating 40 Years of the Toyota Motor Company18 and Wa, Waza and Wadachi (Wheels, Skills and Tracks): Commemorating 40 Years of the Toyota Motor Company19 in 1978. Toyota Motor Sales published Together with Motorization20 in 1970 and Toyota’s Advances in the World: Toyota Motor Sales 30-Year History21 in 1980. After the merger of Toyota Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Sales Co. Ltd., the newly formed Toyota Motor Corporation published Limitless Creation: Toyota Motor Corporation 50-Year History22 in two volumes to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary in 1987. The two large volumes 15 Facts and figures from ‘Japanese Production Volume’. www.toyota-global.com/company/ history _of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_business/production/production/japan/ production_volume/index.html (accessed 9 April 2013), ‘Overseas Production and Assembly Volumes’. www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/data/automotive_ business/production/production/overseas/production/index.html (accessed 9 April 2013); with updated data from the Toyota Archives (email to author, 29 March 2013). 16 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Company Company History Editorial Committee, Toyota jidosha 20 nen-shi, Koromo City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Company, 1958. 17 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Company Company History Editorial Committee, Toyota jidosha 30 nen-shi, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Company, 1967. 18 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Company Company History Editorial Committee, Toyota no ayumi: Toyota jidosha kogyo kabushiki kaisha 40 shunen kinen, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Company, 1978. 19 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Company Company History Editorial Committee, Wa, waza, wadachi: Toyota jidosha kogyo kabushiki kaisha 40 shunen kinen, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Company, 1978. 20 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Sales Company Company History Editorial Committee, Motarizeshon to tomoni, Nagoya, Toyota Motor Sales Company, 1970. 21 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Sales Company Company History Editorial Committee, Sekai he no ayumi: Toyota jihan 30 nen-shi, Nagoya, Toyota Motor Sales Company, 1980. 22 (Japanese only) Toyota Motor Corporation 50-Year History Editorial Committee, Sozo kagirinaku: Toyota jidosha 50 nen-shi, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1987.

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of the fifty-year history consist of 1,030 pages of text and 321 supplementary pages of sources and materials and, providing a detailed history of the Toyota Motor Corporation, are seen as the authentic or authorized history of Toyota. Approximately 70,000 copies were printed and distributed.23 An English version, entitled Toyota: A History of the First 50 Years24 was published the next year. The fifty-year histories were written, compiled and edited by a committee formed within the Corporate Planning and Research Group that was dissolved following publication. The fifty-year history was later digitized, with the 1,030 pages of the main text uploaded to the company’s internal LAN and made available in HTML format for search and reference through computer terminals in Toyota offices throughout Japan. The great advancements in technology since the 1990s have made such projects possible and continue to affect the use and provision of shashi. Toyota continues to make use of such technologies, as can be seen in the case of the seventy-five-year history, which I discuss below. Establishment of museums

Meanwhile there were a series of developments in the use of corporate heritage in museums. The Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall was established in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, in 1974 to mark the manufacture of the company’s ten-millionth vehicle.25 The hall originally held exhibits on the history of the motor car, but the decision was made to upgrade the exhibits on the occasion of the Toyota Motor Corporation’s fiftieth anniversary in 1987. The new Toyota Automobile Museum opened in April 1989 and a second building, the Annexe, opened in April 1999 in celebration of the museum’s tenth anniversary. The Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall was reopened as the Toyota Establishment Exhibit Room the same year, following a full renovation. The renovated exhibits cover the development of Toyota from the early power looms invented by Sakichi Toyoda, to Kiichiro Toyoda’s dream of manufacturing automobiles for all, to the development of the modern-day Toyota Group.26 The site also includes the former residence of Kiichiro Toyoda, originally built in 1933. In 1998, before the opening of the Annexe and the renovated Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall, the Sakichi Toyoda Memorial House was opened in Kosai City, Shizuoka Prefecture. The Toyota Automobile Museum is located in Nagakute City, Aichi Prefecture, on a site covering 46,700 square metres. The main building has an area of 4,800 23 Murahashi, Shashi no kenkyu, 14. 24 Toyota Motor Corporation 50-Year History Editorial Committee, Toyota: A History of the First 50 Years, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1988. 25 ‘Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall’. www.toyota.co.jp/en/about_toyota/facility/ kuragaike/index.html (accessed 29 March 2013). 26 Ibid.

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square metres and a total floor area of 11,000 square metres, while the Annexe has an area of 2,700 square metres and a total floor area of 8,250 square metres. The collection includes 448 vehicles, of which 145 are on display; 3,600 model cars; 890 car badges; 750 posters and 7,100 pictures. The vehicles in the collections can be divided by country of production as follows: Japan 293 (including 215 Toyota vehicles), USA 65, UK 39, France 19, Germany 19 and 13 from elsewhere. The museum has an average of 230,000 visitors annually adding up to a total of about 5 million visitors since the museum opened in 1989. The holdings of the museum’s library include 33,000 books, 56,000 magazines, 44,000 car catalogues and a large collection of audio-visual materials. Reflecting the global nature of the company, the Toyota Automobile Museum makes efforts to make the museum accessible in a wide range of languages. While scheduled guided tours are only available in Japanese, English-language tours can be booked in advance and audio guides are available in four languages (Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean) for a small fee. Interpretive panels throughout the museum are either in Japanese and English or four languages, with the addition of Chinese and Korean. Pamphlets are in sixteen languages (Japanese, English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Russian, both simplified and traditional Chinese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese) either from the museum or as PDF downloads from the museum’s Japanese or English websites.27 In addition, arrangements can be made in advance for touch tours for blind or visually impaired visitors.28 The Toyota Automobile Museum traces 100 plus years of history since the birth of the motor car with exhibits of actual vehicles as well as showcasing ‘the history of Japan’s motorization’ through period exhibits including everyday items.29 It is not limited to a simple history of the Toyota Motor Corporation, covering instead the history of the motor car in general, and is ‘dedicated to keeping the history of the automobile alive, and to enriching the future prospects of people and the automobile’.30 The museum is characterized by this systematic and universal approach to collecting and exhibition, notable in the inclusion of non-Toyota vehicles in the collections and exhibitions, and the conservation of vehicles in its collections in a drivable (movable) condition, as illustrated by the demonstration runs offered periodically by the museum. In addition to the Toyota Motor Corporation’s Toyota Automobile Museum, the Toyota Group established the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry 27 See www.toyota.co.jp/Museum/languages/ (accessed 29 March 2013). 28 ‘Toyota Automobile Museum: Hours and Admission’. www.toyota.co.jp/Museum/ english/c02_01.html (accessed 29 March 2013). 29 Ibid. 30 ‘Toyota Automobile Museum: About Us,’ www.toyota.co.jp/Museum/english/c01_01. html (accessed 29 March 2013).

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and Technology in June 1994 as a joint creation of the then thirteen Toyota Group companies (now sixteen). The museum is located in Nagoya, in what used to be a pilot factory for automatic looms, built in 1911 by Sakichi Toyoda. The father of the Toyota Motor Corporation’s founder, Kiichiro Toyoda, Sakichi Toyoda was an inventor and entrepreneur and the founder of the Toyota Group. The museum aims to introduce the development of textile machinery and automotive engineering by exhibiting historical heritage owned by the group. Looking towards a seventy-five-year history and the establishment of the Toyota Archives

The shashi compilation committee that had been formed within the Corporate Planning and Research Group to compile the fifty-year history was disbanded after the shashi was published in Japanese in 1987 and in English in 1988. In 1993, a team was formed at the Toyoda Head Office with the goal of comprehensively collecting and cataloguing records and archives dating from the founding of the company. Established structurally within the Toyota Museum, the team became the Toyota Archives in 1997. Professional staff with experience in the Legal and General Planning divisions were moved to the Archives to oversee management. Although, the Toyota Motor Company did not publish a sixty-year history to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary in 1997 or a seventy-year history to commemorate the seventieth anniversary in 2007, the Toyota Group History Committee was formed to oversee the writing, compilation, editing and publication of Kizuna (Bonds): From the Toyoda Gyodan to the Toyota Group,31 Kizuna (Bonds): The Past and Present of the Toyota Group,32 and Kizuna (Bonds): A Visual History of the Toyota Group33 in 2005. Then, in the autumn of 2006, the Archives proposed the compilation and publication of the Toyota Motor Corporation’s next shashi. The proposal was made at a top executive meeting and approved, marking the beginning of the compilation of the seventy-fiveyear history. I shall briefly explain the history of the division related to heritage in the Toyota Head Office in Toyoda City. In 1999, the Heritage Division was established after a consolidation of related sections including the Toyota Automobile Museum. The division was later reorganized again, this time forming the Corporate Citizenship Division within the Government and Public Affairs Group. Related 31 (Japanese only) Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, Kizuna: Toyota Toyoda Gyodan kara Toyota Gurupu he, Nagoya, Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, 2005. 32 (Japanese only) Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, Kizuna: Toyota Gurupu no genjo to ayumi, Nagoya, Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, 2005. 33 (Japanese only) Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, Kizuna: Me de miru Toyota Gurupu-shi, Nagoya, Toyota Group History Editorial Committee, 2005.

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organizations belong separately to the General Administration Division, the Public Affairs Division, the Heritage Division and other divisions. Currently the Toyota Archives is part of the Corporate Citizenship Division and has six staff (April 2013). Since the Corporate Citizenship Division is not involved with global governance, the management of overseas archives, if they exist at all, is left entirely to local subsidiaries. The effects of a domestic slump and globalization on archives and shashi

As I noted earlier, it has become clear that demand for corporate history to support the globalization of Japanese companies and globalized business is increasing. From about 1987, when the fifty-year history was published, shashi and archival heritage have been called on in this way by the Toyota Motor Corporation. The start of this type of work can be said to have been Toyota: A History of the First 50 Years, the English version of the fifty-year history, published in 1988. In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the bubble economy, the company faced a period of continued poor performance. In response to these circumstances, management at the time instituted Toyota’s Guiding Principles (adopted in 1992 and revised in 1997), which reflected the kind of company that Toyota sought to be in light of the unique management philosophy, values and methods that it had embraced since its foundation. Based on a shared understanding of Toyota’s Guiding Principles, Toyota Motor Corporation, together with its consolidated subsidiaries, hoped to contribute to sustainable development through its corporate activities. In addition, President Tatsuro Toyoda announced to the company’s employees in February 1995 that he was defining the period from then until the beginning of the twenty-first century as a ‘re-establishment’ of the company with the goal of reinventing Toyota’s business approach into the future. This called for new contributions by the company’s heritage departments. In response to this, although Toyota did not publish a shashi for the sixtieth anniversary in 1997, the Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall was completely renovated and reopened as the Toyota’s Establishment Exhibit Room in 1999. Also in 1999, Great Dreams, Days of Passion: A Photographic History of Toyota’s Early Days34 was published both in Japanese and English and The Toyota Automobile: A Story of Rapid Progress,35 originally published in Japanese in 1937, was reprinted and published in an English translation. 34 (Japanese version) Toyota Motor Corporation (eds.), Oinaru yume, jonetsu no hibi: Toyota sogyo-ki shashinshu, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1999. (English version) Great Dreams, Days of Passion: A Photographic History of Toyota’s Early Days, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1999. 35 (Japanese version) Toyota Motor Company (eds.), Toyota jidosha yakushin-fu, 1937; repr, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1999. (English version) The Toyota Automobile: A Story of Rapid Progress, trans. Edmund R. Skrzypczak, Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1999.

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‘The Toyota Way’

In order to realize Toyota’s Guiding Principles, values and business methods that had been passed on as implicit knowledge were identified and defined in The Toyota Way 2001. The two main pillars of ‘the Toyota Way’ – ‘continuous improvement’ and ‘respect for people’ –provide the basis for Toyota’s corporate philosophy and values.36 The first pillar expresses the belief that members of the Toyota team should never be satisfied with where they are: instead they should always strive to improve the business by putting forward new ideas and working to the best of their abilities. ‘Continuous improvement’ has three components: challenge, kaizen37 and genchi genbutsu.38 The second pillar refers to respect for all Toyota stakeholders and a belief that the success of the business is created by individual effort and good teamwork. ‘Respect for people’ includes the two concepts of respect and teamwork. The Archives provided valuable resources when the Corporate Citizenship Division published The Roots of the Toyota Way: The Toyota Spirit, Evolving with the Times in Japanese in 2003 and in English in 2007 to provide historical context for and thus support a deeper and practical understanding of the Toyota Way.39 Further to promote the Toyota Way, the Toyota Institute was established ‘as an internal human resources development organization’ in January 2002.40 The summary of the Toyota Way in the introduction of The Roots of the Toyota Way is so concise that I quote part of it as follows: 36 Corporate Citizenship Division, Toyota Motor Corporation (eds.): The Roots of the Toyota Way: The Toyota Spirit, Evolving with the Times, Toyota City, Aichi, Corporate Citizenship Division, Toyota Motor Corporation, 2007, p. iv. 37 Kaizen is explained in The Roots of the Toyota Way (p. iii), as follows: ‘We improve our business operations continuously, always driving for innovation and evolution. – a kaizen mindset and innovative thinking – building lean systems and structures – promoting organizational learning.’ 38 Genchi genbutsu is explained (ibid., p. iii), as follows: ‘We practise genchi genbutsu, always going to the source to find the facts to promptly make correct decisions, build consensus, and achieve goals with all-out effort. – experiencing things first hand – effective consensus building – commitment to achievement.’ 39 (Japanese version) Corporate Citizenship Division, Toyota Motor Corporation (eds.), Toyota uei no rutsu: jidai to tomoni shinka suru Toyota supiritto, 2003; repr. Toyota City, Aichi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 2007) (English version) The Roots of the Toyota Way. 40 ‘Corporate Philosophy: Toyota Way 2001’. www.toyota-global.com/company/history_ of_toyota/75years/data/conditions/philosophy/toyotaway2001.html (accessed 1 April 2013). In addition, since 2003, ‘overseas affiliates in North America (US), Europe (Belgium), Asia (Thailand and China), Africa (South Africa) and Oceania (Australia) have established their own human resources training organizations modeled after the Toyota Institute’.

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There are various principles, values and methods that have been nurtured since Toyota’s founding and passed down as the source of Toyota’s competitiveness. These have been organized and collected in the booklet, The Toyota Way 2001, for anyone to read and appreciate. The Toyota Way 2001 was internally published and distributed in April 2001. Among these, ‘Continuous Improvement’ and ‘Respect for People’ are held up as two pillars of the Toyota Way. The two pillars form the foundation of Toyota’s basic philosophy and values. In addition to being shared among the world, these will be passed down to the next generation and should be further evolved and upheld in the future as well. We hope this book will deepen the reader’s understanding of the quotations included in The Toyota Way 2001 by providing a historical background to each quotation and an explanation of its meaning. The business environment is constantly undergoing great change. In the midst of this environment, the Toyota Way will continue to evolve through practical application in real life. To ensure its relevance, the Toyota Way should be actively discussed and debated, and we hope this book will serve as a tool for facilitating such discussion.41 In the booklet, under the title, ‘Kaizen: The Toyota Way: Building Lean Systems and Structures’, there is a quote from Kiichiro Toyoda: I plan to cut down slack time within work processes and in the shipping of parts and materials as much as is possible. As the basic principle in realizing this plan, I will uphold the ‘Just-in-Time’ approach. The guiding rule is not to have goods shipped too early or too late. An explanation of the historical background states that Kiichiro Toyoda first introduced the ‘Just-in-Time’ theory in an interview during the construction of the Koromo Plant, the company’s first full-scale automobile production plant. The theory has since developed into the Toyota Production System and remains one of the Toyota Motor Corporation’s basic principles.42 The idea behind the seventy-five-year history

In an interview on 28 November 2012 with archival specialists and members of the Toyota Archives on the reasons for and purpose of publishing the seventyfive-year history, I was told that it had been planned for November 2012 to mark 41 The Roots of the Toyota Way, p. iv. 42 Ibid., pp. 42–43.

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the seventy-fifth anniversary and that the history would serve as the first official history of Toyota covering overseas activities and thus provide ‘a solid reference for the 300,000 Toyota team members around the world’. Furthermore, the purpose of publishing the history was threefold. First, ‘to ensure the continuation of the Toyota Way and to cultivate our human resources worldwide’ by creating ‘a company history that all Toyota team members worldwide can feel is their own’. Second, ‘to record the rapid changes that have taken place since the publication of Toyota: A History of the First 50 Years, in 1987’. And, finally, ‘to create a company history that plays a role in corporate information disclosure’.43 The main goal of the compilation of the seventy-five-year history was thus, first and foremost, to spread the Toyota Way and foster human resources. It was decided that the most effective way of realizing this goal was to make the history available on the Internet in both Japanese and English. It was decided to publish the corporate history digitally not as a PDF, but in HTML, as that is currently regarded as the most suitable way in which to realize the third purpose of corporate information disclosure from the standpoint of global availability and accessibility. The seventy-five-year history was published on 2 November 2012, the day before the anniversary, under the title 75 Years of Toyota: Ever-better Cars. The phrase ‘ever-better cars’ was used by Akio Toyoda when he became president in 2009 as a way of ‘concisely expressing our company’s continuous dedication to work over what would become three-quarters of a century’.44 The Editor’s Note to the digital history explains that the decision to compile a seventy-five-year history was officially made in the autumn of 2006 at a meeting of the executive vice presidents. Following this, an editorial committee of roughly thirty chief officers from various groups within the corporation was formed with the Toyota Archives as the secretariat. Decisions such as the direction, objectives, content and medium of the history were discussed and decided upon at biannual meetings of the editorial committee. Throughout the process the editorial committee kept in mind the three goals of readability, objectivity and comprehensiveness. In regards to objectivity, the editor noted that ‘including entries to which references had been made in earlier historical compilations, we thoroughly fact-checked all elements using original texts. In doing so, we encountered a number of inconsistencies with past compilations, which we addressed in our footnotes’.45

43 On-site interview by the author, Department of Museum and Archives, Corporate Citizenship Division, Toyota Motor Corporation, 28 November 2012. 44 ‘Editor’s Note’. www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/editors_ note/index.html (accessed 1 April 2013). 45 Ibid.

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The history is divided into two parts: text and data.46 The text section, entitled ‘Read’, is further divided into three chronological chapters, and the data section, entitled ‘Find Out’, consists of five sections: Current Conditions, Management and Company Information, Automotive Business, Non-Automotive Business, and Overall Chronological Tables. The Vehicle Lineage Chart, within the Automotive Business section, is worthy of special mention as it illustrates the lineages for the vehicles produced by Toyota and includes detailed information for each vehicle with pictures, vehicle specifications, vehicle descriptions, manufacturing plant, origin of the name, original catalogue and news releases or film footage, where available. In addition to the website, a DVD version of the seventy-five-year history was produced for in-house distribution.47 While the web version is mostly text and images (with a few moving images), the DVD version is a narrative with a series of movies. The DVD embodies the original intent of the editorial committee to share with the next generation ‘the spirit at the time of our creation, as well as the corporate culture and climate that took root, in a way they can feel deep down inside so that they will be moved and have pride in their company’.48 The DVD consists of three sections: a short version of ‘Ever-better Cars’ (15′ 52″); the full-length version of ‘Ever-better Cars’ (49′ 4″); and ‘Thematic Compilations’. As mentioned in the Editor’s Note, ‘the handling of information that exists around the world’ is a pressing issue when looking to the future of company histories. The Toyota seventy-five-year company history editorial committee managed to write and compile the history using only information available in Japan, even though the localization of operations in other countries has increased. They emphasized, however, that in the future, we believe it quite unlikely that we will be able to compile a full corporate history without gathering information from subsidiaries around the globe. As such, an item for forthcoming consideration is determining the ideal management structure of our corporate archives.49 The international scope of the history and archives of global corporations is one of the issues that some members of the International Council on Archives Section for Business and Labour Archives (ICA SBL) have been working on seriously and will continue to tackle for years to come.

46 Under the leadership of the Toyota seventy-five-year company history editorial committee, two outside writers participated in the preparation of the text. Interview, 28 November 2012. 47 DVD: 75 Years of TOYOTA: A 75-Year Visual History, Toyota Motor Corporation, 2012. 48 ‘Editor’s Note’. 49 Ibid.

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Conclusion

During the period of Japan’s high economic growth from the 1960s onwards, there was an effort among Japanese companies to move away from earlier untrustworthy modes of shashi such as those that were little more than Public Relations campaigns. The goal was to ensure the scientific credibility of corporate histories by using methodologies from the academic discipline of business history. Against the backdrop of the intensification of global competition over the past twenty years, in addition to increased expectations of academic credibility, expectations of shashi acting as tools for the identification and communication of corporate culture and philosophy, especially among employees within a company, have also increased. Another issue that has developed is that of responding to calls for public disclosure of corporate information and the writing of company history based on solid facts and evidence. I believe that the role played by archival materials and archives programmes within companies must increase in order to survive increased global competition by sharing management philosophy, values and methods, as well as to develop products based on corporate culture. The Toyota Motor Corporation stands as a leader in the writing and compilation of corporate histories in Japan as well as in the provision of access to its corporate history and innovative use of its archives. Looking to the future, in order for corporate archives in Japan to fulfil their mission, I believe that, in addition to fully recognizing the significance of the discipline of business history they will have to promote the idea that archives must be shared and valued within the company as a management resource and will also increase collaboration among in-house corporate archives, properly trained archival professionals, professional groups providing training opportunities, and other providers.

Index Index

Abs, Hermann Josef, 70, 71–72 Ackrill, Margaret, Barclays: The Business of Banking, 124n4 AFA (Quandt Group), 65–66, 67–68, 69 Allianz, 65 Altana, 65 Amoco Cadiz, 6 Ando, Yoshio, 126 A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, 25–28 APM Terminals, 25 archives brewing industry archive, 83–84 mining archives (Bochum), 79 professional training of archivists, 124n3, 125–26n5, 139 role of archivists, 8–9, 33–34, 41 see also corporate history; regional business archives Arnold, Tim, 20 Arthur Andersen, 6 Association of German Dioceses (VDD), 13–14 Bacon, Francis, 100 Baden-Württembergisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Stuttgart), 79 Badia, Gilbert, 57 Balfour, Arthur, 58, 59 Bang & Olufsen, 111 Barings Bank, 6 Barker, Theodore, The Pilkington Brothers and the Glass Industry, 124n4 140

BASF, 6, 65 Bavarian Business Archive, 85 Bayer, 78 Bayerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Munich), 79 Becker, Howard, 33–34 Behrens, Hedwig, 78 Bell, Alexander Graham, 5 Bertelsmann, 19–20, 65 Bhopal, 6 Bieri, Alexander L., 99–101 biography, 53–61 archetypes, 55–56 ethical considerations, 59–61 need for interdisciplinary analytic field, 54–55 relationship between chronology and plot, 57–59 scope and validity, 53–54 BMW, 65 Bodden, Nancy, 84n10 Böhm, Franz, 72 Bourdieu, Pierre, 29–30, 57 Brackmann, Albert, 78 brewing industry archive, 83–84 British Rail, 111 business history see corporate history Butler, Judith, 57 Cadbury, 111 Carnival Lines, 111 Carr, E.H., 6, 10 What is History?, 4

141

Index Catnach, James, 5 Catnach, John, 5 Center for Applied History (ZAG), 18–19 Chandler, Alfred D., 126n9 Chateaubriand, Francois-René, 57–58 Chernobyl, 6 Coca-Cola, 6 collections, 99–101 collective biography, 56 company history see corporate history container shipping industry, 26–28 corporate heritage, 109–11fig 5.1, 112 corporate history business academics’ views of corporate history, 105–12 change in focus of curation, 5–6 conflict between economic realities and social expectations, 48 corporation as publisher, 7–8 depictions of the workplace, 9, 10 embeddedness in social and cultural context, 40–51 following academic standards or as festschrift, 13–21 format of histories, 9 German companies, importance of corporate archives from Third Reich period, 16–17, 19, 84–86 heritage as the application of history, 109–11fig 5.1, 112 importance of transparency as economic factor, 21 intangible value of corporate reputation, 108, 109–11 learning from corporate mistakes, 5–7, 10–11, 19–20, 45–46, 84 mission statements, 6–8 more difficult to examine for familyowned companies, 64, 84–86 need for theory-based approach, 14–15 need to take account of social and cultural environment, 39–51 objectivity of communicators, 25–28 principal-agent theory, 15–16, 20–21, 64 role of archivists, 8–9, 33–34, 41 strategic and bottom-line value to company, 103–16 corporate identity mix, 109, 112, 115 Courtauld, Samuel, 5–6n8 Crespel & Deiters (Ibbenbüren), 85–86

Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN), 13–14 Cunard, 111 Daimler-Benz, 16–17, 65 de Montaigne, Michel, 57–58 Deckers, Daniel, 14 decoupling, conflict between economic rationalism and expectations of social environment, 48 Deepwater Horizon, 6 Degussa, 65 Deutsche Bank, 65, 70 didactic biography, 55 Dortmunder Brauerei-Archiv (Dortmund Brewery Archive), 83–84 Dürener Metallwerke, 66, 67 DWM (Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabrik), 66, 67, 69 Eakins, David, 31 Edmonton Oilers, 112 Ellerbrock, Karl-Peter, 77–87 Enron, 6 festschrifts, 13–21, 39–40, 41 Ford Archives, 105 Ford, Henry, 5 Foucault, Michel, 57 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 Franklin, John Hope, 31 Gall, Lothar, 70 Gebrüder Draeger, 65 General Electric (GE), 7, 103–4 German companies, importance of corporate archives from Third Reich period, 16–17, 19, 84–86 Gerwarth, Robert, 59 Gesellschaft für Westfälische Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Society of Westphalian Economic History), 82 Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 4 Goffman, Erving, 31 Granovetter, Mark, 41–44 Greenpeace, 7 GUG Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte (Society for Business History), 16–17

142 hagiography, 55 Hamburg Foundation for Social History of the 20th Century (Reemtsa), 16 Hamilton, Nigel, 54, 59 Hannah, Leslie, Barclays: The Business of Banking, 124n4 Hanseatisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Hamburg), 79 Harvard Business Review, 104–5 Hayek, Friedrich von, 72 heritage see corporate heritage Hessisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Darmstadt), 79 Heydrich, Reinhard, 59 Hindley, Charles, History of Catnach Press, 5 historians, objectivity, 29–36 History Factory, 90 Hoesch, 78 Hoffmann-La Roche, 30n3 Hoffmann-La Roche, Fritz, 5 Hume, David, 72 IBM, 104, 111, 112–16 2011 Centennial, 112–16 IBM Archives, 104, 112–13, 115 Industrie- und Handelskammertag (IHK), 82 industry changes, global, 3–4 Inglin, Thomas, 89–95 Jack Daniels, 112 Jansen, F.B., 59 Japan business sensitive issues, 127n10,n11 effect of post-bubble economy and globalization, 128–29, 139 honkakuteki shashi, 126 professional training of archivists, 124n3, 125–26n5, 139 shashi, 124–28 trends in writing of corporate histories, 123–28, 139 Japan Business History Institute (JBHI), 125–26n9 Japan Society for Archival Science (JSAS), 124n3 Johnson & Johnson, mission statement, 6–7

Index Johnson, Robert Wood, 6 Johnson, Samuel, 58, 59 Joutard, Philippe, 30 Jungbluth, Rüdiger, 63 Jungkind, Thilo, 39–51 Kaldewei family business, 84–85 Kallmeyer, Ulrich, 83 Kao Sekken, 125 King, Michael, 59–60 Krupp, 77–78 Lader, Malcolm, 34 Lamprecht, Karl, 78 German History, 77 Lasewicz, Paul, 103–16 Lehman Brothers, 6 Levi, Primo, 31 life-and-times biography, 56 Livy, The Early History of Rome, 4n5 Loew, Lionel, 29–36 Luhmann, Niklas, 71 Macey, David, 57 Mad Men, 9 Maersk Drilling, 25 Maersk Line, 25, 26–28 Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, Arnold 25–26 Maersk Oil, 25 Marrou, Henri-Irénée, 33 Matsuzaki, Yuko, 123–39 Mauser-Werke, 66 mining archives (Bochum), 79 Mohn, Reinhard, 20 Møller, Arnold Peter, 25, 28 Morgen, Henning, 25–28 Müller, Helen, 20 Murahashi, Katsuko, 124 music industry, 7 Naisbitt, John, 100 Nakagawa, Keiichiro, 126 neo-institutionalism, 44–51 New Institutional Economics, 15 Niedersächsisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Wolfenbüttel), 79 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 74 Nike, 6 Nobel, Alfred, 5–6n9 Noda, Kazuo, 126

Index North, Douglass C., 42–43 Nuremberg Institute, 18–19 Odense Steel Shipyard, 28 oil and extraction industry, 111 O’Toole, J., The Records of American Business, 104–5n3 partisanship, advantages of, 32–35 path dependency theory, 106–12 perception of history as competitive disadvantage, 107 Pertrix GmbH, 69 Pfeiffer, Christian, 13–14 Pierenkemper, Toni, 18, 19n13 Piper Alpha, 6 Poensgen, Ernest, 78 population changes, 3 Possing, Birgitte, 53–61 principal-agent theory, 15–16, 20–21, 64 business history model, 15–16 contracts, 17–18, 21 establishing academic credibility, 21 property rights, 17–18, 21, 61 strict monitoring of the agent, 15 prism biography, 56 Pritzkoleit, Kurt, 63 prosopography, 56 Prost, Antoine, 32 publishing industry, 7 Quandt, Emil, 65 Quandt Group, 63–74 Quandt, Günther, 63–74 attitude towards National Socialists’ Jewish policy, 66–67, 70 employment of forced labour, 68–69 participation in Aryanization, 70 Quandt, Harald, 66 Quandt, Herbert, 69, 73–74 Quandt, Magda, 63, 66 Radeberger Group, 83–84 Raiffeisenbanken, 81 Rauh, Cornelia, 18n9, 19 Redlich, Fritz, 72 regional business archives, 77–87 holdings, 80–81 importance of networking, 81–82 legislative basis, 80

143 Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (RWWA Cologne), 78, 79 Roche, 30n3, 31 analysis of corporate handling of Seveso disaster, 49–51 history of benzodiazepines, 32–35 Roche Historical Collection and Archive, 32, 35, 49–51, 100–101 Lexotanil, 30–31fig 2.10 Librax, 30–31fig 2.12 Librium, 30–31fig 2.5;2.7;2.8, 32, 35 Limbitrol, 30–31fig 2.6 Menrium, 30–31fig 2.9 Mogadon, 30–31fig 2.13 Pantopon, 30–31fig 2.1, 32 Sedobrol, 30–31fig 2.4, 32 Sedormid, 30–31fig 2.3, 32 Seveso Project, 49–51 Somnifen, 30–31fig 2.2, 32 Valium, 30–31fig 2.11, 32, 35 Rollysson, Carl, 59 Sachs, Georg, 67 Sächsisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Leipzig), 79 Santa Fe Style, 111–12n30 Scania, 111 Schanetzky, Tim, 16n3 Scholtyseck, Joachim, 63–74 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 71 scientific corporate history, following academic standards or as festschrift, 13–21 Scott, Joan, 57 Scott, William R., 46, 47fig 3.1 Seveso, 6, 30n3, 31, 48–51 Shandwick, Weber, 108, 110 Shell, 7 shipping industry, role in globalization, 27–28 Siemens, 78 Smith, Adam, 72 social network (sociocultural environment), 41–44n9 social responsibility corporate, 40 social recognition of corporate actions, 45–51

144 social sciences combination of economic and non-economic goals pursued by companies, 43–44 need for social environment to be included in corporate history, 39–51 social expectation structures, 44–51 Sparkassen, 81 Steffen, Jonathan, 3–11 Stiftung Wirtschaftsarchiv Nord-WestNiedersachsen (Emden), 79 Stinchcombe, Arthur, 106n6 Strachey, Lytton, 57 Takeda, Professor Haruhito, 127n11 Teikoku Databank, 127n10 Thalidomide, 6 The Office, 9 Three Mile Island, 6 Thüringisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (Erfurt), 79 Tille, Armin, 78 Tim Hortons, 112 Toraya, 124n3 Toyoda, Akio, 137 Toyoda, Kiichiro, 129, 131, 133, 136 Toyoda, Sakichi, 131, 133 Toyoda, Tatsuro, 134 Toyota Automobile Museum, 131–32 Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry, 132–33 Toyota Kuragaike Commemorative Hall (Toyota’s Establishment Exhibition Room), 131, 134

Index Toyota Motor Corporation, 123, 129–39 seventy-five-year history, 133, 136–38 shashi, 130–31 The Toyota Way 2001, 135, 136 Toyota’s Guiding Principles, 134, 135–36 Unilever, 6 villainography, 55 Volksbanken, 81 Volkswagen, 65 Weber Shandwick, 108, 110 Weisen Cook, Blanche, 58, 59 Welch, ’Neutron’ Jack, 103–4, 112, 115, 116 Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (WWA Dortmund), 78–87, 84–86 Wilde, Oscar, 56, 58 Williamson, Oliver, 41–42 Wilson, Charles, The History of Unilever, 124n4 Wirtschaftsarchiv Berlin-Brandenburg, 79 Wischermann, Clemens, 13–21 Woolf, Virginia, 54, 57 Yui, Tsunehiko, 126n9 Zetkin, Clara, 57 Zipfel, Ernst, 78 Zurich Insurance Company, 89–95 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 90, 92fig 4.3 Hoover Dam, 90, 91fig 4.1 Madison Square Garden, 90, 91fig 4.2 US Headquarters (Schaumberg), 90, 93fig 4.4

Contributors Contributors

Alexander Lukas Bieri Curator, The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Grenzacherstrasse 124, CH-4070 Basel [email protected] Telephone +41 61 687 02 65 Dr Karl-Peter Ellerbrock Direktor, Stiftung Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Märkische Straße 120, D-44141 Dortmund [email protected] Telephone +49 231 5417 296 Thomas Inglin Head of Corporate Archives / Library, Zurich Insurance Company Ltd., Mythenquai 2, CH-8022 Zürich [email protected] Telephone +41 44 625 37 55 Dr Thilo Jungkind Fachlabor Gubler AG, Lerchensangstr. 13, CH-8552 Felben-Wellhausen [email protected] Paul Lasewicz Firm Archivist, Mc Kinsey & Company, 55 East 52nd Street, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10022 [email protected] Telephone +1 212 446 7596 145

146

Contributors

Dr Lionel Loew The Roche Historical Collection and Archive, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Grenzacherstrasse 124, CH-4070 Basel [email protected] Telephone +41 61 687 10 91 Yuko Matsuzaki Business Archives Specialist, Shibusawa Eiichi Memorial Foundation, 2-16-1 Nishigahara, Kita-ku, Tokyo 114-0024 [email protected] Henning Morgen General Manager Group Relations, A. P. Moller–Maersk A/S, Esplanaden 50, DK-1098 Copenhagen K [email protected] Telephone +45 3363 3001 Professor Dr Birgitte Possing Wilhelm Marstrandsgade 37, DK-2100 København Ø [email protected] Telephone +45 35 43 00 88 www.possing.dk Professor Dr Joachim Scholtyseck University of Bonn, Institut für Geschichtswissenschaft, Abteilung für Geschichte der Neuzeit, Konviktstraße 11, D-53113 Bonn [email protected] Telephone +49 228 73 57 83 Jonathan Steffen Jonathan Steffen Ltd., Sheraton House, Castle Park, Cambridge CB3 0AX Telephone +44 1223 370060 [email protected] www.jonathansteffenlimited.com / www.jonathansteffen.com Professor Dr Clemens Wischermann University of Constance, Fachbereich Geschichte und Soziologie, Fach D 10, Raum F 305, D-78457 Konstanz [email protected] Telephone +49 7531 88 2631