Organizational Cultures of Remembrance: Exploring the Relationships between Memory, Identity, and Image in an Automobile Company 9783110420685, 9783110425635

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Daniel Mai Organizational Cultures of Remembrance

Media and Cultural Memory/ Medien und kulturelle Erinnerung

Edited by Astrid Erll ‧ Ansgar Nünning Editorial Board Aleida Assmann ‧ Mieke Bal ‧ Vita Fortunati ‧ Richard Grusin ‧ Udo Hebel Andrew Hoskins ‧ Wulf Kansteiner ‧ Alison Landsberg ‧ Claus Leggewie Jeffrey Olick ‧ Susannah Radstone ‧ Ann Rigney ‧ Michael Rothberg Werner Sollors ‧ Frederik Tygstrup ‧ Harald Welzer

Volume 21

Daniel Mai

Organizational Cultures of Remembrance Exploring the Relationships between Memory, Identity, and Image in an Automobile Company

DE GRUYTER

A dissertation, submitted to Faculty 05 – Language, Literature, Culture – at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen.

ISBN 978-3-11-042563-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042068-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042082-1 ISSN 1613-8961 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover illustration: DKW Junior body shell at the new Auto Union GmbH plant in Ingolstadt, 1960. Source: Corporate archive of AUDI AG Typesetting: Konrad Triltsch, Print und digitale Medien GmbH, Ochsenfurt Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements My debts are many, and it is a great pleasure to acknowledge them. First and foremost, I would like to thank for the unrelenting support of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), which provided an intellectual home for me. The GCSC not only granted me the financial project support and the security of a three-year scholarship, but also provided a stimulating atmosphere in which it was a pleasure to work. My primary debt at the GCSC is to Ansgar Nünning and Andreas Langenohl, who advised me throughout the dissertation process, believed in me, and helped me overcome the occasional low point. Moreover, I would like to thank my Giessen-based colleagues at the IPP colloquium and the social sciences colloquium, most notably Floris Biskamp, for providing insightful feedback and enriching this phase of my life. Lauren Greyson, thank you for editing my work and making the final steps a rewarding experience. The original idea for this project emerged during my last year at Zeppelin University in 2009. In this respect, I owe a lot to the critical input of Dirk Baecker, Tony Waters, and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht. Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge Frank Erik Pointner and Michael Gassenmeier from the University of Duisburg-Essen, as well as Martin Butler from Oldenburg University who first took me under their academic wings as a college freshman, laying the groundwork for the wish to pursue a PhD. Without a question, this research project would not have been possible without the openness and genuine interest I encountered at AUDI AG. A great number of individuals were willing to share their precious time, experience, and knowledge with me over the course of an entire year. Special acknowledgement goes to Thomas Frank and his committed staff at Audi Tradition for the immense support and trust invested in me. In addition to letting me join your daily working lives, you opened many doors inside the company and vouched for my research activities, all while letting me pursue an independent approach uninhibited by a corporate agenda. Finally, I am particularly grateful to my loving parents, Holm and Jana Mai, without whose unconditional support on all fronts I could never have managed to endure this journey – no matter whether I was working on this project in Giessen, Ingolstadt, Copenhagen, New York, or Berlin. This book is dedicated to you. Berlin, April 2014

Daniel Mai

Contents  Introduction 1 . When Business Organizations Remember their Past . Aims, Approach, and Structure 5  . . . .

1

A Cultural Perspective on Organizational Remembrance in Corporations 9 Key Qualities of Modern Business Organizations and a Spotlight on Cultural Phenomena 9 18 Identity and Image in Organizations as Cultural Categories Memory and Remembrance in Organizations 22 Organizational Cultures of Remembrance as a Conceptual 29 Nexus

 Empirical Research Design 36 . Description of the Fieldwork Setting at the Time of 37 Investigation . A Compact History of AUDI AG 44 . Mix of Qualitative Methods in Organizational Ethnography . Fieldwork as a Social Process 62  . . . .

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Audi Tradition in its Role as the Official Carrier of Organizational Remembrance 69 The Corporate History Department in Relation to the Company 69 Formalized Areas of Tradition Work and Structures 74 Remembering the Corporate Past through Thematic Lenses 80 Short Summary 85

 Purposes and Cultural Forms of Organizational Remembrance . Retaining Physical Proof of One’s Existence 86 . Legal Protection of Trademark Rights 94 . Historical Accountability 97 . Corporate Identity Construction in Public Relations 104 . Brand Identity Construction in Marketing 116 . Direct Economic Utilization 129 . Satisfaction of Entertainment Demands 133 . Short Summary 136

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 Multiple Stakeholders of the Corporate Past 137 138 . Internal Stakeholders . Semi-internal Stakeholders 151 . External Stakeholders 157 . Network of Remembrance, Collaboration, and Conflict 181 . Short Summary  . . . . . . .

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Organizational Remembrance as a Historical Process of Evolution and Differentiation 182 The Default Mode of Organizational Forgetting 183 186 Phase One: Remembering a Little and Forgetting a Lot Phase Two: Gathering and Protecting 193 Phase Three: Going Public on a Grand Scale 202 206 Phase Four: Hitting the Apex The Economic Cycle of Organizational Remembrance and Beneficial Factors Advancing the ‘Tradition Cause’ 209 214 Short Summary

 The Emergence of Historical Consciousness among the Workforce . Historical Consciousness as a Member’s Mental Competence . Factors Influencing the Development of Historical 230 Consciousness . Short Summary 246  Construing Organizational Reality through Retrospection 248 . Explaining the Reasons for Contemporary Market Conditions . Tracing the Roots of Common Working Practices 252 . Justifying the Existence of Corporate Conflicts 256 . Evaluating the Quality of Corporate Life 262 . Short Summary 267  Constructing Identities in Light of the Corporate Past . Identifying with Contemporary Business Success . Processing Changes in Brand Image 274 . Evoking a Positive Organizational Identity 283 288 . Achieving Concreteness of Identity . Coping with Identity Threats 296 . Short summary 301

269 269

216 216

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 Conclusion 304 305 . Review and Discussion of Key Empirical Insights . Implications for Managerial Practice 322 . Generalizability and Limitations of this Empirical Study . Issues for Future Research & Outlook 330  Appendix 334 . Research Opportunities and Sampling of Respondents . Supporting Material for Fieldwork 337 Primary Material Cited

347

Academic Works Cited

357

Subject index

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IX

1 Introduction In an increasingly fast-paced economy, many business organizations idolize innovativeness and the ability to foresee changes in the marketplace as key qualities in the competitive struggle for garnering profit. In this regard, the category of time is widely envisioned as a scarce and highly valuable resource which is integral to business. Time is measured, planned, wasted, saved, and accounted for (Hassard, 1996), which Benjamin Franklin’s (1748) well-known dictum “Remember that time is money” (as cited in Weinrich, 2008, p. 92) demonstrates. When it comes to time modes, however, the past, the present, and the future are not on equal footing. Going hand in hand with “processes of acceleration” (Rosa, 2013, p. 17) ¹ that can be observed in various domains of life, modern management principles are built upon ideas of constant alertness and change. They create an environment permeated by an obsessive concern with the present and the future. These time modes appear to be forgeable and thus a calculable factor. The past, in contrast, is commonly ascribed the image of an inalterable monolith no longer worthy of concern. For instance, Burkard Sievers (2009), an organizational psychologist, makes the critical observation that most companies “focus primarily on the relatedness of the present to the future to come” (p. 27). Organizational sociologist Walther Müller-Jentsch (2003) proclaims that modern organizations are “as a matter of principle detached from tradition” (p. 17). Business historian Manfred Grieger (2007) asserts that “[d]ue to current market requirements, companies inevitably act above all as institutions of the present, which do not grant the past any overpowering significance, but which emphasize the opportunity of a new beginning” (pp. 211– 212). And cultural theorist Dirk Baecker (1987) claims that the “social system of the economy” operates according to the “premise ‘bygones are bygones,’ systematically treating the past as irrelevant” (p. 519). The overwhelming impression one receives from these commentators is that the past is an utterly neglected topic in the business world.

1.1 When Business Organizations Remember their Past Despite the prevalence of future-orientation, the phenomenon of “corporate amnesia” Kransdorff (1998, p. 1) – i. e. the blatant disregard of past experiences – does not always take hold in a business environment. Over the last decades it has become more common for business organizations to make statements  All translations in this book are mine.

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1 Introduction

about their past, cached in terms of ‘history’ and ‘tradition.’ The technology company Robert Bosch GmbH (2011), for instance, which is more than a century old, proclaims that “[f]rom the very beginning, the company’s history has been characterized by its innovative drive and social commitment” (para. 2). The fashion store Peek&Cloppenburg KG (2011) accentuates its “Hanseatic tradition,” declaring that “the qualities of the company are shaped by the attitudes and mind sets which were historically ascribed to the character of Hanseatic merchants” (para. 3). The pharmaceutical producer Merck & Co (2011), on the other hand, states that it “ha[s] a long and rich history of working to improve people’s health and well-being” (para. 2), which makes them “proud of our past” (para. 3). Mercedes-Benz celebrates itself as the “inventor of the automobile” with a “unique tradition” (Daimler AG, 2011b, para. 3). And the automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG (2011) proclaims that “[o]ur history is an important pillar of our identity; it makes ZF distinctive” (para. 3). In all of these cases, business organizations make implicit and explicit identity claims by establishing a link between the past and the present. Seeking historical legitimization for their contemporary conduct, they claim to possess long-standing experience and expertise. They thus confer upon their organizations a sense of stability, perseverance, and tenacity, and imply a uniqueness of identity based on their past as a means of standing out in the marketplace. References to the corporate past are not restricted to verbal formulations of corporate identity claims, though. The past can be represented through a vast range of different forms: Companies publish elaborate corporate history books, as is the case with Zeppelin GmbH (Seibold, 2009) or Hugo Boss AG (Köster, 2011). They publicly celebrate anniversaries, as computer giant IBM (Forbes, 2011, August 6) or automaker Chevrolet (New York Times, 2011, October 21) demonstrated with their centennials in 2011. They establish corporate history departments that call themselves “both the memory and the soul” of the company (BMW Group Classic, 2012, para. 2). Car manufacturers, in particular, publicly celebrate their portfolio of vintage motor vehicles as a continuous stream of innovations across time, as Daimler AG (2011a) so aptly demonstrates. The examples go on: companies install memorial plaques to commemorate deceased employees, as can be seen in the case of the finance group Lloyds TSB (Gough, 2004). Company museums, like the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany (Vitra Design Stiftung gGmbH, 2011), are sometimes erected, and historical exhibitions, such as the “Milestones of refreshment” exhibition at the “World of Coca Cola” visitor center in Atlanta, USA (The Coca Cola Company, 2011), put together. Companies set up historical archives, as with the bank Wells Fargo (Niebuhr Eulenberg, 1984), and they launch historical associations dedicated to re-

1.1 When Business Organizations Remember their Past

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search of the corporate past, such as Deutsche Bank AG (2009) with its Historische Gesellschaft der Deutschen Bank e.V. (cf. Schug, 2003). These examples suggest that there are some business organizations that do not live exclusively in the “extended present” (Sievers, 2009, p. 27). On the contrary, these cases feature organizations that elect to represent and instrumentalize their past. According to Charlotte Linde (2009), these companies have found “ways of working the past: invoking and retelling parts of the past for present purposes” (p. 3). Speaking in more metaphorical terms, these companies have acquired a ‘memory.’ A new field of research called organizational memory studies devoted to scrutinizing this greater phenomenon has slowly emerged in the last decades (e. g., Casey, 1997; Casey & Olivera, 2011; Rowlinson, Booth, Clark, Delahaye, & Procter, 2010; Walsh & Ungson, 1991). Likewise, the field of organizational culture and organizational identity studies is tentatively becoming more interested in the role a shared past plays in creating a community among the workforce (e. g., Schultz & Hernes, 2010, 2013). In the more practically oriented corporate sphere, on the other hand, a handful of marketing scholars are touting the merits of history management for image building in the external sphere (e. g., Danilov, 1992; Diez & Tauch, 2008; Foster, Suddaby, Minkus, & Wiebe, 2011; Herbrand & Röhrig, 2006; Schug, 2003). All of these fields are operating with various conceptions of ‘memory’ in organizations while covering different sub-sets of the same problem – namely how and why organizations deal with experiences of the past in the present. Depending on their scope, numerous scholars have approached this question from different angles, and they offer a correspondingly disparate array of explanations. An interdisciplinary discourse about the relationships between memory, identity, and image in business organizations which attempts to synthesize multiple perspectives does not yet exist. This book is essentially driven by the urge to fill the concrete research gaps identified in a preliminary inquiry that provided a detailed overview of existing literature (viz., Mai, 2009). While these research-worthy gaps will be further discussed in chapter 2, a short rendition provides at least an initial idea of this book’s starting point. While many individuals in the western world spend a significant amount of time and energy in companies, empirical evidence of how exactly organizational memory is constituted and operates in everyday practice is extremely scarce (Rowlinson et al., 2010). The role of organizational retrospection in real-life business remains untested, and one can, at best, only form hypotheses with regards to its functioning. Likewise, claims about the effective coordination and control of memory in a corporate setting can be taken with a grain of salt as long as proclamations of cause and effect are not backed up by proper empirical research.

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1 Introduction

Second, memory is often treated as something an organization has rather than what it does (Casey & Olivera, 2011). This approach reflects a strong degree of actor-detachment, because it disregards human interactions occurring in the social sphere of the organization. In reply to this critique, Feldman and Feldman (2006) suggest a major theoretical shift to “organizational remembering” as a “collective, historically and culturally situated practice” (p. 880) – an idea that this study picks up and implements. However, more pronounced insights into the cultural fabric, social nature, and multiplicity of such practice(s) are, in large part, missing. Third, the majority of scholarly inquiries do not differentiate between the formal side of what is officially recollected in the name of the company and the informal side that occurs on the ordinary member level. How employees are themselves influenced by the company in their historical thinking and the conceptualization of an organizational self through organizational remembrance is an under-researched topic – especially when it comes to the internal impact of corporate history departments and museums (cf. Nissley & Casey, 2002). In consequence, the contingencies inherent to the formal and informal dimensions are virtually unknown. Fourth, scholarly inquiries into organizational memory are often limited to physical knowledge storage systems such as archives (e. g., Weaver & Bishop, 1974), or – in the rare case that the social component of human interaction is taken into consideration – to the aspect of oral narratives solicited from employees (e. g., Linde, 2009). The existence of other cultural forms in the material, social, and mental dimensions of organizational life has not been accounted for in a holistic way yet (cf. Feldman & Feldman, 2006). Fifth, organizational culture and identity studies have long perpetuated the belief in an “indelible link between history and identity” (Gioia, Corley, & Fabbri, 2002, p. 62). They assume that the members of an organization automatically have a “shared history” (Schein, 2004, p. 11), the sole existence of which conjures up a common identity. Unfortunately, it remains unclear where members’ conceptualizations of a shared history emerge in the first place, and what role collectively performed acts of retrospection play in this regard. Moreover, conceptual differentiation is missing between the past in its course and history as a manmade representation of the past shaped by contemporary needs (cf. Boia, 2003; White, 1987). An inquiry into the creative, malleable side of what is recalled, in light of present identity concerns, has been neglected thus far (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006; Rowlinson et al., 2010). And sixth, the discourse on organizational memory happens to be detached from newer findings brought forward by its interdisciplinary counterpart, collective/cultural memory studies (e. g., Erll, 2011; Erll & Nünning, 2008; Olick, 1999,

1.2 Aims, Approach, and Structure

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2008a, 2008b; Olick & Robbins, 1998; Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, & Levy, 2011). And the latter field has not yet come to think of business organizations as a viable object of study. An interdisciplinary link between both fields that fruitfully builds upon the latest research is lacking. The following section outlines what this book aims to achieve in light of these research gaps.

1.2 Aims, Approach, and Structure This book empirically explores the phenomenon of organizational remembrance from a holistic cultural perspective. Grounded in theory and empirical investigation alike, it attempts to uncover the relationships between memory/remembrance, identity, and image in a corporate setting. All empirical findings are based on a twelve-month ethnographic case study, which was conducted at the headquarters of the automobile company AUDI AG in Ingolstadt, Germany. Framing itself at the most abstract level as engaging in organizational cultures of remembrance, this study provides an integrated, hands-on investigation of the colorful interplay between different actor groups, their particular interests, practices, media, mental models, and vehicles of remembrance, through which the corporate past is recollected in everyday business. With the techniques provided by ethnographic research, the phenomenon of organizational remembrance leaves the hypothetical sphere, and its complex cultural ramifications become more palpable. The greater scope of this study is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at scrutinizing why and how a company officially remembers its past in terms of history. While research primarily focuses on the role of retrospection in making company-related identity claims and creating an organizational community, light is also shed on the rich variety of purposes of organizational remembrance that may lie outside the scope of identity and community creation. Moreover, the goal is to trace the complex ways a company actively ‘works’ its past in practice to pursue these ends (cf. Linde, 2009) – both through professionalized history management, as much as other manners that can be encountered in the workplace. By examining all of these ways with the help of a concept called cultural forms of organizational remembrance, this study seeks to provide insight into how everyday business is intentionally permeated by selectively made references to the past. On the other hand, this book explores what organizational remembrance does with the people working in a company, and, in turn, how employees process representations of the corporate past. More specifically, it addresses how retrospective practices affect members ‘on the job,’ how employees construct a col-

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lective organizational self in light of yesteryear, and how representations of the past can be transformed to suit current needs. Altogether, the depth of inquiry is meant to account both for what happens on the formal business level, as well as on the sociocultural micro-level of mundane organizational life. Following this introduction, which outlined the greater phenomenon of organizational remembrance and the primary focus of research, chapter 2 presents the theoretical framework according to which empirical fieldwork was carried out. It provides an interdisciplinary overview of the current state of relevant research, and specifies the aforementioned research gaps. More importantly, the framework breaks down the individual components of the cultural perspective developed for empirical research. It builds upon an interdisciplinary mix of concepts from organization studies, organizational culture studies, organizational identity studies, organizational memory studies, and collective/cultural memory studies. Applying an abductive methodology, only those publications and working concepts are explicated that constituted the theoretical knowledge available prior to starting empirical fieldwork. In this way, I hope to account for the processual nature of qualitative research, making the scientific creation of knowledge more transparent and traceable. First, a range of key qualities of modern business organizations are explained that are relevant to the scope of this study. The focus is then directed to what it means to study cultural phenomena in organizational settings. The shift entails that the concepts of organizational identity and image are addressed as cultural categories. Subsequently, the study of memory in organizations is reviewed, showing tentative links to concepts of culture, identity, and image. Lastly, a heuristic concept called organizational cultures of remembrance is presented as a nexus that integrates the aforementioned key concepts in a complementary fashion. Chapter 3 breaks down the empirical research design of this study. First, a description is provided of the fieldwork setting. It details facts and figures about the contemporary AUDI AG, clarifies specific units of analysis, and provides an overview of the conditions in which the company was found to operate. Second, this is complemented by a compact version of AUDI AG’s corporate history to contextualize the insights produced in this study. Third, the mix of qualitative methods utilized during fieldwork is explained. A short discussion of the methodology of abduction and the working paradigms of organizational ethnography is followed by a more detailed discussion of ethnographic research methods. It provides insight into how empirical data was generated, analyzed, and triangulated. Last, a self-reflexive account of my ethnographic experience can be found in this chapter, dealing with the different stages of fieldwork as an interactive social process between the researcher and the company.

1.2 Aims, Approach, and Structure

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The next chapters constitute the empirical core of this book. They present a multifaceted collection of case studies that demonstrate the actual workings of organizational remembrance in practice, as well as their cultural ramifications, impact on the workforce, and relationships with organizational identity and image. Chapter 4 sets the broader scene by tracing who inside AUDI AG was officially managing the corporate past in terms of history and tradition. In particular, the organizational structure of the corporate history department, Audi Tradition, is dissected and its role as the company’s institutionalized carrier of organizational remembrance described. Special attention is given to which elements of the corporate past the department recollected in which ways, and which elements were muted or forgotten. The highly selective and constructed character of official organizational remembrance becomes visible. Because the corporate past is not ‘worked’ merely for its own sake, chapter 5 clarifies what purposes of organizational remembrance the company pursued. The construction of organizational identity in public relations and the shaping of a brand image in marketing receive special attention, yet the scope of inquiry is not limited to this alone. By uncovering the multiplicity of purposes, this book demonstrates why remembering the corporate past matters for a company in a number of different ways. I argue that AUDI AG did, in fact, strategically reactivate elements of its past to secure the company’s economic existence in the future. In this regard, the chapter also unravels the complex web of practices, media, tools, sites, and mental models through which the corporate past has been reconstructed, collectively recalled, and instrumentalized in the present. Identified as cultural forms of organizational remembrance, these forms classify the ways professional retrospection actually takes place in a corporate setting. Chapter 6 shows that a corporate history department is not necessarily the only entity recollecting and refashioning a company’s past. As well as shedding light on the heterogeneous mix of stakeholders of the corporate past, attention is directed to both their common and diverging interests. By tracing their networkbased relationships, interactions, collaborations, and conflicts, the contingencies of remembrance in and around a corporate setting become visible. Chapter 7 argues that the way organizational remembrance works in the present underlies a historical process of evolution and differentiation. The case of AUDI AG exemplifies why and how a company gradually overcomes forgetting and begins remembering in the first place. However, one should not assume that the phenomenon of organizational remembrance detracts from or counteracts a firm’s obsession with the future. Therefore, the notion of an economic cycle of organizational remembrance is put forth to explain this.

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A greater shift in scope is introduced in chapter 8. Instead of focusing on the macro level of the corporation, attention is drawn to the socio-cultural microlevel of its members. More specifically, the impact organizational remembrance has on the workforce is scrutinized by pointing out a particular phenomenon – the emergence of a historical consciousness among staff. After tracing what factors influence the development process, it is argued that historical consciousness provides an important mental resource which shapes a member’s convictions about the company, work, and a collective organizational self. Picking up on this topic, chapter 9 specifies how common knowledge about the corporate past affects members’ construal of organizational reality. A selection of cases demonstrates that views on company life, convictions regarding how the company ‘really works,’ what is considered to be the ‘norm’ on the office floor, and how members behave on the job are deeply rooted in collectively available representations of the corporate past. The eponymous core of this book, chapter 10 addresses how members’ constructions of organizational identity are inherently crafted through recollections of the corporate past. Multiple case studies help to grasp the complexity, multifacetedness, creativity, and dynamism of the processes involved when members ascribe meaning to their company and identify with aspects of it in a collectivizing sense. It is argued that the workforce pursues the fulfillment of a range of identity needs by making distinct references to the corporate past. In addition to coping with identity threats, shared mental pictures of historical images serve as important contrast foils and differentiators of time through which the workforce gains a concrete sense of organizational identity. Binding conceptions of a collective organizational self are anchored in recollections of historical experiences. They provide a sense of stability, while leaving room for adaptation to future concerns. Finally, a conclusion is provided in chapter 11, which once again summarizes and discusses the key findings of this empirical study. By recontextualizing my findings with those of other scholars, it is possible to make more general inferences about the workings of, and relationships between, organizational remembrance, identity, and image. Readers who are interested in the practical side of professionally ‘working’ the past, on the other hand, will find a section specifically dedicated to this, detailing implications for managerial practice. Of course, every study also has its limitations. These are disclosed in the last section, which is followed by an outlook on future research. Altogether, this book hopes to deliver an insightful, interdisciplinary account that fuses a number of theoretical streams with empirical insights to generate an understanding of why and how remembering the past substantially matters in a corporate context, both for business and the workforce.

2 A Cultural Perspective on Organizational Remembrance in Corporations When business organizations recall their past, myriad manifestations of retrospection present themselves that can be scrutinized from any number of angles. This study has a theoretically guided focus, however, which narrows the scope of inquiry to cultural phenomena. In the interest of adhering to a reflexive methodology that follows an abductive approach (cf. Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Kelle & Kluge, 2010), this chapter lays out the theoretical framework upon which the empirical research design was based. It begins with a review of the current state of relevant research, moving on to the identification of specific gaps, and finally develops working definitions of core concepts. These concepts include culture in organizations, organizational identity and image, and organizational remembrance. Each of these concepts embraces a host of cultural aspects of corporate life that are worthy of exploration. Subsequently, these key concepts are brought into an interdisciplinary relationship with each other by drawing connections between the discourses from which they emerge. In combination, they allow for a holistic perspective on why and how collectivities of people in companies remember, ‘work’, and instrumentalize the corporate past. Representing the holistic perspective assumed in this study, a model called organizational cultures of remembrance is discussed, which was specifically created for this study. As a theoretical nexus that integrates all the aforementioned components, it was employed to guide ethnographic research in a practical fashion.

2.1 Key Qualities of Modern Business Organizations and a Spotlight on Cultural Phenomena Companies are complex social formations that adhere to different rules and setups than, for example, tribes or clans. So the questions emerge what exactly makes remembrance in companies organizational rather than just social; and what makes organizational remembrance cultural? To answer these questions one has to understand what constitutes modern business organizations in the first place. By compiling select aspects from business administration, organizational sociology, organizational communication studies, and organizational culture studies, one can synthesize and collect a number of key qualities of business organizations. One of the aims of this exercise is to prevent falling into what Alvesson and Berg (1992) call the “folklore trap” (p. 79) – i. e. when cultural scholars treat organizations as mere “micro-societies” (p. 79) similar to tribes or

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2 A Cultural Perspective on Organizational Remembrance in Corporations

clans. Understandably, not all characteristics of business organizations can be laid out here; thus only those are addressed that have some relevance for the cultural perspective on organizational remembrance in corporations. Organizations are central to the workings of modern society. According to Gross and Etzioni (1985, as cited in Strati, 2000), most people live in “an organizational society” (p. 3). For instance, they attend kindergartens, schools, and universities, serve in armies, become active in churches, gather in clubs, work in corporations, and die in retirement homes. What exactly an organization is can be formulated in very different ways, depending on the disciplinary perspective and ideal organization in mind (see e. g. Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006; MüllerJentsch, 2003; Strati, 2000). What these formulations have in common, though, is that they build upon the idea of multiple human beings collaborating with each other in some structured way to purposefully achieve an objective. While most organizations are symbolically represented by a certain grade of materiality such as an office building or a sign bearing the name, they “only exist in the imagination of human beings” (Müller-Jentsch, 2003, p. 15). In the most basic sense, organizations are social formations that “consist of an invisible web of interrelated actions” (p. 15) and “complex patterns of human activity” (Morgan, Frost, & Pondy, 1983, p. 3). Depending on the type of organization these interrelated actions are regulated by a range of structural factors that determine why, for instance, a public university is different from a private company.

2.1.1 Goal-orientation, coordinated collaboration, and products In the context of this book, business organizations are understood as “orderly coordinated and goal-oriented collaborations between human beings for purposes of collectively creating a material or immaterial product” (Müller-Jentsch, 2003, p. 12). Following the “economic principle of business” (Gutenberg, 1983, as cited in Schierenbeck, 2003, pp. 23 – 24), products are sold as commodities on a marketplace in order to generate maximum profit. In the private sector, business organizations can autonomously determine the purposes and processes of their operations (Schierenbeck, 2003). In consequence, companies formulate distinct tasks, goals, job positions, hierarchies, and rules by which human beings are assigned activities in an outcome-oriented, orderly way. Modern business organizations thus “exhibit[..] relatively highly formalized social structures” (Scott, 1987, as cited in Weick, 1995, p. 70; cf. Luhmann, 1964; Weber, 2008).²

 Formalization (and its adjective formal) refers to both the process and the degree to which the

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Based on these factors alone, it can be asserted that collective remembrance of the past in a business organizational context must look substantially different from what happens in families or tribes. Moreover, business organizations are social formations that do not grow organically. They constitute themselves though systematic inclusion (e. g. recruitment) and exclusion (e. g. discontinuation of employment); gatekept admission prevails instead of random procreation and death.³ Boundaries between who is part of the collectivity and who is not are generally determined through organizational membership (Luhmann, 1964) – a status only gained when people voluntarily join a company.⁴ According to rational organization theory, members are generally “involved in [a company’s] activities with only one part of their personality” (Müller-Jentsch, 2003, p. 14). They are partially included, which “demands clinical, purpose-rational conduct within a confined area of activity” (p. 14). It follows that a company cannot claim possession of every part of their members’ lives and personalities (Müller-Jentsch, 2003), which also means that modern business organizations are not naturally occurring social communities. These factors will play a substantial role when it comes to the conceptualization of a collective corporate past.

2.1.2 Boundaries, membership, and secondary socialization Modern business organizations are not closed systems. They operate in a market place that requires interaction with external stakeholders, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, mass media, and the public (Martin, 1992).⁵ In consecontingency of actions is restricted and governed through predetermination, rules, regulations, and procedures that are made explicit and binding. According to Luhmann (1964), human actions become determinable, traceable, repeatable, and less inclined to personal and/or arbitrary decisions because they are bound to behavioral expectations. Following Weber (2008), bureaucracy emerges by formalizing and controlling the process of organizing to a strong degree. The term informal, on the other hand, denotes the opposite of formal. Following Luhmann (1964), it refers to the absence of predetermination through rules and regulations when behaviors and situations are subject to rationales unspecified by the organization (cf. Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006).  The concept of family businesses is deliberately ignored here.  Different forms of business organization exist that exceed the idea of boundaries through membership. For instance, temporary work relationships (e. g., Gossett, 2002) and forced labor raise important questions.  A wider definition of stakeholders is employed here, according to which it “includes any actor that affects or is affected by the organization” (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006, p. 66). This definition incorporates organization-internal actors (e. g. workers, employees, managers, shareholders) as much as external actors (e. g. customers, suppliers, competitors). The term stakeholder is

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quence, sensemaking processes inside the organization are influenced by external factors, as well (Weick, 1995). Moreover, organizational boundaries are semipermeable depending on the extent of gatekeeping (Martin, 1992), from which sensemaking problems arise about “what is ‘out there’ [and] what is ‘in here’, and who must we be in order to deal with both questions” (Weick, 1995, p. 70). Therefore, organizational remembrance and constructions of organizational identity must also be scrutinized in relation to the external sphere around the company. Members are neither born into a workplace, nor conduct their primary socialization within the realm of an enterprise. They must, therefore, gain knowledge of organization-specific rules, appropriate behavior, company-internal discourses, and modes of thinking through secondary socialization (Strati, 2000). According to Linde (2009), “an adult learns to become a member of a secondary group within the larger culture (such as [a] company) and to take on that company’s past and present as relevant to their identity” (p. 7). Based on the aforementioned idea of partial inclusion, however, a company’s past cannot automatically be considered relevant to all new members. Identification is expected to be dependent on a members’ desire for community in the workplace and the ways a company ‘works’ its past in the initial socialization process of new members. An empirical inquiry into organizational remembrance thus needs to account for the ways the corporate past is made a topic in the socialization process.

2.1.3 Members in formal and informal roles Obviously, people take on different roles in an organization. Following Luhmann (1964), the most central role is the “membership role” because it “defines the conditions of access to any other role within the [organization]” (p. 39). Once acquired, it is attached to, and constituted through, a set of “behavioral expectations” (p. 37) and “membership rules” (p. 38) one has to follow to remain part of the company. In this sense, organizational membership is a formalized role. The agreement to ‘play along’ constitutes the social contract between the member and the business organization (Handy, 1999). If broken, termination of membership may occur.

also applied to “those [actors] who have an interest (stake) in the organization’s activities and/or outcomes” (p. 94), such as e. g. mass media, clubs, associations, and the general public.

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However, not every aspect of what happens in a company can be regulated. Members also take on informal roles “in those situations that cannot affect membership, because inferences from behaviors to continuation or termination of membership are excluded” (Luhmann, 1964, p. 49). In this regard, it is important to examine the formal and informal roles of those members in a company who are entrusted to professionally ‘work’ the past. Likewise, how members unrelated to corporate history management socially remember the past in their informal roles is also attended to. This should provide insight into the personal perspectives and social needs of people at work who decide to represent and instrumentalize the past for their own purposes.

2.1.4 Formal and informal social structures As already implied, member roles are developed within a framework of rules and regulations, expectations, and restrictions formulated by the company. They determine how members are supposed to act and interact with each other. Such a superordinate framework is called the “organizational social structure” (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006, p. 101). It broadly “refers to relationships among people who assume the roles of the organization and to the organizational groups or units to which they belong (e. g. departments, divisions)” (p.101). Based on Max Weber’s (1946, 1947) conceptualization of ideal bureaucracy (as cited in Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006), the formal social structure of a modern organization can be defined along the lines of “division of labor,” “hierarchy of authority,” and “formalized rules and procedures” (pp. 103 – 105). Organizational social structures are not restricted to the formal level, though. Informal social structures emerge based on friendship, love, senioritybased authority instead of position-based authority, and so on, because the organization cannot regulate and control every aspect of work (Luhmann, 1964). Both formal and informal social structures in an organization may stand in a recursive relationship. Brewer (2006) points out that, Workers often try to follow the formal rules but have to engage informally in practical reasoning and ad hoc practices to operationalize them when the formal rules are incapable of meeting the job at hand, such that fulfillment on the organization’s formal goals requires informal organizational rules, tacit knowledge and discretion. However, workers have to make it look as if the formal rules were followed as part of the organization’s coercive control, so engage in further ad hoc practices to ensure the paperwork conforms the procedures. (p. 314)

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With regard to conducting empirical research in a large corporation, these aspects were assumed to affect organizational remembrance by structuring the ways and means of professionally ‘working’ the past.

2.1.5 Shared meanings and multi-vocality Business organizations no longer appear as purely rational ‘machines’ when taking into account that they also have an informal side. One may instead attend to the concomitance of the multiple logics, interests, and motivations of human beings at work. Through various kinds of interactions, members collectively construct and negotiate organizational reality. The company can thus be conceived of as a dynamic “social context” (Strati, 2000, p. 28) with a rich organizational life, “rather than any [computer-like] set […] of causal equations” (Pacanowsky & O’Donnell-Trujillo, 1983, p. 127). In fact, “[o]rganizations have no reality other than that given them by people who reproduce the appearance of formal structure in their informal practices and lay reasoning” (Brewer, 2006, p. 314). It is in this way that organizations co-create “systems of meaning which are shared to varying degrees” (Smircich, 1983, as cited in Parker, 2000, p. 203).⁶ Hence, this study seeks to examine what role recollections of the corporate past play in the social construction and construal of organizational reality, its shared meanings, and its conception of organizational self. However, allegedly shared meanings might not even be as shared as some integrationist organization scholars such as Deal and Kennedy (2000) or Schein (1983) proclaim. Studies by Martin (1992) and Parker (2000) demonstrate that multiple voices with diverging perspectives compete with each other inside an organization. Moreover, social meaning-making is not necessarily consensual, democratic, or transparent for all members participating in organizational life. Mumby (1987, 1988, 1989, 1993) points to struggles regarding power, company-in-

 According to Smircich (1983, as cited in Parker, 2000), without a “sense of commonality, or taken for grantedness,” it would be difficult to create and continue a smooth process of arranging activities, because meanings would require “constant interpretation and re-interpretation” (p. 203). In order to create and share meanings, social sensemaking processes are involved (Weick, 1995), through which some sense of shared organizational reality is constructed by means of communication (Deetz, 1982) and “the [embodied] experience of the collective action” (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1992, as cited in Weick, 1995, p. 42).

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ternal politics, and ideological agendas that impact which voices dominate the myriad of organization-related discourses.⁷ This has serious implications for the study of organizational remembrance. An empirical exploration must locate the dominant actors who claim the right to interpret, represent, and instrumentalize the corporate past. It must scrutinize which aspects of the past are muted to accommodate the present interests of the company, and shed light on potentially incommensurate histories offered by competing stakeholders.

2.1.6 A cultural perspective on companies Based on the arguments presented thus far, modern business organizations can be viewed as complex social formations constituted by human beings who do not necessarily act in an economically rational way. These insights gradually led some organization scholars to the realization that the human side of what goes on in a company cannot be properly grasped by means of actor-detached organization theory (Diamond, 1993; cf. Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006). In reply, various scholars have increasingly explored the ‘soft’ side of organizing, by employing concepts from anthropology, sociology, and the humanities. A field called organizational culture studies has emerged (e. g., Frost, Moore, Reis, Lundberg, & Martin, 1991; Martin, 1992, 2002; Martin & Siehl, 1983; Parker, 2000; Schein, 1983, 1984, 1991, 2004; Schmidt, 2008), which serves as the home ground for this book. There is no consent about what ‘organizational culture’ actually means and what aspects of organizational life it encompasses (Martin, 1992). As Czarniawska-Joerges (1992) so aptly formulates it, “’organizational culture’ […] serves as an umbrella concept, where almost all studies can find a place if their authors so wish” (p.160).⁸ Different conceptualizations affect “what cultural researchers  The term ‘discourse’ will find frequent application in this book. The working definition of ‘discourse’ employed here follows Reisigl and Wodak (2009). In their conceptualization, a discourse is “a cluster of context-dependent semiotic practices that are situated within specific fields of social action. [Discourse is] socially constituted and socially constitutive. [It is] related to a macro-topic [and] linked to the argumentation about validity claims such as truth and normative validity involving several actors who have different points of view” (p. 89).  According to Schultz (1995), a major defining line in these studies can be found in how organizational culture is used as a concept – whether it describes something an organization has in terms of a variable (e. g., Deal & Kennedy, 2000) or whether it encompasses what an organization is in the sense of a “root metaphor” (Smircich, 1983, p. 347). Schultz (1995) describes the perspective of culture as a variable in the following terms: “Organizations have culture in that

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study when they claim to be studying culture” (Martin, 2002, p. 64). In consequence, scholars have scrutinized beliefs and values (Schein, 2004; Weick, 1995), ideologies (Mumby, 1988), rites and rituals (Alvesson & Berg, 1992; Islam & Zyphur, 2009), formal and informal practices, stories and storytelling (Boyce, 1995, 1996; Boje, 1991, 1995, 2008; Gabriel, 2000; Smith & Keyton, 2001), myths (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; Randall, 1962; Trice & Beyer, 1985), scripts, jargon, humor, dress codes, physical arrangements, corporate architecture (Berg & Kreiner, 1990), and many other phenomena under the umbrella of ‘culture’ (for an elaborate overview see Martin, 2002, pp. 64– 92). These studies all hold in common the idea that organizational culture is about systems of meaning (Martin, 1992). Apart from this, scholars make different claims about the extent to which meanings are taken for granted and shared between different sub-groups of an organization, the degree of consensus about interpretations of organizational reality, whether or not ambiguity exists in regard to these interpretations, and the extent to which ‘culture’ can be managed (Martin, Frost, & O’Neill, 2006). This study embraces the fact that life in business organizations offers up a range of phenomena which transcend the rational, economic sphere (Smircich, 1983). Foregrounding the notion of culture allows attention to be directed to a multifaceted array of human manifestations that are otherwise ignored in organization studies. These manifestations are laden with collectively ascribed meanings. They become a viable object of inquiry by applying a cultural perspective. More importantly, cultural research is sensitive to the inevitable case that organizational life contains both shared and contested meanings, organization-wide consensus, consistency and clarity, but also features ambiguity, negotiations, contingencies as well as “multiple and plausible interpretations [of organizational reality]” (Martin, Frost, & O’Neill, 2006, p. 739; cf. Martin, 2002). However, I do not consider ‘culture’ something an organization has or is in the sense of constituting a deep structural entity (cf. Schultz, 1995). Scholars like Parker (2000) have deconstructed that idea by explaining that “cultures (or sub-

culture is seen as one variable among several others; e. g. structure, tasks, actors, and technology in the Leavitt model […]. Culture is an attribute of the organization, typically defined as values or attitudes” (p. 10), which are shared across the entire organization. Moreover, culture can be measured and managed according to this perspective. “Culture as a root metaphor,” on the other hand, “promotes a view on organizations as expressive forms, manifestations of human consciousness. Organizations are understood not mainly in economic or material terms, but in terms of their expressive, ideational and symbolic aspects” (Smircich, 1983, as cited in Schultz, 1995, p. 11).

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cultures) are not homogeneous things, but contested processes of making claims about classification – about unity and division” (p. 86). He argues, [I]f we assume that culture is a term that can only apply to a collectivity of people then we still need to specify how we are deciding who is inside and who is outside that group. In other words, there could be many different cultures within an organization and many different ways of deciding what those cultures are – it depends on what the analyst (and the members) believe counts as the same and what counts as different. (p. 85)

In this book, culture is seen as an abstract concept with heuristic qualities. Following Pettigrew (1979, as cited in Alvesson & Berg, 1992), organizational culture is “more a collective designation for a family of concepts […] [encompassing various] cultural phenomena” (p. 78). The overarching idea of ‘culture’ serves as a researcher’s “lens for examining organizational life” (Martin, 2002, p. 4). It allows for the grasping and interrelating of various aspects of organizational life in their social, material, and mental dimension (Erll, 2005).⁹ Not all phenomena of organizational life are necessarily cultural just because they transcend the perspective offered by classical organization studies. Building on aspects of Niklas Luhmann’s cultural theory (see Burkart & Runkel, 2004), phenomena are only considered cultural in this study if they are generated in social interaction, keep recurring as widespread patterns of organizational life, become persistent over time, and occur among different generations of organizational members. The latter two criteria imply that tradition constitutes an aspect of culture. Tradition is understood to comprise a set of practices passed on normatively which “imply continuity with the past” (Hobsbawm, 2010, p. 1). In consequence, a cultural perspective on business organizations is very much about analyzing the development of organizational life, its members, their thoughts, doings, tools, and creations not just in the present but also in light of the passage of time. Trice and Beyer (1993, as cited in Rowlinson & Procter, 1999), for instance, assert that “it is generally acknowledged that organizational cultures are ‘historically based’, which means that they ‘cannot be divorced from their histories and they do not arise overnight’” (p. 369). The aspect of historicity introduced by culture allows it to be seamlessly grafted onto the topic of organizational remembrance. The chapters to come explain what exactly the cultural phenomena to be scrutinized in this study are.

 The idea to distinguish between social, mental, and material dimensions of organizational life is derived from Erll’s (2005) conceptualization of the dimensions of cultures of remembrance. This, on the other hand, is based on Posner’s (1991) model of culture as a sign system (cf. Posner, 2008). However, this book does not employ a semiotic understanding of the term ‘culture,’ but merely uses Erll’s and Posner’s classification as a heuristic device.

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As discussed in the introduction, modern business organizations increasingly refer to their past in statements about themselves and their supposed practical operations. The following sections thus introduce a number of cultural key concepts that are useful in the early conceptualization and analysis of these processes of remembrance.

2.2 Identity and Image in Organizations as Cultural Categories It is crucial for this study to investigate which role remembering a shared past plays for corporate representation, the construction of community, and the perception of a collective ‘We’ among the workforce. A concept that manages to grasp both aspects of corporate self-fashioning and community-building is the compound of organizational identity and organizational image. This chapter discusses how identity and image serve as fruitful cultural categories in the exploration of organizational remembrance.

2.2.1 The corporation as an imagined community First, however, it must be clarified that business organizations are special social communities. Not necessarily every person desires that their life is defined through partial inclusion in a firm (cf. Müller-Jentsch, 2003). The existence of a community depends on the willingness of a group’s members to relate to each other in collectivizing terms (Rosa, Gertenbach, Lauxm, & Strecker, 2010). In other words, they must develop an integrative sense of an ‘organizational we,’ built on commonalities supposedly shared by all (Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994). Naturally, in a large corporation it is absurd to assume that each and every member is capable of personally relating to every other member the way members of a small tribe do. Organizational members can merely imagine and speak of the corporation as a homogeneous entity of likeminded people. Borrowing a term by Anderson (2006), corporations may be considered ‘imagined communities.’ Several corporations have been observed to feature a high level of member identification and an integrated conceptualization of ‘We’ (e. g., Peters & Waterman, 2004). Schein (2004) claims that a group of organizational members in fact needs to develop some sense of community if they are to strive for a common goal with any success. Cultural concerns include, “Who are we as an organization?”, “What do we do?”, and “How do we do it?” (Gioia, Corley, & Fabbri,

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2002, p. 630). In this respect, many organizations are said to be “in hot pursuit of solid, favorable identities” (Cheney & Christensen, 2001, p. 241), which carry a “claim to uniqueness – that one institution is unlike any other” (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983, p. 438). But what does it actually mean for a business organization to possess an identity? The following section provides clarification.

2.2.2 Organizational identity and organizational image In certain situations, members of a business organization imagine and discursively construct a unifying representation of a supraindividual self that expresses their relation to the organization in conjuncture with the attributes they believe to be defining for that entity. This mode is best described by the term organizational identity (Albert & Whetten, 2004; Hatch & Schultz, 2004). Following Hatch and Schultz’s (1997) definition, “organizational identity refers broadly to what members perceive, feel and think about their organizations. It is assumed to be a collective, commonly-shared understanding of the organization’s distinctive values and characteristics” (p. 357). Organizational identity is “grounded in local meanings and organizational symbols and thus embedded in organizational culture” (p. 358). By relying on certain commonalities that are known to all and (supposedly) shared by most (Orr, 1994), such collective representations of self may become especially salient when a demarcation from the ‘other’ external to the organization or self-assurance against external threats are needed (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006). Scholars assert that organizational identity is highly dynamic and “can change […] over relatively short periods of time” (Gioia, Corley, & Fabbri, 2002, p. 625). It is specific to particular times and places (Parker, 2000), and based on a group’s past work-related experiences (Hatch & Schultz, 1997).¹⁰

 These features of organizational identity are in line with collective identity studies (cf. Brewer & Gardner, 2004; Keupp, Ahbe, Gmür, Höfer, Mitzscherlich, Kraus, & Straus, 2008). Unlike essential possessions, collective identities of larger social formations are constructed representations of a supraindividual self that are concerned with “how we describe ourselves to each other” (Barker, 2006, pp. 10 – 11). These self-orienting representations determine internal commonalities and establish demarcations against the external sphere through which a community with boundaries is imagined. The latter aspect introduces the concept of alterity which stands for the “relation to the Other” (Hall, 1996, p. 4). Collective identities interact closely with relations to other non-group members because construction and maintenance is only possible “through, not outside difference” (p. 4). These interactions mostly happen discursively – i. e. through language (Barker, 2006). According to Sommer (2003), collective identities are changeable and dynamic because of their historicity, which makes them specific to times and places. Moreover, Sommer (2003) points out that they are consciously or unconsciously connected to

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The latter aspect is of particular interest here as it points not only to the role of remembering elements of the past, but also hints at the limits of corporate identity management. While powerful voices might attempt to gain representational dominance through orchestrated corporate identity initiatives, a social group’s self-identity cannot simply be induced artificially. It must be accepted and collectively imagined by a multitude of internal stakeholder groups. They, in turn, need to feel represented, so corporate identity claims are of necessity somewhat congruent with members’ own experiences. Formal and informal practices of organizational remembrance are assumed to discursively weave or destroy this very fabric of congruency. Because most business organizations operate in a market populated by external stakeholders, a broader scope is required that also acknowledges perceptions of, and reactions towards, organizational representations of self. This discursive side of organizational identity is called organizational image (Balmer & Wilson, 1998; Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994; Dutton & Dukerich, 2004; Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Hatch & Schultz, 1997, 2002, 2004). According to Hatch and Schultz (1997), the construction of organizational image happens in two ways: An external foundation of organizational image concerns an audience’s actual feelings and beliefs about distinct organizational attributes. Apart from firsthand experiences with an organization’s products and services, these convictions are created and/or altered through “public impressions created to appeal to an audience” (p. 359), such as advertisement and PR campaigns released by the company to make corporate identity claims. An internal foundation, on the other hand, refers to members’ beliefs about how external stakeholders allegedly perceive the organization. In sum, organizational image is best seen as a combination of both. Following Hatch and Schultz (1997), [O]rganizational image is a holistic and vivid impression held by an individual or a particular group towards an organization and is a result of sense-making by the group and communication by the organization of a fabricated and projected picture of itself [i. e. corporate identity claims]. (p. 359)

Altogether, organizational identity and image stand in a discursive relationship that plays out the following way: The way organizational members behave in public, express their feelings about the organization in public, and the company-related stories they tell their family, friends, or the media shape the external perception of an organization. Their informal behaviors and narratives are pro-

certain ideological views, and based on the content of the social group’s collective memory (cf. Assmann, J., 2007).

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jected outwards, and re-ascribed to formal membership roles. Hatch and Schultz (1997) argue, “[W]hile our projected image is contextualized by our cultural heritage, the interpretations that others give to that projection are contextualized by their culture(s)” (p. 360). Because many organizations have semi-permeable boundaries, external interpretations affect discourses internal to the organization (Martin, 2002). The experiences of external stakeholders with a company are reabsorbed into the organization. They reshape the organizational identity of members who reflect upon their self-image and the impressions they leave with others (Ravasi & Schultz, 2006). If organizational identity and image are not sufficiently coherent, cynicism may emerge among the workforce (Hatch & Schultz, 1997). Hence, management must have an interest in establishing coherence – for instance, by making strategic references to the corporate past.

2.2.3 The ambiguous relationship between organizational identity and the past Now that I have explained my understanding of organizational identities and images, it is time to explicitly establish a connection with the topic of organizational remembrance. In cultural studies, history, sociology, and psychology, it is widely established that the past plays a decisive role in constructing collective identities (Nünning, 1995a; Halbwachs, 1992; Ricoeur, 2004; Schmidt, 2004; Welzer, 2008). Jan Assmann (2007), for example, postulates that social groups “typically draw […] the consciousness of their unity and uniqueness upon experiences of the past” (p. 133). Memory-based narratives enable individual as much as collective experience to be transformed into the experience of others; continual processes of collective self-assurance would not gain any traction without some concept of history (Schmidt, 2004). In organizational culture studies, however, evidence about the exact relationship between identity, image, and the corporate past is ambiguous at best. Several scholars vaguely claim to have detected an “indelible link between history and identity” (Gioia et al., 2002, p. 632). In their opinion, the identifying “claim to uniqueness” (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983, p. 438) is substantially rooted in, and justified by, the organization’s unique history. Deal and Kennedy (2000) declare, “good companies […] understand that it is from history that the symbolic glue congeals to hold a group of people together” (p. 4), and Schein (2004) proclaims “the critical defining characteristic of a group is the fact that its members have a shared history” (p. 11). Most of these studies automatically assume that organizational members ‘have’ a shared past. They do not take into account that practices of collective remembrance are required to craft a

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discourse about the past in the first place (Feldman & Feldman, 2006), from which viable identity material can then be derived. Moreover, the statements from these scholars are ambiguous when it comes to the terms and concepts employed when talking about the past. They do not distinguish between an organization’s past, corporate history, tradition, or memory, which can be attributed to the field’s long standing ahistoricism (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006). Overall, the actual relationship between the past and organizational identities is an under-researched topic (Rowlinson et al., 2010). Empirical explorations are only tentatively emerging (e. g., Schultz & Hernes, 2010, 2013), but they do not necessarily employ a cultural perspective: Anteby and Molnár (2012), for instance, claim to scrutinize the relationship between organizational identity and collective memory at a French aeronautics firm. By reducing their inquiry to internal bulletins (i. e. media) produced by a corporate agent, however, they do not take into account how a shared past is communicatively constructed and recollected by actual members in everyday practice. They remain at the surface level of official representation without delving into the complexities of organizational life. Brunninge’s (2005) study of Handelsbanken and Scania is one of the few that manages to explore how organizational self-understanding is practically affected by references to the corporate past. The next section will introduce another concept that accounts for the missing links.

2.3 Memory and Remembrance in Organizations As already mentioned in the introduction, a relatively young field called organizational memory studies is concerned with the question ‘How’ and ‘Why’ organizations remember their past (for an elaborate overview see Rowlinson et al., 2010). The field is constituted by works from institutional scholars (e. g., El Sawy, Gomes, & Gonzales, 1986), scholars of organizational knowledge management (e. g., Walsh & Ungson, 1991) and scholars of organizational learning (e. g., Casey, 1997; Casey & Olson, 2003; Casey & Olivera, 2011), organizational psychologists (e. g., Corbett, 1997), organizational historians (e. g., Booth & Rowlinson, 2006; Rowlinson, 2010), narratologists (e. g., Boje, 2008; Linde, 2009), and organizational identity scholars (e. g., Nissley & Casey, 2002; Schultz & Hernes, 2010). They all cover disparate aspects of how organizations stand in relation to their past. What exactly the idea of memory denotes and what specific phenomena it is comprised of vary widely. The terminological multiplicity reflects the heterogeneity within the field. For instance, Weaver and Bishop (1974, p. 1) and Megill (2005, p. 11) speak of “corporate memory”. The term “institutional memory” is embraced by El

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Sawy, Gomes, and Gonzales (1986, p. 118), Coffee and Hoffman (2003, p. 38), and Linde (2009, p. 8). A popular term used by Walsh and Ungson (1991, p. 61), Huber (1991, p. 90), Anand, Manz, and Glick (1998, p. 796), and Wexler (2002, p. 395), on the other hand, is “organizational memory.” A study by Feldman and Feldman (2006), moreover, promotes the idea of “organizational remembering” (p. 862). The most recent developments revolve around the term “collective memory in organizations” – an idea first introduced by Casey (1997, p. 111), and picked up by scholars such as Boje (2008), Rowlinson (2010), Rowlinson et al. (2010), and Casey and Olivera (2011). A conceptual classification according to terminology is difficult, so it is more advisable to structure the field according to paradigmatic perspectives. It is possible to identify at least two greater research streams on memory and remembrance in organizations. They make different claims and assumptions about the character, constitution, and manifestation of such memory. The first camp, which Rowlinson et al. (2010) label as “mainstream OMS [organizational memory studies]” (p. 75), follows a functionalistic knowledge management perspective. Driven by positivistic business scholars, it primarily embraces the idea of storing and retrieving knowledge and information in technocratic, mechanistic ways. The second camp follows a sociologically-informed perspective that is more critical of these notions, and directs its gaze instead toward the people-oriented dimension of memory and remembrance in organizational settings. Regarding the theoretical framework of this study, findings from the latter field prove more relevant for the research design. In order to more thoroughly demarcate the ground covered by each camp, however, a few words should be said about the former approach.

2.3.1 Managerial approaches to organizational memory The functionalist camp is mostly concerned with the study and conceptualization of elaborate information systems (cf. Gough, 2004). Scholars such as Weaver and Bishop (1974), Weick (1988), Huber (1991), Anand, Manz, and Glick (1998), Wexler (2002), and Megill (2005) hope to improve processes of organizing – most notably, managerial decision-making – by means of knowledge retention and retrieval. Memory, from their perspective, spans the entirety of retrospective knowledge management procedures and dedicated repository facilities, such as records, archives, and computer systems.¹¹ According to a critical Linde (2009),

 In one of the earliest studies on that topic, Weaver and Bishop (1974) promote the idea of

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two questions are crucial: 1) “How can organizational experiences be turned into functionalizable knowledge”; and 2) “How do we keep the knowledge while losing the people?” (p. 10; cf. Walsh & Ungson, 1991; Weick, 1988). The allure in creating and controlling such a system lies in the claim that good knowledge management improves business performance (Cross & Baird, 2000). History is merely seen “as a diagnostic tool” (Smith & Steadman, 1981, p. 164) that contains “a usable past for the planning of the future” (El Sawy, Gomes, & Gonzales, 1986, p. 118). Questions of organizational culture, identity, and image are not particularly prominent in the knowledge management approach. El Sawy, Gomes, and Gonzales (1986), for example, only mention in a side note that memory can provide an answer to the question of “How did we come to be here?” (p. 121), and that history can also be used for promotional purposes. While a seminal article by Walsh and Ungson (1991) identifies culture as one of five retention “bins” (p. 58) of organizational memory, cultural information is fashioned as objective facts learned and shared through collectively valid interpretations of the past.

corporate memory, which “may be defined as the total in-house information systems and services of an organization, which are established to collect, organize, and store efficiently all documentation generated within or coming into the company and which have the inherent feature of retrieving documents and/or information on a current and retrospective basis upon demand” (pp. 1– 2). In similar terms, Megill (2005) claims that “[c]orporate memory consists of the active and historical information in an organization that is worth sharing, managing and preserving for later reuse” (p. 11). Weick (1988) speaks of institutional memory, which he sees as an organization’s “asset” for retrospective sensemaking processes in top management if it holds a “varied and rich” selection of people’s “categories and assumptions that they store in cause maps built up from previous experience” (p. 312). Using a different term, Huber (1991) embraces the idea of organizational memory, which “is the means by which knowledge is stored for future use,” including processes of “[s]toring and retrieving information” as much as “[c]omputerbased organizational memory” (p. 90). Anand, Manz, and Glick (1998) define organizational memory as “the information and knowledge known by the organization and the processes by which such information is acquired, stored, and retrieved by its members” (p. 796; cf. Roth & Kleiner, 1998). Based on these ideas, Olivera (2000) employs the term organizational memory systems, which “are sets of knowledge retention devices, such as people and documents, that collect, store and provide access to the organization’s experience” (p. 815). Wexler (2002), on the other hand, identifies organizational memory “as the most consciously designed, controlled and managed form of collective memory […] marrie[d] […] with a pragmatic concern for raising the adaptive capacity and economic value of the system being managed” (p. 395). With the rise of electronic data processing in corporate settings, scholars such as Ackerman and Halverson (2000), Sandoe (1998), and Tuomi (1995) developed a strong interest in computer software systems as technical decision-aiding devices for information retention, which they call organizational memory. Studies advocating this position include, for instance, Ackerman (1994), Ackerman and Mandel (1999), Hwang and Salvendy (2005), or Karsten (1999).

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The complexity and fragmented character of organizational life is not taken into account. Organizational reality is not seen as a dynamic construction, and the notion that its construal legitimately permits a number of different versions is not acknowledged. Moreover, the notion of gathering multiple and conflicting memories of an organization’s past is only viewed in terms of enabling a “more comprehensive retrieval process” (p. 70) – as if there was an objective past that could be truthfully accounted for, equally accepted, or retrieved by all members. Issues of representation, the role of dominant agents with gatekeeping functions, and issues of control and power are disregarded. Similarly, Rowlinson et al. (2010) critically point out that Walsh and Ungson “do not recognize that recollection, or imaginative reconstruction of the past, represents much more than merely a functional aid for decision making” (p. 76). According to the authors’ critique, this is where the main problem of mainstream organizational memory studies lies – namely in that it “fail[s] to appreciate that the past in an organization is ‘not just like a database’” (Fridenson, 2008, as cited in Rowlinson et al., 2010, p. 83).

2.3.2 Sociological perspectives on collective memory in organizations In response to this managerialist knowledge management perspective, a handful of organizational memory scholars have employed a cultural perspective that is informed by sociological studies on collective memory (Booth & Rowlinson, 2006; Casey & Olivera, 2011; Rowlinson et al., 2010). The primary focus of inquiry within these studies is the human element in organizations. Employees and their productions are understood as the carriers of a collective memory that provides the basis for a shared past. One of the first seminal contributions is a case study by Casey (1997). The author empirically explores how members of a healthcare organization form and transmit representations of the past through verbal accounts.¹² A second study by Nissley and Casey (2002) examines the politics of remembrance in corporate museums through the paradigmatic lens of collective memory. The authors analyze how organizations frame historical experiences and select what to actively remember and what to strategically forget. Viewing corporate museums as “sites of organizational memory” (p. 35), they come to ac-

 Based on Bartlett’s (1995) sociopsychological concept of memory, Casey (1997) distinguishes between an episodic structure (personally experienced memories) and a semantic structure (memories of experiences that were passed on; learned and symbolically represented knowledge) of collective memory in organizations, but mainly roots her approach in Halbwachs’ (1980) notion of autobiographical and historical memory.

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knowledge that the cultural construction of memory for representational purposes has political ramifications. In a more recent study, Boje (2008) proposes various types of collective memory in organizations,¹³ but he reduces the scope of his investigation to storytelling. The analysis of cultural forms aside from oral history, such as material artifacts or other social practices, is missing. The central insight remains that people in organizations create a common past through artfully crafted narratives, which affect their behavior and which are shaped by concerns in the present.

2.3.3 A shift toward organizational remembrance as a cultural practice The studies mentioned above mainly scrutinize memory as an entity an organization has. Feldman and Feldman (2006), in contrast, are among the first scholars who promote the idea of memory as something an organization does. They propose a framework of “organizational remembering” as a “practice in culture and history” (p. 868) through which organizational members collectively make sense of the past and the present. Collective remembering is seen as an activity that actors do, thereby constructing meaning, rather than just retrieving it. A similar approach is taken by Schatzki (2006). Seeing organizations as “bundle [s] of practices and material arrangements” (p. 1863), he proposes the idea of “practice memory” (p. 1868), which he considers the “persistence of structure from the past into the present” (p. 1868). Charlotte Linde (2009) finally presents empirical evidence for how these theoretical constructs play out in actual business organizations. Based on a long-term study conducted in a large U.S. American insurance company, she argues that people in organizations employ various practices of “working the past” in order “to create a particular desired present and future” (p. 14). From her praxeological perspective, Files in a warehouse, in someone’s office, or in a database are not memory, but rather resources for potential remembering. Files become part of active remembering when they are used. Thus, the practices for use are as important as the actual form of storage. (Linde, 2009, p. 12)

 Boje (2008) distinguishes between four types of collective memory, namely the 1) managerial collective memory (“horizontal and vertical lines to [a] retrospective center point”); 2) punctual collective memory (“didactic silos, [which are] horizontal and diagonal, [and show] some feigning of multiplicity”); 3) multilineal collective memory (“transhistorical, [which serves as a] break with horizontal or vertical points”); and the 4) polyphonic collective memory (acts of anti memory [and] mutations [that] make points indiscernible) (p. 86), founding his conceptions on Halbwachs (1980).

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She thus counters the idea that collective memory and a shared organizational past per se exist. Instead, the author points to remembering as an ongoing activity that involves mnemonic practices supported by material resources.¹⁴ This book follows Feldman and Feldman’s (2006), and Linde’s (2009) approach. In order to account for the performative character of retrospection in a corporate setting, I speak of organizational remembrance rather than organizational memory. It emphasizes cultural practices and tools that actors use to collectively (re) construct representations of the corporate past. The ‘how’ of remembering becomes of greater interest than the ‘what.’ In this respect, Linde’s (2009) concept of ‘working the past’ is fruitfully used in this book to denote the professional activities a company carries out in practice to socially reconstruct, represent, and instrumentalize its past in terms of history. Unfortunately, “we still have very limited research about how conceptions of history are socially constructed in business organizations”, as Brunninge (2009, p. 9) emphasizes. This, however, is not the only gap.

2.3.4 The missing link between organizational memory, identity, and image As Rowlinson et al. (2010) assert, “Incidentally, for the most part [the field of organizational memory studies] makes no connection with organizational identity” (p. 75). Some studies manage to establish tentative links. Casey’s (1997) study, for instance, identifies collectively shared memories and themes that affect members’ relationships to the organization. However, organizational identity is seen as a factor contributing to the formation of collective memory, rather than an outcome of a shared past made conscious. In another study, Casey and Olson (2003) explore the implications of “deeply rooted patterns or heritage” for the construction of organizational identity and image, and detect

 Following Reckwitz (2008), a practice is understood as a “skillful performance of competent bodies” (p. 113). It is more than an act or a combination of acts since it “consists of specific, routinized movements and activities of the body” (p. 114). In order to perform these movements and activities, “practical [incorporated] knowledge” (p. 115) or “know-how” (p. 116) is required, which implies that they can be repeated and reproduced intentionally. Moreover, certain practices do not only require an actor who can claim the knowledge to carry them out, but they also presuppose specific material artifacts (e. g. a car and an ignition key for the practice of driving). In terms of the aforementioned research questions, this study is mostly interested in social practices of organizational remembrance. It includes “inter-subjective, routinized activities” (p. 117) such as informal storytelling, but it also includes “inter-objective” (p. 117) routinized activities such as archival research. In fact, organizational remembrance is an umbrella term for a range of practices that are utilized in order to remember a company’s past.

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“core aspects of identity” in collective memory (p. 9). The authors declare that there is a “critical recursive relationship between the formation and stability of core elements of collective memory and identity over time” (p. 8). They conclude that, in response to the external context, critical contents of collective memory “may shift or change over time […] yet core elements of these memories will remain constant reflecting the core elements of the identity of an organization” (p. 8). How exactly this process unfolds in practice remains unclear, however. Linde’s (2009) inquiry into the role of shared narratives in organizational identity construction presents the most comprehensive empirical evidence. Unfortunately, her insights have, up until this point, flown beneath the academic radar. With the exception of Linde (2009), none of the studies mentioned above provides a detailed conceptualization of how organizational remembrance actually works in practice and how it manifests itself in cultural phenomena other than oral tradition, archives, corporate history books, and corporate museums. As various scholars have shown, organizational life offers up a plethora of cultural phenomena in the social, material, and mental sphere. However, their complex ramifications in organizational remembrance are mostly unknown. Little research exists on the practices and manifestations of organizational remembrance such as artifacts and media, the organizational infrastructure of ‘working’ the past, the impact of dominant gatekeepers on selectively representing the past, the time-specificity and dynamism of remembrance, and the impact of the sphere external to the organization. These aspects need to be taken into account if one wishes to pursue a culturally-oriented perspective on the relationships between organizational remembrance, identity, and image. More importantly, empirical evidence is needed if the field of organizational memory studies does not wish to remain a discourse comprised of theory-based syntheses and vague assumptions. Lastly, I argue that organizational memory studies tends to ignore newer approaches from its interdisciplinary counterpart collective/cultural memory studies (for a state-of-the-art overview see Erll & Nünning, 2008; Erll, 2011; Gudehus, Eichenberg, & Welzer, 2010; Olick, Vinitzky-Seroussi, & Levy, 2011; cf. Berek, 2009). The next chapter presents a pre-empirical theoretical framework that attempts to integrate aspects from all the aforementioned academic discourses in order to guide the empirical research process.

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2.4 Organizational Cultures of Remembrance as a Conceptual Nexus This book employs an approach I have decided to refer to as organizational cultures of remembrance. It was created to work toward a more detailed understanding of ‘how’ and ‘why’ business organizations remember their past in practice, and how this relates to identity and image. It is a conceptual nexus that helps to grasp a diverse range of cultural phenomena which are thought to play a role in reconstructing, representing, and instrumentalizing the corporate past. Adjusted to a corporate context, it was derived from Erll’s (2005) “cultures of remembrance” (p. 102) model. In the original model, Erll (2005) postulates that societies contain “a multiplicity of coexistent, often competing mnemonic communities” (p. 102) – i. e. groups of people which are bound by the remembrance of a supposedly common past. These mnemonic communities craft their own semiotic systems of remembrance in the material, social, and mental dimension of their culture.¹⁵ As a meta-concept, the cultures of remembrance model integrates the various ways and manifestations through which communities of human beings culturally make sense of the past from a perspective in the present – namely, not only through individual mental recollection, but also by means of social interactions and with the help of distinct tools (cf. Erll, 2011). The idea of a culture of remembrance in business organizations has also begun to emerge in the corporate sphere. For example, Volkswagen AG’s leading

 According to Erll’s outline (2005), the material dimension of a culture of remembrance accounts for “the media of collective memory” (p. 102) through which a social formation gains access to its past. It also includes “cultural artifacts (e. g. history books, memorials, documents, photos)” (p. 103). The social dimension embraces actors and practices, which means that it includes “persons and social institutions which are involved in producing, storing and recollecting knowledge relevant to the collective” (p. 102), as well as their practices and “acts of collective remembrance” (p. 103). Lastly, the mental dimension attempts to grasp “culture-specific schemata and collective codes that enable and coin collective remembrance through symbolic mediation” (p. 102). Erll also places dominant “mental dispositions” such as “value hierarchies, historical images [and] cultural stereotypes” into this dimension (pp 102– 103). The three dimensions overlap and are interdependent upon each other, standing in a constant interrelation. However, they are not situated on one level, as the analytical partition suggests (Erll, 2008a). While the social and material dimension can be observed directly, the mental dimension only become manifest in the material dimension or put in practice through the social dimension. Vice versa, components of the social and material dimensions lose their mnemonic quality when they are not actualized through the mental dimension. In Erll’s (2008a) words, “[w]ithout such actualizations, monuments, rituals, and books are nothing but dead material, failing to have any impact on societies” (p. 5; cf. Zierold, 2006, 2008).

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corporate historian, Manfred Grieger, operates with the “culture of remembrance” term (as quoted in Schug, 2003, p. 56) when he describes the official practices the German automobile corporation performs in order to commemorate the organization’s Third Reich past (cf. Grieger, 2007). Similarly, BASF archivist Susan Becker (2008) proclaims that, without a doubt, “corporate archives […] are carriers of the culture of remembrance” of a company (p. 9). Which cultural phenomena such a model comprises from a research perspective, however, requires further specification.

2.4.1 Cultural forms of organizational remembrance in three dimensions A company can be seen as a mnemonic community of members who are assumed to share some kind of organization-related past. Since the notion of a collective past does not per se exist, companies make one for themselves through a range of mnemonic practices and material representations which are linked to mental models. A working concept of organizational cultures of remembrance primarily serves as a heuristic device that helps to gather these ‘building blocks’ in the empirical setting. It does not make any claim to represent what a company ‘has’ or ‘is,’ but remains an approach intended to direct research efforts towards analyzing cultural phenomena of mnemonic relevance. The main idea is that recollection of the past takes place through various cultural forms. Only those cultural forms are of interest to this study that fulfill a retrospective function in a corporate setting. Hence, these forms are labeled cultural forms of organizational remembrance. In accordance with Erll (2005), they are categorized into material, social, and mental dimensions. The material dimension includes mnemonic media, cultural artifacts, elements of physical space, and corporate sites of remembrance that represent and/or are used to represent the corporate past. Cultural artifacts are “physical vestiges of human activities” that can be found in an organization (Berg, 1987, as cited in Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 80). Of scholarly interest are corporate history books (Hayes, 2004; Lewis & Phillips Newton 1981; Rowlinson & Hassard, 1993), public relations and marketing productions (Schug, 2003), company magazines (Griffiths, 1995; Heller, 2008; Phillips, 2008), museum exhibition texts (Nissley & Casey, 2002), and other media that are used “to perform preferred ideological narratives” (Taylor & Freer, 2002, p. 563) about the corporate past. These media are complemented by history-related merchandise and old products that a company deems relevant. Elements of physical space, on the other hand, are considered to be interior design and architecture that may give insight into an organization’s relationship with its past (e. g., Berg & Kreiner, 1990;

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O’Connor, 1988; Parker, 2002; Proshansky, Fabian, & Kaminoff, 1995). With reference to Nora (1986),¹⁶ corporate sites of remembrance embrace historic buildings a company deems relevant (Berg & Kreiner, 1990), corporate memorials, commemorative plaques and statues (Gough, 2004; Griffiths, 1995), the premises of historical archives (Niebuhr Eulenberg, 1984), and exhibitions in corporate museums (Nissley & Casey, 2002). The social dimension accounts for what the stakeholders of an organization actively do when remembering the corporate past, as well as the organizational structures and institutions they create.¹⁷ I distinguish between practices and carriers of organizational remembrance. Relevant practices to be scrutinized include rituals, such as leaving ceremonies (Harris & Sutton, 1986; Martin, 2002), anniversaries, and other commemorative festivities (Gough, 2004; Griffiths, 1995).¹⁸ The social dimension also encompasses the oral tradition of anecdotes and complex narratives through storytelling (Boje, 1991, 1995, 2008; Boyce, 1995, 1996; Brown, Denning, Groh & Prusak, 2005; Casey, 1997; Kelly, 1985; Mar-

 In contrast to Nora’s (1986) broader notion of lieux de mémoire, I reduce sites of remembrance to geographical locations, buildings, and commemorative sites that have physical features.  My understanding of institutionalization follows Selznick (1957, as cited in Strati, 2000), who considers “’to institutionalize’ […] [as] to infuse with value beyond the technical requirements of the task at hand” (p. 110). Institutions thus comprise social practices and social formations that have been legitimized and stabilized by corporate actors though acts of formalization, thus preventing them from changing substantially (Strati, 2000).  Both rituals and ceremonies are defined as “collective [symbolic] action patterns” (Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 82) and “culture-specific procedural actions” (Dücker, 2007, p. 2) that feature “well-demarcated beginnings and ends” (Trice & Beyer, 1984, p. 654). Rituals are recurring, “stylized or formalized” performances (Smircich, 1983, p. 59) that orient and discipline the collective. They consist “of a carefully planned and executed set of activities, carried out in a social context (an audience), with […] well-defined roles or organizational members” (Martin, 2002, p. 66). A ritual “confirms and reproduces given social patterns” (Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 84). In other words, it creates and reinforces order for the collective, which is why it has contains “a political dimension” (Dücker, 2007, p. 3). Rituals often mediate “between two social time orders” (Dücker, 2004, p. 581), e. g. by bridging the past with the present, by initiating a new phase, or terminating an old one (cf. Dücker, 2007). Ceremonies, on the other hand, are extraordinary ritualistic performances in a collective that often have a formal and festive character. They are vehicles for “expressing a feeling of tradition and historical consciousness” (Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 84), such as anniversaries and commemorations (e. g., Griffiths, 1995). They “serve to structure, validate, and stabilize collective action in part due to their being ‘passed along’ to newcomers during periods of socialization” (Trice, Belasco, & Alutto, 1969, p. 42). Both rituals and ceremonies are seen as “instrument[s]” that “traditionalize new material as well as perpetuate old traditions” (Moore & Myerhoff, 1977, as cited in Islam & Zyphur, 2009, p. 120).

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tin & Powers, 1983),¹⁹ and the tradition of myths (McWhinney & Batista, 1988; Prasad, 1997).²⁰ Carriers of organizational remembrance, on the other hand, are conceptualized as formalized social bodies within the company that “produce, store, and retrieve knowledge relevant for the collective” (Erll, 2005, p. 102). They ‘work’ the past in professional terms (Linde, 2009), and for this purpose dedicated organizational structures are erected. Some of them may be more institutionalized than others. Of particular interest are corporate history departments and public relations units (Schug, 2003), company archives (Brothman, 2001), and corporate museums (Danilov, 1992; Nissley & Casey, 2002) that ‘work’ the past full-time. Moreover, of importance is also the examination of clubs, historical associations, and other stakeholder groups – even outside the boundaries of the company – that concern themselves with aspects of the corporate past (e. g., Grieger, 2007; Schug, 2003). The mental dimension is the most difficult to trace. According to Erll (2005), mental aspects can only be observed when manifested through cultural forms of the material dimension (e. g. employee handbooks with historical references) or practices within the social dimension (e. g. through oral accounts). Relevant “collective mental frameworks” (Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 81) that are assumed to be rooted in the corporate past include beliefs and values,²¹ ideologies,²² and historical self-images of how the organization had once been (cf. Erll, 2005).²³

 Stories are a popular type of narrative for reconstructing and passing on a shared sense of reality that is rooted in the past (Boyce, 1996). As an umbrella term that can be subdivided into various types, stories convey information about significant experiences, persons, objects, etc. in an organization’s past. They feature a protagonist and a plot characterized by development and change (Czarniawska, 1998). Passed on through the practice of storytelling, stories serve as commonly used inter-generational vehicles of remembrance (Linde, 2009). Occurring on the formal and the informal level of organizational life, the social function of storytelling can be one of a community-creating and entertaining, but also an educational, guiding, and restricting nature (Boyce, 1995; Poulton, 2005).  This study sees myths as “expression[s] of natural, deep, archaic […], ideological […], social […], or cognitive […] patterns which influence / are influenced by the organization’s structure or strategy or which legitimize contradictions in organizational practice” (Alvesson & Berg, 1992, p. 82). They provide orientation to organizational members (Bowles, 1989), present an organization-specific world-view, and explain how e. g. the business or the market works (Alvesson & Berg, 1992).  Beliefs are convictions about social reality in which an individual or a group hold confidence. According to Weick (1995), “believing is seeing. To believe is to notice selectively” (p.133). Values, on the other hand, are relative assumptions about what is important in an organization (Martin, 2002). Beliefs and values are often used synonymously in management literature and the mission statements of companies, which renders a clear distinction somewhat complicated.

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2.4.2 The constructedness of corporate history In cultural studies, history, sociology, and psychology it is widely acknowledged that remembrance of the past plays a decisive role in the construction and perception of social reality as well as the crafting and maintenance of collective identities (e. g., Halbwachs, 1992; Nünning, 1995a; Ricoeur, 2004; Schmidt, 2004; Welzer, 2008). According to this position, processes of collective self-assurance would not gain any stability without passing on knowledge about the past that becomes rooted and established in some concept of history (J. Assmann, 2007; Schmidt, 2004). This study is based on a constructivist understanding of history. According to Boia (2003), “’[h]istory’ indicates that which has really happened, as well as the reconstruction of the event – in other words: the past in its course, and the discourse about the past” (p. 1).²⁴ The latter is the product of human action, which is a reduced, “incomplete, simplified, and distorted image of the past” (p. 1). In a historic discourse, elements of the past deriving from “real history” – which Boia compares to an “unsorted inexhaustible stock” (p. 1) – are filtered and arranged by agents and gatekeepers that have the power and authority to interpret the past. This way, ‘facts’ are created by extracting single historical images from a bigger context. Those bits and pieces are arranged, sequentially and dramaturgically, into narrative accounts, which are driven by the desire to make sense of the past in relation to the present – to “create coherence and raisond’être” (Haskell, 1998, p. 1). The crafted character of history thus becomes eminent (Ricoeur, 2002; White, 1987). In modern times, the main practice which crafts and manifests an image of the past is the writing of history. Because the historical manifestation of any so-

 Ideology is conceived as a concept describing “the means by which social reality is constructed and reproduced [in a hegemonic systems]” (Mumby, 1988, p. 72). Ideologies are used to make claims about social reality “so that social structures are no longer perceived as humanly constructed” (p. 73), to legitimize and reproduce certain organizational meaning structures and to maintain status quo. In sum, organizational ideologies are used to promote certain “sectional interests” over others (Mumby, 1988, p. 74).  Historic self-images are complexity-reducing images of an organization in the past. They neither grasp nor acknowledge the whole complexity of past circumstances, but perpetuate historical, often simplistic images of the past filled with supposedly ‘essential’ qualities of an organization (Balmer & Wilson, 1998). Historic self-images are not only affirmative (Gioia & Thomas, 1996), but can also be of a nostalgic or revisionist quality (Mai, 2009; cf. Gabriel, 2000).  Nünning (1995b) differentiates “history as an event, narrative, science and content of historical consciousness” (p. 110). However, the distinction provided by Boia (2003) shall be sufficient here.

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cial formation’s past can never be objective (Kaschuba, 2001), a corporation’s history, too, is subjectively constructed. Business organizations prefer to gatekeep and control the process of crafting history, as it is closely linked to economic interests, the maintenance of the status quo, and the pursuit of organizational legitimacy on the market – an observation several business historians such as Chandler (1988) and Lewis and Phillips Newton (1981) make (cf. Delahaye, Booth, Clark, Procter, & Rowlinson, 2009). When historical meanings are controlled by specific agents who ideologically and strategically pursue the current interests of management, history serves the present and becomes political (Kaschuba, 2001). Following Aleida Assmann (2006), there is “a difference between writing history and remembering history” (p. 70). Dominant forces tend to define and write history, whereas those who remember the past in the form of history generally have neither participated in the creation of these accounts nor gained firsthand experience with the events for which accounts exist. This means that specific corporate actors have the capacity to establish truth claims about images of the past in terms of history. Hence, history becomes an important form of representing the past that makes it possible to convey common understandings that may even be taken for granted. However, it is very unlikely that all members of an organization seek to construct a homogenous corporate community or a single corporate history. According to Gioia, Corley, and Fabbri (2002), history is thus considered “not as taken-for-granted fact or as established reality, but instead as a set of events that is continually up for re-negotiation or revision as the organization attempts to adapt to current or future situations” (p. 629). In any kind of social formation, remembrance does not rely on the so-called objectivity of historical events. Similar to history, memories are not necessarily objective images of a past reality, but “they are subjective, highly selective reconstructions depending on the situation of recall” (Erll, 2008a, p. 7). What is socially remembered or forgotten, passed onto the next generation, and muted strongly depends on the present perspective.

2.4.3 Considerations in the context of modern business organizations In the context of business companies, a working concept of organizational cultures of remembrance thus needs to account for a number of aspects: A company can be viewed as a mnemonic community of organizational members who are bound by a shared past. However, this allegedly shared past needs to be seen as a strategically crafted version that fulfills both representational purposes toward an external audience, as much as providing the organization with a degree

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of self-assurance. I hypothesize that distinct elements of the past serve as resources for organizational identity and image construction, as well as for the construal of organizational reality among the workforce. Since corporations adhere to a future-oriented principle of business, it is reasonable to expect that their present perspective adapts to changing market currents and contemporary concerns. These changing elements are thought to affect what aspects of the past are recollected, instrumentalized, and muted – i. e. forgotten. In consequence, identity and image needs may change over the course of time. As Gioia, Corley, and Fabbri (2001) found out, companies demand an identity that is “stable and enduring over time,” while remaining “fluid and susceptible to prevailing interpretive currents” (p. 623). The tension between stability and dynamism demands an approach that accounts for substantial changes in organizational remembrance, as well (cf. Gioia & Thomas, 1996). Moreover, an empirical exploration must distinguish between the formal and informal side of organizational remembrance – i. e. what the company does as a corporate actor for business-related purposes, and what members personally recollect within and outside their formal membership roles. In this respect, it is interesting to see how these two modes differ, influence, and potentially clash with one another – especially when accounts of official corporate history meet autobiographical recollections of work experiences. Furthermore, the notion of partial inclusion precludes the assumption that a business organization is necessarily comprised of a homogenous mnemonic community of members who share the same elements of the corporate past. The aspect of multi-vocality, the existence of sub-communities, and power plays between dominant gatekeepers of the corporate past should also be taken into account. This book focuses particularly on the processes through which an organization aims to influence its members’ conceptualizations of corporate history, hoping to achieve integration. This chapter has attempted to delineate the theoretical framework that was used to guide empirical research on the relationships between memory, identity, and image in a business organization from a cultural perspective. With the benefit of hindsight, it should be mentioned that certain concepts and categories turned out to be more fruitful than others during the empirical research process. To retain the explorative character of qualitative empirical research (Kelle & Kluge, 2010), the theoretical model proposed here was not regarded as a collection of hypotheses in need of testing, but more as a guiding star that allowed for basic orientation.

3 Empirical Research Design Based on the lack of empirical evidence regarding the phenomenon of organizational remembrance, an approach was deemed necessary which could grasp it in an explorative fashion. The research style of organizational ethnography was chosen because it allows for the scrutinizing of organizational life over an extended period from within the boundaries of a company (e. g., Augustynek, 2010; Brewer, 2006; Linde, 2009; Schwartzman, 1993; Spülbeck, 2010). The lack of “preoccupation with methodology” (Rowlinson et al., 2010, p. 77) observable in organizational memory studies necessitated that a comprehensive research plan be created from scratch.²⁵ It translated theoretical concepts into detectable phenomena of everyday organizational life, formulated criteria for selecting a viable business organization, narrowed down a distinct set of qualitative methods, and structured the ethnographic field phase into a process made up of a series of tasks. However, what was executed turned out to be a compromise between what had been theoretically planned and what was possible in the field (cf. Buchanan, Boddy, & McCalman, 1988). Slight amendments to the research design had to be made in the course of fieldwork (cf. Waddington, 2006). Select methods became more prominent and fertile in data construction than others. Moreover, certain theoretical concepts that had originally driven research gradually lost their relevance. Some foci shifted, and additional questions emerged in unforeseen ways. To account for the actual process of investigation, the empirical research design shall be discussed as carried out in practice.

 Those few studies that provide disclosure of methods lack a culturally-informed perspective. For example, de Holan and Phillips’ (2001) empirical study on the dynamics of organizational forgetting in a hotel chain provides only little background information on their fieldwork in Cuba and the research method. Their operationalization of theoretical concepts into traceable social phenomena remains opaque. The same applies to Karsten’s (1999) case study on organizational memory at a computer consulting firm. It is unclear how she translated the ambiguous concept into interview questions, apart from mentioning that “the interviews contained statements regarding participants’ views of the use and role of [organizational memory]” (p. 139). Olivera (2000), in contrast, gives partial insight in the form of one paragraph, explaining how he broke down the concept of organizational memory in his interviews with employees of a consulting firm. Casey’s (1997) case study on collective memory in organizations forms an important exception. By including an interview guide (see pp. 141– 142) and by explaining her approach to coding and analyzing (see pp. 143 – 144), Casey makes the process of scientific knowledge generation comprehensible and traceable for those who wish to undertake empirical explorations themselves.

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This chapter commences with a description of the fieldwork setting – i. e. the business organization ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in. It begins by exploring details of the organization, its structures, products, and workforce as they operated at the time of investigation. This chapter then provides a short history of the company under investigation. Finally, the methodology and mix of qualitative methods are explicated as applied in the field. This portion is complemented by a discussion of fieldwork as an interactive social process taking place between the researcher and the members of the organization. In short, this chapter aims at making the empirical research process transparent and traceable.

3.1 Description of the Fieldwork Setting at the Time of Investigation Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in a single twelve-month phase from 2 August 2010 to 27 July 2011 at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt, Germany – the headquarters of the Audi Group.²⁶ Among other products, the corporation manufactured and marketed so-called ‘premium automobiles’ under the Audi brand.²⁷ Like the majority of strongly gatekept organizations, the company was a setting with “closed access” (Hornsby-Smith, 1993, as cited in Brewer, 2006, p. 315). The corporate history department Audi Tradition agreed to provide access to officially study the company’s ‘culture of remembrance.’

 ‘AUDI AG’ refers to the company in Germany, ‘Audi Group’ denotes the international corporation which comprises a number of consolidated principal group companies around the world, and ‘Audi’ refers to the brand.  This brand of a company can be understood as “the face it presents to the world” (Chambers, Foulon, Handfield-Jones, Hankin, & Michaels, 1998, p. 3). The Audi brand was a legally registered trademark that marked the company’s products and official activities. Common for the automobile industry, the Audi brand was more than a legal designation. Marketing efforts were concerned with creating a semiotic “brand world[..]” (Manning, 2010, p. 38) around the trademark. Through a complex range of marketing and PR practices, the company attempted to ascribe a binding set of meanings to the Audi brand, which it considered to constitute a distinctive Audi ‘brand identity.’ Such brand identity was meant to clearly distinguish Audi from competitor brands, such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW. In an attempt to humanize the brand, marketing professionals tended to portray its identity in terms of “essence – its genetic material” (Bedbury & Fenichell, 2003, p. 27). Despite these naturalistic claims, however, the brand remained a manmade, artificial construct which was malleable in every conceivable way. In consequence, a company’s brand image, on the other hand, denotes the co-constructive result of a company’s brand identity claims mixed with external audiences’ perceptions of respective brand – similar to the concept of organizational image, as discussed in the theory chapter.

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By default, any ethnographic study can only provide a time-specific snapshot of organizational life. As Antonio Strati (2000) remarks “the same organization cannot be ‘known’ twice” (p. XI) because it is subject to continuous change before and after research is conducted. Hence, it makes sense to discuss a range of time-specific conditions surrounding the organization that affected the research design of this study.

3.1.1 A subsidiary within a corporate group of multiple sites, lives, and pasts AUDI AG was a 99.55 %-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG – the second biggest automobile manufacturer in the world (AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2011; cf. SZ, 2011, July 15). A control and profit transfer agreement made the company dependent on its parent company. Based on the German two-tier board system of publicly traded companies, AUDI AG’s board of management was complemented by a supervisory board where several members of Volkswagen AG’s board of management held a prominent position (AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2011). Moreover, top managers of Volkswagen AG had the right to intervene in the operations of AUDI AG. Profits and losses, resources, and technologies were shared within the group; the company’s strategy was situated within the corporation’s larger strategic framework. The corporate parent turned out to be ubiquitous in many aspects of everyday organizational life. Audi thus had to be seen in this broader context – i. e. of an entity comprised of a corporate association of multiple brands and companies. At the same time, Audi was a complex corporate construct itself. The Audi Group owned multiple production sites in half a dozen countries. Plants where cars were built by Audi workers were located in Germany (Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm), Hungary (Györ), and Belgium (Brussels). Audi products were also produced at dedicated Volkswagen Group plants in Slovakia (Bratislava), China (Changchun), India (Aurangabad), and Spain (Martorell). Automobiles carrying the ‘Four Rings’ emblem were sold internationally by consolidated sales companies and importers on more than eighty markets (AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2011). At the time of this investigation, the total workforce had a size of almost 60,000 members, of which almost 47,000 members were employed at the two German sites alone (AUDI AG, Personalwirtschaft und Informationssysteme, 2010, October, p. 2). In consequence, encountering a corporation that was both homogeneous and fully integrated seemed far-fetched. Based on empirical studies of complex organizations by Parker (2000) and Martin (2000), each corporate site was as-

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sumed to feature its own organizational life. It made similar sense to assume that each site would also embrace its own past. To reduce complexity and provide ethnographic depth, fieldwork was restricted to the so-called Stammwerk [main plant] in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt.

3.1.2 A strong employer in the region bent on economic success At the headquarters, globally relevant decisions regarding administration and marketing were made, the majority of new technologies and products were developed, and the largest number of automobiles was built. AUDI AG was the biggest employer in the Ingolstadt region (DK, 2007, April 27) and more than 40 % of all working citizens were employed at the company which provided more than 33,000 jobs (Stadt Ingolstadt, 2012, para. 10). Moreover, hundreds of regional suppliers, sub-contractors, and service firms had created thousands of jobs that catered to the demands of the firm. As an informant stated, “Every Ingolstadt citizen claims at least one family member who is working at Audi. […] When Audi has a hiccup today, the whole region is at stake” (Ethno. 106, l. 30). In consequence, public interest in the company’s economic state was strong. This was amplified by the fact that the company proclaimed 2010 to be a “historical record year” (AUDI AG, 2011, January 7, para. 1). In total, the company ended the 2010 fiscal year with an operating profit of more than 3.3 billion Euros, having delivered slightly over 1 million cars (AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2011, p. 130). Despite the global financial crisis of the late 2000s, the company managed to top their delivery and profit records, from which, in turn, employees benefited financially and in terms of job stability (AUDI AG, 2011, December 27; SPON, 2011, March 3). According to a survey, the company was ranked as one of the most popular employers in Germany (AUDI AG, Kommunikation Unternehmen, 2011, April 18; Manager Magazin, 2011, pp. 115 – 116; cf. SPON, 2011, April 15; WiWo, 2011, May 19), and the brand had one of the most attractive images in the industry (BrandTrust GmbH, 2011). Fieldwork was thus conducted during a highly successful business cycle, and large parts of the workforce were euphoric about this success and what it meant for the community of ‘Audianer.’

3.1.3 Formal organizational structure and social structure of the workforce The local workforce of almost 33,000 members consisted of a heterogeneous mix of people with different skills and backgrounds (AUDI AG, Personalwirtschaft

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und Informationssysteme, 2010, October, p. 2). It incorporated assembly line workers, engineers, mechanics, designers, accountants, communications experts, lawyers, pedagogues, IT-specialists, researchers, cooks, firemen, physicians, and many other professionals who kept the automobile company running. The extensive division of labor and occupational differentiation was reflected by the formal organizational structure; seven business units could each be broken down into more than 64 organizational units; these units were each sub-divided in several departments (AUDI AG, Organisation, 2010, September 2, p. 1). In terms of hierarchical authority, the formal structure varied between a linear four-level based authority scheme in the indirect sector and up to six levels in the direct sector, which basically means that the company had a linear reporting structure and anything but flat hierarchies (Ethno. 24, l. 79). Therefore, this study also aims to account for structural differences in organizational remembrance and identity construction. In general, the workforce was relatively stable, featuring comparatively little turnover. At 17.5 years (AUDI AG, Personalwirtschaft und Informationssysteme, 2010, October, p. 2), the average length of tenure was considerably higher than in other German companies, where the average was 10 years (DK, 2010, October 9/10, p. 11). Job security was high, pay was above median, and the firm had developed strong local ties with the Ingolstadt region. In this regard, an important differentiation could be made between the so-called ‘indirect sector’ – the administrative and communicative side of business – and the ‘direct sector’ – everything affiliated with the design, engineering, and production process of the products. People in the direct sector – blue collar production workers in particular – often had a local family background, and many of them fashioned themselves as multi-generational ‘Audianer’ (cf. Obster, 2009, July 10; SZ, 2009, July 16). In contrast, employees with an academic background – especially in the indirect sector – were more likely to be “imported” from non-rural areas outside the region (Int. 13, l. 135). As they were more willing to leave the company for career-building purposes, their tenure at the company tended to be shorter and did not necessarily build upon or foster a multi-generational family tradition of working for Audi (Ethno. 74, l. 265).

3.1.4 The automobile as a special product The company’s product portfolio included ‘premium automobiles’ of many sizes and filling many market niches – including compact cars, entry-level luxury cars, coupes, roadsters, mid-size luxury cars, full-size luxury cars, supercars, sport utility vehicles, and their sportive derivates. This had implications for the re-

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search design. Automobiles are extraordinary consumer goods, which are more prominent to the public and more emotionally charged than the average toothbrush (cf. Die Zeit, 2013, February 15). Automobile manufacturers excel in creating awareness and desirability through advertisement, press communications, and direct customer relationship management (cf. Diez & Tauch, 2008). Automobiles (still) take a salient position in the public discourses of the industrialized world. Heavy alterations are done to public infrastructure to accommodate the usage of automobiles. They visibly dominate the public streetscapes, and by default cars are designed to be gazed at and identified with just one look. Cars are also extraordinary consumer products because many people develop an emotional attachment to them. Premium cars, in particular, serve as status symbols and expressions of individuality; they become objects of pride and worship, affiliation and demarcation. They are attributed superior monetary value both in new and used condition; they are collected, maintained, restored, resold, and speculated on. Overall, automobiles are important cultural artifacts, which are ascribed a wealth of meaning by a wide range of different actors in addition to the manufacturing company. Empirical research thus demanded a flexible conception of what ‘the field’ was. In the words of Atkinson (1992, as cited in Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2010), it was seen not as “a ‘pre-given natural entity’ but ‘something we construct both through the practical transactions and activities of data collection and through the literary activities of writing fieldnotes, analytic memoranda, and the like” (p. 354). Transcending the classical boundaries of the company, my conception of ‘the field’ took into account automobile clubs, journalists, the corporate parent, consumers, and other groups, as well. It incorporated everyone in and around the organization found to carry out practices of remembering the corporate past. To a great extent, nevertheless, ‘the field’ was constituted by an actual physical setting. The company premises in Ingolstadt served as fertile ground because the actions of, and interactions between, a range of different actor groups could be scrutinized there ‘on site.’

3.1.5 Physical structure of the company premises in Ingolstadt The physical structure of the company premises was vast and complex. Located in the North of Ingolstadt, the plant stretched over an area of 210 hectares – the size of 300 soccer fields (AUDI AG, Betrieblicher Umweltschutz, 2010, p. 8). Kept inaccessible to the public by means of fences and factory gates, the site was a fragmented ensemble of hundreds of buildings and facilities connected by roads, tunnels, bridges, and hallways. An informant described the plant as

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“like a big city with different neighborhoods where different people live” (Ethno. 114, l. 29).

Fig. 1: Map of AUDI AG’s premises in Ingolstadt (Modified map by AUDI AG, Produktions-/ Werksplanung Audi, 2011)

As can be seen in figure 1, production facilities stretched from the western to the eastern section of the premises. They accommodated a pressing plant; areas for manufacturing body parts, components, and tools; a paint shop line; and several assembly halls. The northern part of the plant housed the technological development unit where, for example, design and engineering departments were carrying out their work. The southern part, on the other hand, was home to administrative units of the indirect sector. It contained the so-called ‘education center’ where vocational apprentices were trained and formally inducted into corporate life. The plant featured multiple cantinas and convenience stores, gas stations, carwashes, waste management facilities, a fire department, a railway siding, and a combined heat and power station. It resembled an autonomous town.

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The southern section of the plant was particularly important for fieldwork. At the fringes of the factory gates, a semi-public area called ‘Audi Forum’ was located. Intended as a meeting space where employees, customers, journalists, and visitors would encounter each other, a series of representational buildings catering to these groups were arranged around a wide plaza. Bordering the administrative tract, a shiny office building called ‘Market and Customer’ accommodated the communications unit, the sales and marketing unit, and several other services. Its rooftop was marked by a massive ‘Audi’ sign accompanied by the ‘Four Rings’ emblem. The other side of the plaza was lined with a customer delivery center, a merchandise shop, a bar, and a restaurant. More importantly, it was home to a cylinder-shaped glass and steel building called ‘Audi museum mobile’ – the official corporate history museum. Altogether, the Audi Forum was the representational heart of the company. A range of sub-fields received particular attention, taking into consideration the complexity and multifacetedness of the fieldwork setting. Audi Tradition was the one most prominently covered. While the exact role and structure of the corporate history department will be discussed in chapter 4, for now it is sufficient to know that a team of 23 members conducted a diversified portfolio of memoryrelated activities at the Ingolstadt site. For the entirety of the fieldwork period, permanent camp was set up at their offices located at the ‘cargo transport center.’ In addition to the museum, it was the place that allowed for the highest level of access, ensuring continuous proximity to research subjects. Further sub-settings under (more restricted) scrutiny included the assembly line, the education center for vocational training, the cantina, the customer delivery center, the conference center, and the design halls, among other places. Since the fieldwork setting transcended the physical boundaries of the company premises, research was also conducted in various sites across Germany, the selection of which will be explained later. In public, the company anchored its self-conception in a more than a century-long past (see e. g. 2009 annual report, AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2010). Business operations were said to go back to the early beginnings of the automobile, and the company commonly styled itself as a founding member of the German automobile industry. Evolution across time, however, was generally acknowledged to be complicated due to strong organizational fragmentation. The past the company claimed ownership of had been coined by multiple predecessor companies, brands, mergers and acquisitions, restructurations, relocations, and transformations. To retrospectively provide structure and a sense of clarity, AUDI AG had constructed a ‘grand narrative’ in the form of a corporate history, which shall be presented next.

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3.2 A Compact History of AUDI AG Rendering an official representation of the past as embraced by AUDI AG here in writing has three purposes in the context of this book: First, by reproducing the grand narrative the company promoted in their historically-oriented publications, it becomes graspable what their official self-understanding of corporate history was (the following account is based on AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009, 2011, March 25). Throughout this study, this narrative will serve as a foil for the informal recollections originating from organizational members. Second, this account introduces specific ‘elements’ of the corporate past, such as brand names, historical figures, products, and events that will be encountered throughout this book. By placing them within a larger context, an initial orientation is provided for those unacquainted with AUDI AG. And third, fieldwork can only produce a snapshot of an ephemeral period in an organization’s life (Strati, 2000). Historical contextualization thus helps to situate research in time and space, because it provides information about previous developments that have created the organizational circumstances encountered in practice. It follows Max Weber’s idea “that in order to understand contemporary institutions one has to know how they had developed in history” (Kieser, 1994, p. 609).

3.2.1 Horch (1899 – 1932) The grand narrative, as promoted by the company, commonly ascribed its corporate origins in automobile manufacturing to August Horch. A German engineer and former employee of Carl Benz, he founded his own automobile company – August Horch & Cie – in Cologne, Germany. Starting out as a car repair shop in 1899, the firm soon designed and produced its first cars, and automobiles were sold under the Horch brand name. Manufacturing migrated to Saxony and the company renamed itself several times. Due to accusations of mismanagement brought forward by the board of management, August Horch had to resign from the company in 1909. After extensive restructuring, the Horch company became a key player in the large-engine luxury car market segment.

3.2.2 Audi (1909 – 1932) When August Horch left his old company in 1909, he immediately founded August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH in Zwickau, Germany. As the original Horch company had trademarked the Horch brand name, a legal dispute urged him

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to rename his new firm Audi Automobil-Werke m.b.H. in 1910 – ‘Audi’ being the Latin translation of ‘Horch,’ which happens to be the German imperative of ‘to hear.’ Both Horch and Audi became competitors. Upon again encountering financial difficulties, Audi was purchased by Zschopauer Motorenwerke J.S. Rasmussen AG in 1929.

3.2.3 DKW (1907 – 1932) In 1902, Jörgen Skafte Rasmussen and his business partner founded the company Rasmussen & Ernst. Based in Chemnitz, Germany, they specialized in steam technology. In 1907, a production site was opened in nearby Zschopau, which also became the corporate headquarters. In the early 1920s, the company was registered as Zschopauer Motorenwerke J.S. Rasmussen. Marketed under the DKW brand name, which stands for Damp Kraft Wagen [Steam Powered Vehicle], business was eventually diversified to include low-priced motorcycles and entry level cars powered by two-stroke engines. By the late 1920s, the Rasmussen Group’s product portfolio ranged from refrigerators and small cars to upper middle class automobiles with the newly acquired Audi brand. Furthermore, DKW had become the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Due to misguided planning, however, business expansion resulted in high financial debt.

3.2.4 Wanderer (1885 – 1932) In 1885, Johann B. Winklhofer and Richard A. Jaenicke founded the company Chemnitzer Velociped-Depot Winklhofer & Jaenicke. Under the brand Wanderer, they built and sold bicycles in Chemnitz, Germany. The product range was gradually expanded to milling machines, motorcycles, and typewriters. In the 1910s the company also went into automobile production – an endeavor that turned unprofitable two decades later.

3.2.5 Auto Union AG, Chemnitz (1932 – 1948) The automobile industry in Saxony was strongly afflicted by the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Prompted by the Saxon State Bank, which had a significant financial stake in the majority of these businesses, a motor vehicle conglomerate was founded in order to protect shareholders interests and prevent the Saxon automobile industry from collapse. Named Auto Union AG and seated

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in Chemnitz, the new corporation combined Audi, DKW, Horch, and the automobile division of Wanderer. Their centralized product strategy was to cover multiple segments of the motor vehicle market, for which the four brands remained intact. A new group logo was found in four interlinked rings – each ring symbolizing one brand. The brands regained strength and the corporation became the second largest producer of motor vehicles in Germany. Horch, for instance, competed relatively successfully in the upper luxury market segment, with brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Maybach, while DKW catered to the entry level market. During World War II, Auto Union also produced military vehicles. As with other German corporations that had made arrangements with the Nazis, Auto Union AG employed forced laborers. When the Soviet army occupied Chemnitz in 1945, production facilities were seized, disassembled, and taken to the USSR as reparations. In 1948, the Soviets eventually expropriated Auto Union AG and erased the company from the Chemnitz trade register. The remaining facilities and resources were transformed into the state-owned automobile enterprise IFA.

3.2.6 Auto Union GmbH, Ingolstadt (1949 – 1969) As the official story goes, a group of Auto Union managers decided to flee from Soviet forces. In 1945 they reunited in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, where the country’s largest depot of Auto Union spare parts was set up. A provisional subsidiary company was founded to provide spare parts for motor vehicles that had survived the war. When plans to return to Saxony had to be cancelled in the wake of Soviet occupation, the Ingolstadt solution became permanent with the formation of the Auto Union GmbH as an official successor to Auto Union AG in 1949. After creating new production facilities, affordable motorcycles and two-stroke passenger vehicles marketed under the DKW brand catered to growing demands for basic mobility. In 1958/1959 Daimler-Benz AG acquired Auto Union GmbH’s entire holdings. By the early 1960s, however, Auto Union’s DKW two-stroke engine design proved to be technically outdated. It no longer managed to compete with modern fourstroke engines and DKW sales continued to decline drastically. The failing business was successively sold to Volkswagenwerk AG in the mid-1960s, which made Auto Union GmbH a subsidiary of VW. At the same time, Volkswagen officials decided to discard the DKW brand name, as it had suffered a dramatic blow to its image. As its replacement, the pre-war Audi brand was reactivated to compete in the automotive middle class. The late 1960s were also the time when Auto Union

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GmbH merged with another failing automobile company at Volkswagen’s behest – i. e. NSU Motorenwerke AG.

3.2.7 NSU AG, Neckarsulm (1873 – 1969) Erected as a workshop for knitting machines, Christian Schmidt and Heinrich Stoll founded the company Mechanische Werkstätte zur Herstellung von Strickmaschinen Christian Schmidt in 1873. Originally located in Riedlingen, the company moved to Neckarsulm, Baden-Wurttemberg in 1880. More than a decade later, they began producing bicycles and the company became Germany’s first motorcycle manufacturer in 1901. First steps were also made toward the production of automobiles. However, in the late 1920s, the automobile branch was eventually discarded in favor of concentrating on two-wheelers. In the wake of the Great Depression, NSU suffered extensive losses. Recovery came in the mid1930s when the company updated its motorcycle program. During World War II, NSU continued to produce for the civilian market, but war time regulations also necessitated that they take part in military production. Post-World War II production was dominated by affordable two-wheelers. In 1958, NSU eventually revived its manufacturing in the automobile domain with a range of two-cylinder engine passenger cars. NSU’s growing focus on automobiles was symbolized by a name change to NSU Motorenwerke AG in 1960 and it also terminated its two-wheeler program in the same decade. In order to meet demands for more capital needed to produce the new NSU Ro80 with a rotary engine, dominant shareholders urged the board of directors to partner up with a major player in the automobile industry. In 1969, NSU became a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group.

3.2.8 Audi NSU Auto Union AG (1969 – 1985) In the wake of changing ownership, Volkswagen decided to merge NSU Motorenwerke AG with Auto Union GmbH, becoming Audi NSU Auto Union AG. In 1977 the production facilities in Neckarsulm ceased to produce NSU automobiles and switched to manufacturing Audi cars. In the early 1970s, Audi NSU and Volkswagen formed a joint sales organization called V.A.G., which put the corporate parent in Wolfsburg in full control of the sale and marketing of Audi products. Back then, Audi competed in the mid-level mass volume market, investing their energies in four-cylinder engines and front-wheel drive. In order to sharpen Audi’s rather unremarkable brand profile, Audi’s chief of technological development,

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Ferdinand Piëch, encouraged the company to aspire to a higher market position. Technological developments, such as larger turbo engines and involvement in motorsports, were supposed to achieve this. This aspiration finally culminated in the 1980 Audi quattro – reportedly the world’s first mass produced sports coupé with permanent all-wheel-drive. In combination with an extensive engagement in international rally racing, Audi slowly shifted its brand image to a more sportive gear in the mid-1980s.

3.2.9 AUDI AG (1985 – 2010) In 1985, the company dropped the lengthy name Audi NSU Auto Union AG in favor of AUDI AG. Under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch, Audi tentatively aimed to enter the luxury car market segment by promoting its technologies as innovations. Marketed with the slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ (advancement through technology), the 1980s gave birth to the quattro four-wheel-drive system, the TDI diesel engine, aerodynamic body design, and fully galvanized body construction. The company set out on a course for international expansion when, in 1988, Audi entered the Chinese market. Moreover, a subsidiary company combined with a production plant in Hungary was established in 1993, which expedited outsourcing. In 1993, however, a major recession hit AUDI AG, which was followed by severe layoffs. The early 1990s were also marked by decisive restructuring in the organization. Ingolstadt reclaimed marketing and sales responsibilities from VW in Wolfsburg. The joint sales organization V.A.G. was dissolved, which in turn enabled Audi to have direct access to customers. A drastic redesign of Audi’s brand identity and corporate design took place, which aimed for a more pronounced up-market position. The product portfolio was completely overhauled by the feature of a new design language and by improving the build quality. On the road to economic recovery, the company took over the Italian sports car manufacturer Lamborghini S.p.A in 1998. The biggest product expansion occurred in the 2000s when SUVs, small cars, and sports cars were added to the portfolio. Progress toward an up-market position on a par with Mercedes-Benz and BMW unfolded under CEO Martin Winterkorn, who led AUDI from 2002 to 2007 before stepping up to managing VW Group. Since 2007, Rupert Stadler had been holding the CEO position of AUDI AG. Promoting Audi’s brand image, the 2000s were dominated by motorsports involvement at the 24 hours of Le Mans and the German Touring Car Championship, an increasing focus on upper-class lifestyle topics, and – last but not least – a multifaceted history management program. In 2009, the company celebrated

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Fig. 2: Corporate family tree of AUDI AG (Reproduction of graphic by AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009, binding)

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its ‘100 years of Audi’ brand anniversary with pomp. Altogether, Audi fashioned itself as oscillating between innovativeness, high quality, sportiness, and tradition. The company had gone through a lengthy process of transformation in order to get there. The official ‘family tree’ displayed in figure 2 provides a graphic overview of the historical development.

3.3 Mix of Qualitative Methods in Organizational Ethnography In order to empirically examine the phenomenon of organizational remembrance from a cultural perspective, a mix of qualitative methods was chosen that fit both the research questions and the company under scrutiny. It included participant observation, informal conversations with a purpose, semi-structured interviews, expert interviews, and document analysis. When applied in combination, approaching the material collected from the field with a holistic cultural perspective became empirically possible. The following sections unfold the methods according to which data was gathered, analyzed, and interpreted. Following Brewer’s (2000) stipulation to clarify the “broad theoretical and philosophical framework into which these procedural rules fit” (p. 2), however, a few words shall first be said about the process of creating scientific knowledge in this study.

3.3.1 The methodology of abduction and reflexive ethnography Unlike an inductive approach, which claims to approach qualitative research with an initially quasi-blank slate (e. g., Glaser & Strauss, 1967), this empirical study was substantially driven by theory. The framework presented in the second chapter served a “focusing and bounding function [for fieldwork]” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 19). Considering the tight project schedule and limited resources, it made qualitative empirical research more systematic and less prone to unguided sloppiness (Silverman, 2006), by having a “conceptual framework explain[..] […] the main things to be studied […] and the presumed relationships among them” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 18). At the same time, theoretical framing remained flexible and open to constant revision. A hypothesis-driven, deductive approach was avoided “because the explorative, heuristic function of qualitative research would be lost this way” (Kelle & Kluge, 2010, p. 38). Attempting to incorporate the best of both worlds, this study follows an abductive approach (Reichertz, 2009) that situates itself between an approach relying ex-

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clusively on the employment of theoretical pre-knowledge and a strictly empirical stance. Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009) identify abduction as an ongoing “research process” suited for case studies, which “alternates between (previous) theory and empirical facts whereby both are successively reinterpreted in the light of each other” (p. 4). According to Kelle and Kluge (2010), abduction thus is a “game of material” including “empirical data and theoretical knowledge which the player assembles into new, meaningful patterns” (p. 27). This is why, for instance, the realization came during fieldwork that certain theoretical concepts, which had been useful for exploring organizational life and gathering data, proved to be less suited for analyzing and interpreting said data at a subsequent stage. Likewise, patterns and conclusions generated through abduction are always “preliminary suppositions that require further examination” (Kelle & Kluge, 2010, p. 25). This renders abduction the approach of choice if one wants to root empirical studies in existing academic discourses. Ethnography is not just a set of social scientific methods through which data is gathered. It is an elaborate “style of research” (Brewer, 2000, p. 52) that presupposes an epistemological perspective referred to as “the ethnographic imagination” (Brewer, 1994, p. 236). Both the ethnographer and the audience are expected to adopt a set of premises based on the authority and explanatory power of ethnographic data. Following a strand of “subtle realism” (Hammersley, 1990, as cited in Brewer, 2000, p. 48), they build upon the central belief that ethnographers are, in fact, able to analyze, understand, and represent the greater social worlds of people through selective observations of micro events and conversations with their inhabitants in their natural settings (Brewer, 1994; cf. Geertz, 1974). Contemporary ethnography entails a spectrum of methodological concerns that have come a long way since the early days of naïve realism as practiced by Bronislaw Malinowski (1922/1978) and his social constructivist descendants (e. g., Geertz, 1983/1997). A so-called reflexive approach promoted by scholars such as Brewer (2000, 2006) and Hammersley (1992, 1993) openly deals with the question of what kind of scientific knowledge ethnography can and cannot produce, and how this is to be achieved in a sound fashion. Among other issues, it mainly concerns the question of objectivity and representation. According to Brewer (2000), ethnographic accounts can never be “accurate representations of the social word ‘as it is,’ beyond the influence of presumption or prejudice” (p. 233; cf. Spencer, 2010). An ethnographic account is always an interpretive effort that is created through the researcher’s subjective lens. In consequence, the ethnographer is expected to “reflect on the contingencies that bore upon and helped to ‘create’ the data as a partial account” (Brewer, 2006, p. 319; cf. Clifford

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& Marcus, 1986). To ensure a sufficient degree of reflexivity, Brewer’s (2000) “set of guidelines for good [ethnographic] practice” (p. 53) were followed throughout the research process. In that sense it must be clarified that this book provides a plausible empirical account, rather than the objective truth. Moreover, it should be emphasized that this is a company-specific case study conducted during a specific time, the findings of which are not necessarily applicable to other organizational contexts. While the theoretical and company-specific circumstances of this project have already been discussed in detail, the following sections disclose the methods and social contingencies under which ethnographic fieldwork was conducted.

3.3.2 Participant observation and informal conversations with a purpose The aims of ethnographic fieldwork were to personally experience and scrutinize the cultural ramifications of memory, identity, and image in a corporate setting, as manifested in everyday practice. The qualitative method deemed most appropriate for that was participant observation. According to Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (2010), its objective is to “establish[..] a place in some natural setting on a relatively long-term basis in order to investigate, experience and represent the social life and social processes that occur in that setting” (p. 352). The general aim, quite simply, is to understand what is going on somewhere. Participant observation made possible the penetration of organizational life on the everyday level. Naturally, a large corporation offers a myriad of actors, practices, and material manifestations that could be explored. In order to channel efforts, research followed a set of guiding “What” and “How” questions suggested by Emerson et al. (1995, as cited in Silverman, 2006, p. 89). These were complemented by more specific questions that operationalized the organizational cultures of remembrance framework (for an exemplary list of guiding questions see appendix 12.2.1). Participant observation thus focused on the ways what knowledge about the past is constructed, construed, and shared, by whom, in what situations, through what practices, with the help of what media, and for what purpose. Depending on their nature and the level of access, certain sub-settings required a more customized approach. At Audi Tradition, participant observation was pursued in elaborate (and uninhibited) ways. Staff was shadowed on a dayto-day basis over the course of one year. Detailed insights were generated into the workings of the corporate history department, the means and ends of socalled ‘tradition work,’ and the processes and strategies involved in this. Guiding questions had to be adapted, as the members of Audi Tradition were observed in

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two different social work contexts – inside their enclosed offices and outside the premises during representational activities when other audiences were involved (for an exemplary list see appendix 12.1.1). This way, it was possible to trace ingroup/out-group differences in identity and image construction. Participant observation was also conducted when meeting with informants from other departments in their natural work setting, before and after interview appointments, and when strolling through the premises of AUDI AG. It was the most commonly used method in this study and thus generated the most data. Despite the theoretical framing presented in chapter 2, participant observation generally followed a flexible approach that adapted to the circumstances and contingencies of the field. As with Girtler’s (2001) style of “open observation,” data could be gathered on “complex situations and processes of action in an almost unrestricted fashion [this way]” (p. 62). The method was not confined by limiting structures that defined the exact conduct, form, length, and subjects of observation. The aim was an unobtrusive approach and full immersion in highly variable situations characterizing organizational life, which demanded a ‘go-with-the-flow’ attitude (cf. Okely, 1994). Three types of overt research roles were assumed, depending on the respective sub-setting and situation. Applying the terminology of Waddington (2006), I acted as a “participant-as-observer, who forms relationships and participates in activities but makes no secret of an intention to observe events” (p. 154). Through personally lived experience it became possible to get a hold on details that were not comprehensible through mere observation or second-hand accounts. In this way, the physically- and mentally-demanding nature of work in professionally ‘working’ the past became graspable. Secondly, the role of “the observer-as-participant, who maintains only superficial contacts with the people being studied (for example by asking them occasional questions)” was assumed (p. 154). This role was assumed in sub-settings with limited access. Thirdly, the position of “the complete observer, who merely stands back and ‘eavesdrops’ on the proceedings” (p. 154), was taken. Typical research opportunities included general assemblies, team meetings, festive events, and presentations in front of large crowds. Participant observation was always performed in an overt way, complying with social scientific research ethics (see Brewer, 2000, pp. 90 – 97). Beforehand, individual respondents, or in the case of a large group the responsible manager, were informed about my presence and an authorization for observation was obtained. Of course, these three research roles could not always be maintained over a period of twelve months. At times, the research mode was switched off with or without purpose. This is when a fourth role was assumed, which I label the par-

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ticipant as participant. Some corporate activities were joined out of sheer interest, fun, or circumstance, but not with the primary interest of gathering data. Depending on the research role assumed, participant observation went hand in hand with informal “conversations with a purpose” (Burgess, 1984, as cited in Brewer, 2000, p. 67). Occasional questions and unstructured talks helped to gather data about the meaning of specific practices, provided background information on previously observed actions, and opened up new topics to be pursued. Informal conversations with a purpose did not resemble formal interview situations. They were performed in an ad hoc fashion whenever the situation allowed it. More importantly, they were designed to appear as natural as possible (Girtler, 2001), which depended on the prior establishment of a quasi-personal relationship with respondents (Brewer, 2000). Altogether, informal conversations with more than 100 organizational members and company-external actors addressed a large variety of topics related (and unrelated) to the key questions of this study. The selection of corporate events to be observed took place in various ways that depended on systematic planning and collaboration with research subjects, as well as coincidence. Activities such as member orientation workshops, museum tours, celebratory ceremonies and the like were systematically investigated based on the organizational cultures of remembrance model. Some research opportunities occurred incidentally by casually “nosing around” (Lofland, 1980, as cited in Gobo, 2010, p. 19). Future activities that sounded like viable research opportunities were frequently overheard in conversations, for which access was subsequently arranged. Alternatively, I was also informed by respondents about upcoming opportunities that could be of interest to the study. The latter two strategies followed a theoretical sampling approach in order to allow for maximum contrast (Kelle & Kluge, 2010). The majority of occasions in which the methods of participant observation and informal conversations were applied revolved around the daily business of the corporate history department. The primary goal was to cover all formalized areas of ‘working’ the past by shadowing those who held the respective job positions. To account for interactions between research subjects, I joined frequently recurring events such as weekly department meetings, project-related meetings, visits from internal and external stakeholders, informal between-the-door chats, coffee breaks, and lunches. Moreover, it was possible to observe unique events hosted by Audi Tradition that either took place inside the organization or in the external sphere. In addition to these circumstances, special opportunities in other departments of AUDI AG were covered. These included, for instance, a guided visitor tour through the production plant, an introductory orientation event for new apprentices, a jubilee event for long-term employees, and other oc-

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casions (for a complete list see appendix 12.1.1). During various research opportunities additional conversations were held with external stakeholders, such as journalists, Audi dealers, customers, groups of car club members, the owner of a private Audi museum, and many other people recollecting the corporate past. Taken in whole, a matrix of events and people in and around AUDI AG could be observed that gave empirical insight into the wide-reaching cultural ramifications of organizational remembrance. Overall, I was free to talk to whomever I wanted about whatever I considered to be relevant. AUDI AG turned out to be a hospitable and open-minded host. Restrictions on the side of the company did not constrain fieldwork. Qualitative data was generated through a multi-step process. A general premise was “if it is not written down, it never happened” (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984, as cited in Waddington, 2006, p. 156). During or right after the point of encounter, raw field notes were jotted down in a small notepad. Following a marginal structure, they were descriptive accounts of what had been observed, heard, or talked about (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2010). Descriptive information was complemented by quick interpretations, reflections, hypotheses, and theoretical thoughts. These non-descriptive remarks were separated from descriptive data (Brewer, 2000). Writing fieldnotes became a normal habit of chronicling everything that seemed relevant at the moment (cf. Okely, 1994). Altogether, thirteen reporter notebooks full of daily field notes were filled during the empirical field phase. They were complemented by hundreds of digital photographs shot in situations allowed by corporate regulations. Photographs helped in capturing symbolic markers of material culture that might have otherwise been missed. As visual memory markers, they also enabled a more detailed description of the locations. Every evening the raw field notes from the day were converted into the workable digital format of a structured daily protocol, allowing for later analysis (cf. Girtler, 2001). Individual research opportunities were chronologically documented in an ethnographic sub-protocol (see template in appendix 12.2.2), thus constituting their own cases within the case study of AUDI AG (Hartley, 2006). A stock of unfiltered “substantive field notes” (Brewer, 2000, p. 317) was produced, comprised of approximately 1000 DIN A4 pages. Theoretical thoughts, conceptualizations, and follow-up notes were compiled in a separate document. Moreover, an emotional research diary served as a useful way of recording and coming to terms with the feelings and personal issues experienced in the field (O’Reilly, 2009). Combining the methods of participant observation and informal conversations with a purpose made most sense in those sub-settings that provided sufficient physical and social access. Another method had to be employed, however,

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to approach employee groups whose day-to-day organizational life could not be followed directly.

3.3.3 Semi-structured interviews and expert interviews A major goal of this study was to find out what role memories of the corporate past play in the construction of organizational identities and the construal of organizational life among various member groups of a company. Long one-off interviews were deemed best suited to cover a representative sample of member groups that could not be examined on a day-to-day basis. Interviews were designed to be semi-structured (Brewer, 2000). Loosely driven by an interview guide that revolved around key topics and core questions, it allowed for digression, omission, and alternative paths. The aim was to remain flexible and create an engaging conversational situation, with open-ended talk rather than an obtrusive and clinical question-answer situation (Girtler, 2001). This way, it became possible to adjust to what the respondent considered relevant and detect mental sides of organizational remembrance that had not been considered before. The interview guide featured five main parts. Its thematic conceptualization was informed by Casey’s (1997) design. Each part contained a set of questions which operationalized the theoretical key concepts scrutinized in this study into more concrete aspects of organizational life (see appendix 12.2.3 for the actual questions). The first part served an introductory purpose. After some small talk to ‘break the ice,’ the respondent was informed about the general topic and purpose of this study, confidentiality and anonymization of data was assured, and permission to audiotape the interview was requested. The second part inquired into the details of the respondent’s work biography. This made it possible to derive demographic information, such as age, position, educational background, and regional origin. More importantly, it created a mood in which the respondent felt free to tell stories. The third grouping of questions explored issues of organizational identity, image, culture, community, and alterity. The goal was to elicit statements that would reveal the relationships between the respondent’s conceptualization of self and attitudes towards the company, the brand, and the workforce in its collectivity. Questions also aimed at getting the interviewee to take up a historical perspective by addressing change and consistency between the corporate past and the present. Occasionally, expert questions were woven in that referred to job-specific instrumentalization of the past in the present.

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Part four scrutinized the content-oriented side of collective remembrance at AUDI AG, as well as the mental and social dimensions of organizational cultures of remembrance. Questions were designed to give insight into members’ referential time frames, concrete knowledge about the corporate past, and the multiple ways in which that knowledge had been acquired. Furthermore, I distinguished elements of the corporate past which respondents considered constitutive of their Audi-related identity formations from those the company as a corporate actor fashioned as important. This made it possible to identify potential overlaps and ruptures between the informal and formal side of organizational remembrance. The topic of official organizational remembrance was approached by addressing gatekeepers and purposes of ‘working’ the past in a corporate environment. The goal was to learn about the impact and awareness of the corporate history department among the workforce. The last part was intended to bring closure to the interview situation. It gave respondents the chance to ask their own questions and formulate questions that should have been asked. It also served to transition to the informal follow-up conversation where further aspects of the study were discussed. In total, 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 31 members of AUDI AG. For feasibility reasons, the majority of interviews were one-on-one. In the case of three semi-structured interviews, natural groups featuring two to five participants were gathered. While group interviews with two respondents worked well because they could complement, cue, or negate each other, the fiveparticipant group was difficult to manage due to severe restrictions on time during regular working hours. In consequence, large group interviews were no longer pursued. Viable respondents were chosen based on a selective sampling strategy (Kelle & Kluge, 2010), which figure 3 demonstrates. The study intended to achieve maximum variation along the lines of departmental membership, hierarchical rank, tenure, employment status, age, gender, educational background, and origin. It was supposed to shed light on diversity, clarity, and ambiguity among the workforce (cf. Martin, 1992, 2002). At the same time, the study aimed for a representative selection that mirrored the general composition of the local workforce in Ingolstadt (cf. AUDI AG, Personalwirtschaft und Informationssysteme, October 2010) – even though ethnography is normally not concerned with the issue of representativeness in a statistical sense (Brewer, 2000). In total, the participants in this study were from a colorful mix of diverse backgrounds. The sample of respondents covered five out of seven business units, 14 out of more than 64 organizational units, and 25 different departments (see appendix 12.1.2 for anonymized list of all respondents). Interviews were conducted with retired members who had joined the company half a century ago, as

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Fig. 3: Theoretical sampling of participants in semi-structured interviews

well as with young rookies in training. High-ranking managers who had moved from Berlin to Ingolstadt were interviewed, as were locals on the assembly line. Initial contact with respondents was established in different ways: It happened through confidents at Audi Tradition, through chance encounters at com-

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pany-internal events, through former respondents in the sense of a snowball system, and through recommendation after a formal inquiry was made with the respective department head. Semi-structured interviews either took place at a bar in the Audi Forum, in a conference room in the corporate history department, or at a location that was more convenient for the respondent. All interviews lasted between 90 to 180 minutes and were recorded on tape. The duration depended on the time a respondent could spare during working hours and his/her degree of talkativeness. All interviewees participated voluntarily without receiving any form of compensation. Additionally, six expert interviews (Gläser & Laudel, 2006) were carried out with external Audi aficionados and key members of Audi Tradition. With regard to the classic car club members, the goal was to learn about their interests and motivations in recollecting the corporate past. As far as the members of the corporate history department were concerned, data about distinct areas and strategies of professional ‘tradition work’ was gathered (for an exemplary expert interview guide with a historian see appendix 12.2.4). The rational for conducting these expert interviews was not only to be found in gaining detailed insight into topics that had already been touched upon through participant observation; I also wanted to obtain statements on critical issues which would have been difficult to obtain via any other method. By using multiple qualitative methods with the same research subjects, it became possible to trace differences in data. All interviews were transcribed in natural speech to produce an unfiltered account of what had been said (Poland, 2002). The transcription software F4 (Audiotranskription, 2010) was used to render each interview into a digital format that could be used for further analytical purposes.

3.3.4 Document and media analysis Meant as a supportive method applied alongside of the fieldwork (Wolff, 2009b), a selection of corporate documents and Audi-related media were analyzed (Rowlinson, 2006). Various types of textual and audiovisual artifacts were chosen for different reasons. Of primary concern were the reconstructive representations of the corporate past in material form that had been created by the company. They included corporate history books, press releases, museum exhibition texts, brand image brochures, advertisements, and intranet and internet content. Viable materials were mostly gathered in the field. An analysis gave insight into official positions assumed by the company. Other representations of the corporate past taken into account were journalistic articles published in external newspapers and magazines. An analysis produced an understanding of how agents out-

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side the company were co-shaping the discourse about Audi’s past. Special attention was paid to those media that were deemed relevant and/or observed to be handled in practice by research subjects. Documents and media were primarily interpreted in the context of their actual creators and users. Learning about corporate history as commonly represented in material form helped me to pick up on recurring themes and topics that could be probed for relevance in conversations with the workforce. Hence, findings from media analysis were also applied to the semi-structured interviews and informal conversations with a purpose. Analytical categories included intra-textual aspects, such as factual information (e. g. dates, places, people, numbers, and products), founding myths and legends of leaders, core events, experiences of success and crisis, claims about past, present, and future attributes of the organization, common metaphors, and demarcation claims regarding the ‘Other.’ Moreover, there were visual aspects to be taken into account, such as the use of historic pictures (e. g. as a ‘sign of proof’ and heritage), photos portraying different generations of car models (e. g. to symbolize the idea of tradition), and other design elements. Extra-textual components, such as the genre, context, producer, receptive audience, and intended function were also duly considered. Of secondary concern were material artifacts that could be used to trace formal organizational structures and reconstruct the historical development of official organizational remembrance at AUDI AG (cf. Rowlinson, 2006). A collection of internal memos, communiqués, reports, and conceptual papers was retrieved from the historical archive of Audi Tradition to make sense of how the company had come to professionally ‘work’ its past in the first place. Moreover, an examination of the “Donaukurier newspaper archive: Audi history since 1945” (DK, 2009) revealed a vast range of journalistic articles that documented the memory-related efforts of Audi as perceived by the public. Analytical insights from both sources were triangulated with oral accounts provided by informants. In addition to serving to establish an idea of how organizational remembrance had evolved over time, a comparison of historical documents with fieldnotes and interview data helped to generate an empirically grounded understanding of what a ‘present perspective’ on the corporate past actually entailed.

3.3.5 Computer-assisted data analysis All empirical data that had been converted into a digital format were compiled in the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti 6.2 (2010). Two separate hermeneutic units were created to account for the methodological differences between

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participant observation/informal conversations and semi-structured interviews/ expert interviews. This is why quotes from fieldnotes will be referenced with the term ‘Ethno. #,’ and quotes from the interview data will use the term ‘Int. #.’ For both hermeneutic units, a coding scheme was developed in a multistep process. Following Brewer’s (2000) “steps in ethnographic data analysis” (p. 110), all data was first index coded for data management purposes. In line with the abductive methodology, the index coding scheme was a mix of in vivo codes directly emerging from the data – i. e. “subject areas […] referring to the everyday world [of respondents]” (Kelle & Kluge, 2010, p. 73) – as well as theoretically guided codes emerging from the pre-empirical framework. By bringing structure to the incoherent, strongly fragmented corpus of “bits and pieces of incidents, beginnings and ends of narratives, accounts of chance meetings and rare occurrences, and details of a wide range of unconnected matters” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2010, p. 353), chunks of data became retrievable for further analytical steps. As a second step, sub-categories were created that helped to identify “similarities and differences in the data material” (Kelle & Kluge, 2010, p. 73). Related codes were grouped or merged in code families; codes that bore signs of variation in the material were refined in further sub-categories. All data sets were rigorously coded to determine whether and, if so, to what degree specific themes were empirically grounded. When coding was completed, data points were retrieved systematically. These data points were then compared and contrasted to identify patterns, disruptions, and variances that were less visible at first sight. It was also possible to test a number of research hypotheses – not in a traditional quantitative sense, but “for a heuristic purpose” (Kelle, 2009, p. 499). After conducting countless case-to-case analyses, different typologies were created (Kelle & Kluge, 2010) – for instance, seven purposes of official organizational remembrance, or different functions of organizational identity construction among the workforce. Detailed data interpretation and description happened outside of ATLAS.ti. The software served first and foremost as a workbench on which to manage, structure, and give systematic access to huge amounts of empirical data. Triangulation of different cases with data gathered via different qualitative methods ensured that the most plausible ethnographic account could be produced in the context of this study (Brewer, 2000; Flick, 2009).

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3.4 Fieldwork as a Social Process Qualitative methods are not employed in a social void and empirical data is not comprised of passive facts that can simply be gathered. Data is constructed through dynamic processes and social interactions, which take place between the researcher and the company, respectively his research subjects (cf. Brewer, 2000). The ethnographic research experience was a time-bound process that unfolded in four different stages. Using Buchanan, Boddy, and McCalman’s (1988) terminology, these included the access phase of “getting in,” the phase of exploring the field called “getting on,” the exit phase labeled “getting out,” and the checkup phase called “getting back” (p. 53).

3.4.1 Getting in: The physical access phase Access was initiated by a cold inquiry to the director of Audi Tradition. First contact included a short cover letter, a letter of recommendation from the first advisor, and a two-page research project proposal, which followed Buchanan, Boddy, and McCalman’s (1988) “five specific pieces of advice on negotiating access” (p. 56) to a gatekept business organization. Two appointments were arranged, in which the project was presented to representatives of the corporate history department. Discussions concerned the terms of engagement, the specific benefits for the company, and operational requirements of research. Individual inquiries asking for research access had also been sent to four other German corporations in the consumer electronics, aviation, and pharmaceutical sectors. A viable company had to successfully operate in a market, and its brand had to be visible to the public. It was stipulated that the organization’s age be at least 80 years in order to house multiple generations of employees who have not encountered the founder. A decisive level of history-related pride and awareness of heritage had to be communicated through PR and marketing means, because it indicated the potential relevance of organizational remembrance in organizational life. The existence of a corporate museum and a historical archive were considered to be obligatory to ensure a certain level of professionalization in the field of history management. AUDI AG offered the best research conditions. The project was assessed to be a good fit for both sides and no alterations to the research design had to be made on behalf of the company, which means that there was no necessity for an “ethical compromise” (Brewer, 2006, p. 315) in research. It was agreed that Audi Tradition would provide full access and be formally responsible for my endeavors in the field. I was granted the status of an external doctoral researcher with internal

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access privileges, which ensured that I would not be “functionalized for organization-internal purposes” (Wolff, 2009a, p. 340). The project was financed exclusively by external sources unaffiliated with the company in order to remain independent from corporate interest – i. e. a scholarship and additional funds provided by the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture and the German Federal Initiative for Excellence. A contract formulated by AUDI AG’s legal department defined the terms and obligations of collaboration. Among other regulations, the contract grants the company the limited right of utilizing the findings of this study. Furthermore, I had to commit to a nondisclosure agreement concerning compromising insider knowledge and sign a data privacy protection declaration. The twelve-month empirical research phase at AUDI AG started in August 2010 when I moved to Ingolstadt to be in the field on a full-time basis. I was assigned a desk at the offices of Audi Tradition where access was granted to a desktop computer with a user account connected to the department’s internal network and the company’s intranet. It was tied to a personalized Audi e-mail address and a corporate landline number. A temporary photo ID card, called a ‘Werksausweis,’ was issued for the full period, granting physical access to most facilities on site.

3.4.2 Getting on: The social access and exploration phase In addition to physical access, it was the quality of social access to different groups of people that determined what kind of data could be gathered. The next phase was dominated by the task of overcoming the status of an outsider and exploring the field. I first had to adjust to the setting. Blending in was attempted by going along with the established flow of organizational life, by emulating behaviors of research subjects, by picking up on the cultural peculiarities found among the Bavarian workforce, by learning the automotive industry jargon, and by participating in common office routines. For instance, by adopting the common 8 am to 5 pm work schedule, I was “pay[ing] homage to the routines of the [research subjects]” (Taylor and Bogdan, 1984, as cited in Waddington, 2006, pp. 155 – 156). Adjustment was not unidirectional, though. Research subjects also needed to make sense of me and what I was doing, which made it a bilateral social process (Wolff, 2009a). Based on Rock’s (2010) recommendations, acclimatization was skipped and data was gathered beginning on the first day. Hence, it was of immediate necessity to learn which research conduct was socially acceptable at the company. Different situations called for different research behaviors, dictated by the reactions

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of the people under scrutiny. For instance, while open note taking was tolerated during department meetings or formal appointments where I acted as a silent observer, the same method caused misgivings during informal conversations. Research subjects indicated that they were more comfortable with an approach that appeared more similar to natural everyday interactions. In order to accommodate informants’ feelings, notes were mostly taken from memory after the research situation had taken place. Informants also signaled the moments when I should ‘turn a deaf ear,’ when controversial statements were ‘off the record’ but important to know anyway, what I should not include in my fieldnotes, or when privacy was demanded (cf. Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2010). In order to be accepted in the field, I had to find those techniques with which research subjects were most comfortable. In consequence, social aspects called for a compromise on method sometimes. During fieldwork, multiple roles had to be assumed, switched between, and reflected upon (Schwartzman, 1993). AUDI AG did not constitute a homogenous setting, and thus role assumption and ascription depended on sub-fields and methods. While I fashioned myself as an external researcher during fieldwork at Audi Tradition, members of other departments at AUDI AG often perceived me as an internal member associated with the corporate history department who happened to be conducting a study. Even within a single department, different roles had to be managed. At Audi Tradition, I played the “acceptable incompetent” (Fielding, 2001, as cited in Waddington, 2006, p. 155) who primarily wanted to learn from research subjects about the workings of their activities in an open-minded, non-judgmental way. On the other hand, I had to display the image of an academic expert who was able to create, systematize, and impart scientifically grounded knowledge that would be insightful for the company. It required an oscillation in self-identity management in which sometimes expertise and sometimes the lack of it was displayed. The goal was to maintain “a positive and non-threatening self-image” (p. 155) at all times, which was an ongoing activity. As indicated, the most obvious distinction in roles concerned the issue of organizational membership. Similar to “a member in floating condition” (Girtler, 2001, p. 127), I alternated between ‘just an external’ whose presence was temporary, and becoming a well-integrated part of the corporate history department. Due to the strong emotional “pull to be accepted” (O’Reilly, 2009, p. 89) every social being eventually experiences when spending a long time with a group of people, I oscillated between the role of a stranger and an accepted member, “between distance and empathy” (p. 89). One of the most challenging but a crucial aspect of ‘getting on’ involved the issue of gaining trust among informants. Trust was neither granted automatically

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nor instantaneously. Research subjects had to be (re)assured constantly that data would remain confidential, that names and specific traits would be anonymized, and that delicate insights would not be used to harm them or the organization in any way (cf. Schwartzman, 1993). It was possible to gain trust by “learn[ing] their language and their ways” (Brewer, 2000, p. 85), and by emphasizing commonalities (Waddington, 2006; Rosenstiehl, 2009; Schwartzman, 1993) – e. g. by showing that I was a ‘gearhead’ interested in automobiles, too. More importantly, informants that were shadowed on a continual basis gradually learned that I was not an overly intrusive element during encounters with external stakeholders. My continuous presence over a long period of time eventually led people to drop (some of) their hesitations, reservations, and boundaries. As Brewer (2006) states, “[t]his bond of trust is premised on the same qualities people bring to all social relationships – honesty, friendliness, reciprocity, openness, communication and confidence building” (p. 316). Overall, the institutional level of trust invested in me was above average. For example, I was allowed to participate in meetings where information was discussed which was neither destined for publication nor talk beyond the confines of the company. Essential to ‘getting on’ was learning the ropes of the different communication channels employed within the company. It took some time to acquire an understanding of which situations demanded an e-mail, a phone call, or an inquiry through a superior when, for instance, a new informant from a specific department was desired for an interview. Key informants of Audi Tradition proved to be supportive, which demonstrates that progress was heavily dependent on other research subjects. Key informants also played a central role in establishing a wide-reaching personal network inside the organization. Select members activated their private and professional contacts to find new respondents and open up research opportunities according to my specifications. By personally vouching for my integrity and emphasizing the official support of the corporate history department, they dampened notions of suspicion and distrust every outsider to the field faces (cf. Brewer, 2000; Girtler, 2001). The gradual formation of a personal network was born from Rock’s (2010) recommendation to “observe […] as many participants as one can” (p. 34) and to dip into the variety of voices that can be encountered in the field. In addition to ‘nosing around,’ I relied on the benevolence of select employees who would inform me about, or invite me to join, specific activities of potential interest to this study. These kinds of research opportunities mostly emerged ad hoc. They were dependent on the schedules of organizational members, chance incidents and serendipity, and thus could not be planned. For that particular reason, Kelle and Kluge (2010) see the main quality of qualitative research

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in the circumstance that researchers “get to experience unusual things in the research field, that they become witness to unexpected events” (p. 32). Therefore, several invitations to research opportunities were accepted that proved of limited relevance for this study. Participating in them, however, demonstrated appreciation for the supportive efforts of key informants and it helped to establish a rapport. After all, conducting an organizational ethnography can walk a thin line between gathering data and interfering with people’s routines of work (Waddington, 2006). In this sense, an “opportunistic approach to fieldwork in organizations” was adopted, as suggested by Buchanan, Boddy, and McCalman (1988, p. 53). Conducting long term field research can be an activity that is challenging both intellectually and emotionally. Reflection of one’s own conduct and interpretive efforts is needed from the perspective of a ‘native.’ Two key informants of Audi Tradition proved helpful in the process of academic reflection. They served as “confidents” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 275), checking interpretations and providing feedback. To assure that their own motivations would not steer the research project into a specific direction, their feedback was critically assessed in more elaborate terms (Brewer, 2000). Despite the rigid employment of methods, strategies, and calculated social interactions, an ethnographic researcher is not a clinical data robot, but also a person with feelings and social needs (Okely, 1994; O’Reilly, 2009). An emotional research diary became a valuable tool for emotional self-management in relation to my research subjects (see e. g. Brewer, 2006; Malinowski, 1986). Kept separate from regular fieldnotes, it allowed me to trace my social conduct and served as an aid “to control and correct [my] personality” (Firth, 1986, p. 10). The emotional research diary also functioned as a valve for ‘letting out steam’ and coping with ‘organization fever’ – the equivalent of Bronislaw Malinowski’s (1986) ‘island fever’ (cf. Kohl, 1987). In contrast to the occasional ‘organization fever,’ I experienced a pull from the organization from the 9th month of fieldwork on (cf. O’Reilly, 2009). I began to identify with the company and its automobiles, and I enjoyed being acknowledged as an informal member of the corporate history team. Audi was not ‘just a case study’ anymore, but a social setting of which I had grown fond. Friendships with individual respondents had been formed, working practices at the company seemed more and more normal, and Audi started dominating my life in all spheres. Overall, it became more challenging to “maintain[..] a professional distance which permits adequate observation and data collection” (Waddington, 2006, p. 155). All signs pointed to the diagnosis that I was “going native” – i. e. that, in the words of Heiner Legewie (1995), I was committing to a “one-

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sided participant role in the field” (p. 192) determined by the assimilation of mind and body.

3.4.3 Getting out: The exit phase The awareness of going native called attention to the need to initiate the exit phase well before the official deadline of fieldwork. During the last three months, great care was exercised in withdrawing from the field in a socially responsible manner. Based on Brewer’s (2000) “exit strategy” (p. 101), physical presence at, and emotional engagement with, the company was gradually reduced to avoid an abrupt cut both for me and my research subjects. Disengagement was achieved by talking with key informants and confidents about the time after the field phase, by explaining subsequent steps, and by increasingly using workspaces outside the company premises. Various PowerPoint presentations of preliminary results were held for select key informants from different departments. After one year of what might have felt like surveillance to some, this was the “quasi-ethical” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 275) thing to do. Presentations to gatekeepers demonstrated that the study would deliver on what had been promised. A presentation to the members of Audi Tradition, in particular, was meant to deliver a “competent account[..] of the organization from the point of view of respondents” (Buchanan, Boddy, & McCalman, 1988, p. 65). By testing a range of preliminary hypotheses, it was possible to receive valuable feedback on the interpretation of specific themes that had emerged from the data. As a last step of the exit strategy, I organized a Bavarian farewell lunch for the members of Audi Tradition during the last week of the field phase (cf. Martin, 1992). It was an event when mutual niceties were exchanged and when the ethnographic research experience was reviewed from both sides. The lunch served a symbolic function of marking the official termination of fieldwork.

3.4.4 Getting back: Checking data and feeding back After exiting, field contact was maintained with individual confidents and gatekeepers. During the last phase, it was possible to check up on specific data points, test hypotheses, and share important findings through informal phone conversations, e-mails, and occasional meetings. One and a half years after the field phase had been terminated, a presentation containing further insights was given to the director of Audi Tradition. The last step of the ‘getting back’

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phase took place once this study was completed – namely in the form of a comprehensive presentation to the company, which fulfilled what the organizational ethnographer Marta Augustynek (2011) identifies as corporate “demands for reciprocity” (p. 57). Having discussed the broader field, methods, and methodology, it is now time to turn to the empirical part of this book.

4 Audi Tradition in its Role as the Official Carrier of Organizational Remembrance AUDI AG claimed its corporate past as an ‘asset,’ requiring both preservation and promotion. This asset was handled by a dedicated institution, already alluded to in previous chapters, named Audi Tradition. The corporate history department had been installed to handle matters of the past relating to ‘history’ and ‘tradition.’ It was appointed the role of the official carrier of organizational remembrance, whose job it was to “cultivate tradition” by means of “tradition work” (Int. 28, l. 24) – a professionalized version of what Linde (2009) identifies as “working the past” (p. 3). At Audi, ‘tradition workers’ administered brand-, product-, and organization-related heritage; they reconstructed and represented the corporate past in various forms, and they functionalized select elements of the ‘old days’ in the context of current business operations. In this way, an attempt was made to ‘preserve,’ ‘care for,’ and reactivate the corporate past. Because of its professional focus on ‘retrospection’ – the practice of looking back while having the benefit of hindsight (Freeman, 2010) – the department described itself metaphorically as the “memory of AUDI AG” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2010, p. 5). From an internal perspective, the rest of AUDI AG was said to “mainly care for the present and the future” (Ethno. 41, l. 203). To better understand how the past was ‘worked’ in practice, one must first explore the broader organizational set-up in which the corporate history department operated. The following sections discuss where Audi Tradition was situated in the greater context of the corporation, how the department was structured, what kind of labor ‘tradition work’ encompassed, and what default perspectives on the past the department typically applied.

4.1 The Corporate History Department in Relation to the Company On an organizational level, Audi Tradition constituted a split entity. One part of the department belonged to the communications unit, while another part consisted of two so-called ‘tradition companies’ that were independent in their own right. Aspects of formal organizational structure determined what the department could do and to whom it was accountable. The official level of organizational remembrance was thus determined by the attachment to a superior business unit, this superior unit’s strategy, reporting relationships, and sources of funding.

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The first division within the corporate history department acted as AUDI AG’s ‘historical communications’ arm. Members employed there were doing classical public relations work; they were beholden to the broader PR agenda of the company and the purpose-bound budget provided for PR (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2010, November 24). Their objective was to support the communications efforts of the corporation via so-called “tradition topics,” thereby co-shaping the “reputation” of the brand and the company (Ethno. 66, l. 136). The second part of Audi Tradition had a broader focus, which transcended the classical means utilized in public relations. The corporate history department also incorporated two “tradition companies,” named “AUTO UNION GmbH” and “NSU GmbH” (Ethno. 12, l. 22). These two ‘tradition companies’ were not directly answerable to the communications unit. Instead, they developed their own strategies and received their own budget directly from the CEO, as they were fully consolidated by AUDI AG. The overall objective was to “cultivate the tradition of Audi” (Ethno. 8, l. 82), and “secure the legal rights” of the corporation’s “tradition brands” (Ethno. 12, l. 22) – comprised of (pre-war) Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, Auto Union, and NSU. Activities officially conducted by AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH could thus involve marketing, the handling of legal affairs, and as well as a range of other operations. In everyday practice, the dividing line within Audi Tradition proved to be rather blurry from the perspective of the general observer. Organizational members of Auto Union GmbH shared the same office with members doing press work, and their work tasks partly complemented each other, or even overlapped. Taken as an organization-internal division, the existence of the two ‘tradition companies’ within Audi Tradition was mainly a matter of financial and legal affairs – a sphere that mattered a great deal, but which was inaccessible within this study’s scope of inquiry. Apart from that, most ‘tradition workers’ fashioned themselves as members of Audi Tradition – regardless of whether they were employed with the historical communications arm or the two ‘tradition companies.’ Both divisions were headed by a manager who fulfilled both the role of the historical communications manager and that of the managing director of the ‘tradition companies.’ He was accountable to the directives of the superior head of communications, but, as the managing director of the ‘tradition companies,’ he directly reported to, and followed the directives of, the CEO of AUDI AG. Due to this particular set-up, Audi Tradition was able to ‘work’ the past in far more ways and for a greater range of purposes than what would have been possible if they had merely been a sub-department. Hence, it was commonly seen as “more than just a historical communications department” (Ethno. 8, l. 124), as an employee proclaimed.

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4.1.1 Performing a unique kind of work Being more than just a historical communications department also mattered for the manner in which Audi Tradition’s workforce construed itself, as well as the identity construction of the department. Staff considered themselves a more or less “independent little island” within AUDI AG (Ethno. 10, l. 110). Audi Tradition was described as somewhat detached from the corporation’s regular business operations, which were predominantly focused on the production and sale of new cars. While the majority of staff clearly enjoyed being concerned with the ‘tradition cause,’ this kind of detachment also carried disadvantages. Some members of Audi Tradition were found to be suffering from slight inferiority complexes. As a long-term employee noted, “If we didn’t exist, the company would still keep on running. […] We don’t make any money; we just spend it” (Ethno. 9, l. 38). Individual members voiced the feeling of being just an addition, which the company could dispense with under less favorable economic circumstances. Fortunately for them, the corporate history department was considered an indispensable “luxury” during the time this research was conducted (Int. 30, l. 106). The feeling of doing something special was embodied in the way the corporate history department presented itself to others. When carrying out ‘tradition work’ in front of an internal or external audience, the department operated under its Audi Tradition name, instead of subordinating themselves under the general Audi banner, as most departments did. For example, the fleet of corporate cars carried the Audi Tradition logo, merchandise was branded with the department name, and its members frequently wore uniform clothing sporting the ‘tradition brands’ (Ethno. 8, l. 74). The corporate history department distinguished itself as the dominant entity that officially represented the corporate past.

4.1.2 Negotiating contemporary currents The predominant focus on the retrospective did not mean that the department was exclusively living in the past. Audi Tradition ‘worked’ the past from a contemporary perspective to support a range of interests the corporation was currently pursuing. The contemporary agenda of AUDI AG influenced how the past was reconstructed, represented, and reactivated, as well as what elements were communicated to the public. Thus, the efforts of Audi Tradition had to be in line with the strategy that the rest of the organization pursued. For instance, a member involved in designing museum exhibitions noted, “When I hear that corporate objectives lean toward technology, light-weight construction, [and] sustainability, I try to orient my efforts accordingly, showing our history or

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respective parts of it which reflect that” (Int. 30, l. 174). More specifically, when electric mobility became a hot topic in 2010, Audi Tradition was urged to promote the electric vehicles the company and its predecessors had once produced, such as the 1920 slaby-Beringer and the fleet of Audi Duo hybrid cars from the 1990s (Ethno. 26, 20). As another member stated, his job “follows the way the wind is blowing” (Int. 29, l. 622), indicating that the broader Zeitgeist within the corporation heavily determined the content recollected through ‘tradition work.’ At the same time, Audi Tradition attempted to pursue an “independent longterm strategy” that was “unaffected by any currents” (Int. 29, l. 642). In this way, the department tried to prevent actions that might ‘harm’ the ‘tradition cause’ in the long run. For instance, if the department only retained the most prestigious and powerful automobiles in the historical motor vehicle collection and disregarded small, economic cars just because the former would fit in better with current brand identity building efforts, they ran the risk of being unprepared for a future in which the topic of downsizing could become relevant. In addition to looking back, therefore, ‘tradition workers’ were required to foresee which elements of the corporate past could become relevant twenty to fifty years out. Moreover, the members of Audi Tradition attempted to ensure that these elements would mainly be represented in ‘authentic’ ways by AUDI AG. They tried to prevent ‘unreasonable stretches’ in interpretation that might otherwise occur for the mere sake of catering to present company ambitions. For example, when the marketing unit once claimed that Audi had invented the all-wheel-drive system with quattro, the corporate history department made sure to qualify the statement – the company had only made the all-wheel-drive system popular in series production sports cars. Regarding the matter, a corporate historian emphasized: AT: We deliver the facts; we deliver the ‘truth’ as far as we consider it to be the truth, driven by the ambition to remain authentic. However, we don’t have the power to proclaim ‘That’s how you’ve got to say it.’ We can only point out, ‘If you don’t say it like that, be careful, [because] you’re potentially leaving the path of truth. And this might come back at us badly like a boomerang.’ (Int. 28, l. 92)²⁸

 The acronyms used before direct quotes convey the membership status of the department to which the respective respondent belonged. While ‘AT’ stands for Audi Tradition, ‘VM’ denotes the marketing and sales unit, ‘TE’ the technological development unit, ‘HR’ human resources, ‘PR’ public relations, ‘PI’ production, and so on. Please note that these acronyms do not comply with the formal organization chart of AUDI AG (AUDI AG, Organisation, 2010, September 2), as anonymization of respondents would have been difficult otherwise.

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In this regard, the department acted as an organization-internal gatekeeper that tried to uphold certain standards of what they considered the historical truth to be. Nevertheless, they did not have the power to force their interpretations onto other stakeholders inside the company. At the end of the day, Audi Tradition was required to subordinate their own aspirations to those business units that brought in the money. Hence, their perspective on the corporate past oscillated between retrospective functionalization for contemporary business purposes and the aspiration to what they conceptualized as ‘historical authenticity.’

4.1.3 Spatial structures reinforcing tradition work The feeling that the scope of Audi Tradition’s work was decidedly different than the rest of the corporation was reinforced by spatial structures. Unlike the majority of departments from the communications and marketing units that shared a single central building called ‘Market and Customer’ at the Audi Forum, the facilities of Audi Tradition were located outside the main premises of the Audi plant. Physically detached from those who were primarily ‘concerned with the future,’ departmental life was conducted in an almost self-sufficient way. Itemized as “Audi Tradition GVZ hall K” on the functional plant layout map (see Fig. 2 in chapter 3.1.5), the building had been erected at the fringes of the ‘cargo transport center’ – a large commercial and industrial park outside the gates of the regular Audi plant. Due to its geographical seclusion, it required a 1.8 km commute to reach the plant where the other departments, the cantina, and the corporate museum were located. At least in terms of the employees on lower rungs of the ladder, everyday contact to members of other departments was limited to the times when appointments and business meetings were arranged, during project-related deployment, or when work-related communication occurred via e-mail and phone. As a member of Audi Tradition remarked, they were living a “remote island life away from the troubles of everyday business over there [at the plant]” (Ethno. 28, l. 198). Another aspect of spatial structure had a significant impact on ‘working’ the past. Audi Tradition was internally separated into two local chapters. The chapter affiliated with the first ‘tradition company,’ AUTO UNION GmbH, operated from Ingolstadt, recollecting the pasts of Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, and Auto Union. Staff affiliated with the second ‘tradition company,’ NSU GmbH, on the other hand, were situated in Neckarsulm, where they were almost exclusively concerned with the NSU-related past. This constellation was a remnant of the period before Audi Tradition had come into being, which will be explained in chapter 7.3. Both local chapters collaborated during joint productions in which

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AUDI AG’s complete brand-related history was meant to be ‘worked.’ Weekly departmental meetings in Ingolstadt were joined in by the Neckarsulm staff via conference call; project-related visits on both sides were common. Nevertheless, professional expertise remained divided along the lines of content and responsibility for ‘tradition brands’/predecessor companies. For access reasons, the following description of the areas of ‘tradition work’ primarily takes into account what was encountered at the Ingolstadt site.

4.2 Formalized Areas of Tradition Work and Structures Various formalized structures inside the department predetermined what kind of work Audi Tradition carried out. During the time in which fieldwork was conducted, ‘working’ the past was sub-divided into twelve areas (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2010, November 24). Following a more or less strict division of labor, each area pertained to concrete job descriptions and tasks. These areas provided frameworks, boundaries, and legitimization for the activities involved in professionally ‘cultivating tradition’ for the larger company.

4.2.1 Areas of tradition work First of all, the collection of historical motor vehicles constituted the material product heritage of AUDI AG. Staffed with three employees, the main objective of this work area was the “systematic establishment of a historical collection of exhibits documenting the corporate history of AUDI AG” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 1999, p. 4). Sub-tasks involved acquisition research, investment propositions, and the purchase, restoration, repair, maintenance, and arrangement of spare part reproduction for keeping the company-owned classic vehicles in presentable shape.²⁹

 With the terms ‘vintage’ or ‘classic motor vehicles,’ I refer to those automobiles and motorcycles that go by the loanword ‘Oldtimer’ in German. By national regulation, an Oldtimer is a vehicle that is more than 30 years old. In Germany it can be registered with a special license plate referred to as H-Kennzeichen, if the car meets certain criteria such as being in an overall good, unmodified, conservation-worthy condition. It declares the vehicle a “cultural treasure of motor vehicle engineering” (StVZO, §23, as cited in DEKRA Automobil GmbH, 2012, para. 3; cf. Die Zeit, 2013, February 14). In turn, the H license plate brings the benefit of a decrease in road tax. In other words, the Oldtimer status ascribes cultural value to an otherwise old product, and provides the motorist with a monetary advantage.

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Secondly, there was a historical archive. Its principal duty was to selectively collect and preserve records, images, audiovisual media, and small artifacts “that document the history of the company and its products” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 1999, p. 6). Information contained in these materials was to be made accessible to others. Equipped with a staff of two, tasks included processing archival inquiries, maintaining the photo archive, gathering further materials, furnishing exhibitions, and maintaining contacts to private and business-related archives. Furthermore, it was responsible for executing vehicle-related client services – e. g. retrieving original production specifications. Third, a small audiovisual media archive concerned itself with storing, systematizing, and restoring moving pictures, such as old advertisements, corporate image films, and recordings of products that visually documented the corporate past. Presided over by a half-time employee, these media were distributed to internal and external stakeholders when they required footage for their own purposes. The fourth work area was referred to as corporate history and historical research. Three corporate historians conducted studies about the past of the brand, as well as its products, technologies, and the organization itself. In addition to composing historical texts, they provided consultancy services to other parties. Moreover, they were involved in planning new museum exhibitions and guided tours of the car depot. They propagated their historical knowledge through presentations and lectures, and answered journalistic inquiries into history-related topics. The most publicly visible area of official ‘tradition work’ was the fifth area – the corporate museum in Ingolstadt. Called Audi museum mobile, it featured those aspects of history the company wished to showcase to a public audience. With three staff positions,³⁰ the museum team supervised the permanent exhibition, curated new temporary exhibitions, hosted events at the venue, promoted the museum, and operated a museum shop where branded history merchandise could be purchased. The sixth area of ‘tradition work,’ called events, was concerned with the ‘eventification’ of corporate history. Two people organized and executed activities such as vintage car rallies, promotional show races, and tradeshows, where classic motor vehicles were put on stage and demonstrated in action for an audience.  The museum staff was considerably larger, including dozens of museum guides who led insightful tours for visitors. However, these employees were not part of the Audi Tradition team, as they had been employed by a distribution support company during the time of this study. They were more or less expected to execute what had been conceptualized by Audi Tradition.

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Promoting the activities of Audi Tradition to the public, the seventh area was called press and media work. Here, a single employee’s tasks included the creation and distribution of press releases featuring ‘tradition content,’ the construction of PR stories, and the handling of journalistic inquiries. In addition, press clippings helped the department to capture feedback about its external outreach. The eighth work area of advertisement and merchandise was occupied with promoting non-academic books, calendars, and other print media, which featured ‘tradition contents.’ With one staff position, the work area also managed the creation and distribution of a smorgasbord of ‘tradition-branded’ products, such as shirts, lanyards, boule sets, leather accessories, and stickers. While technically a matter of merchandise, the conceptualization and realization of model cars constituted its own work area. A ‘tradition worker’ was assigned to design and supervise the production of detailed model replications. Offered in different scales, the model car portfolio ranged from vintage automobile to current production models and never-built concept vehicles. The models were then sold through various channels. A recently established area of ‘tradition work,’ the support of automobile clubs, formed the tenth area. Staffed by a single employee, its goal was to represent AUDI AG to organized aficionados of classic and modern cars related to the Audi brand. The ‘tradition worker’ served as the main contact point for these stakeholders, negotiating interests between, and collaborations with, said clubs. With the eleventh area, Audi Tradition brought in at least some revenue by offering a classic car rental service. One member of the department coordinated the logistics of renting out a selection of classic motor vehicles to various stakeholder groups. Last but not least, the official spare parts online shop was an increasingly important area of ‘tradition work’ (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2013). The role of the shop was to supply spare parts for vehicles whose model line had been out of production for at least 15 years. Operating from a warehouse in Neckarsulm, two ‘tradition workers’ acquired, systematically collected, sold, and shipped off spare parts to customers. Most areas of ‘tradition work’ were covered by one or two employees who were assigned these positions according to their expertise. This meant that ‘tradition workers’ were equipped with different sets of knowledge and practical skills according to the formal membership roles they assumed. The division of labor based on professional specialization determined who was allowed to carry out what practices of ‘working’ the past. This also meant that not every ‘tradition worker’ was necessarily a specialist in all matters of the past.

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A department manager, who was also the director of the two ‘tradition companies,’ was formally accountable for all tradition activities and their strategic interplay. The goal was to ensure that each work area complemented the others, thereby allowing for a number of diverse ‘tradition-related services’ to be offered. Moreover, one of the duties of management included the formal representation of Audi Tradition through lectures, speeches, and public appearances, as well as maintaining contact to the board of management, the media, and other influential stakeholders. Management thus served as a lobbying power that promoted the ‘tradition cause’ both inside and outside the company.

4.2.2 Internal departmental structures re-enforced by material structures In order to ‘work’ the past, the corporate history department had been equipped with a range of resources by AUDI AG. In addition to receiving a steady budget and a fulltime roster of 23 people at the Ingolstadt site, Audi Tradition commanded its own office building, various secret warehouses dispersed around the city of Ingolstadt for storing classic motor vehicles, and a museum. Sufficient resources and lasting material structures not only re-enforced organizational structures, but created the necessary conditions that made official ‘tradition work’ actionable in practice. More importantly, these material structures were built to last, which indicates that this line of work was envisioned as a long-term engagement. The office building in Ingolstadt was the location where the majority of ‘tradition work’ was carried out. Located at Hall K in the ‘cargo transport center,’ it housed the offices of most of the staff, the historical archive, a garage for fixing vehicles, and a depot for storing classic motor vehicles. The building was a comparatively new, spacious complex, indicating that a substantial amount of money had recently been invested in the ‘tradition cause.’ Each area of ‘tradition work’ was assigned its own dedicated space; common areas such as meeting rooms and kitchens served as places to convene. The facade of the building was visibly marked by a large Audi Tradition sign that featured the department’s name, the ‘Four Rings’ logo, and the emblems of the six ‘tradition brands’ underneath. Inside, the building was elaborately decorated with vintage memorabilia, historical photographs, and all kinds of artifacts representing the corporate past. These elements visually indicated to both the workforce and external visitors that Audi Tradition was the official entity inside the corporation responsible for professionally ‘cultivating tradition.’

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4.2.3 Members in their informal roles as vintage car aficionados While the activities of the department were organized according to formal structures, they were also shaped by the personalities and private convictions of the people working there. More than half of its members were vintage car aficionados who were also living their passion in their private lives. They saw beauty and cultural value in old motor vehicles. The majority of staff was deeply convinced that ‘working’ the corporate past was highly important for the company on an ideological level. To them, the value of what they were doing in their daily jobs could not be reduced to a numbers-oriented business exercise. As one member remarked, “This type of work cannot be measured in monetary terms; it’s about flying the flag, showing we are there” (Ethno. 22, l. 27). Several of them owned classic vehicles related to the Audi brand themselves. Some of them were active members of classic car clubs such as Auto Union Veteranen Club e.V. (see AUVC, 2012). Their professional interest in the corporate past was driven by personal curiosity for historical knowledge, passion about old artifacts, and the appeal of yesteryear. As a corporate historian pointed out, “Many [people] working here have turned their hobby into their profession” (Ethno. 28, l. 200); thus formal roles and private roles were tightly intertwined. At the time fieldwork was conducted, the majority of established ‘tradition workers’ could be characterized as conservative employees. Labeled an “elephants’ graveyard” by a younger member (Ethno. 28, l. 196), Audi Tradition was perceived as a tight-knit community of well-established long-timers – many of whom had been in the ‘tradition business’ for decades. This same younger member added, “This is not a place for building a fast career. […] You’ve got to be in here for the long run” (l. 196). New members had to earn their spot by showing that they were ‘genuine’ in their passion for the corporate past. Certain employees, who had been with the department since its beginnings, were commonly acknowledged as the veterans of ‘tradition work.’ They also enjoyed the highest degree of respect, which was not necessarily a matter of professional rank. As a high-ranking marketing manager observed, Audi Tradition featured “a small group of enthusiasts – people like [the archivist], a veteran – who have shown a lot of commitment and love to make sure that the past gets preserved” (Int. 18, l. 256). Authority was widely granted based on the level of experience in the greater field of ‘cultivating automobile tradition,’ which transcended the boundaries of the organization and entered the private realm of classic car aficionados. In consequence, ‘cultivating tradition’ was not a nine-to-five job. It was a mission that continued outside the workplace.

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Due to a comparatively high level of personal involvement, the occasional clash between corporate interests and private convictions was observed. These clashes affected how official tradition work was carried out.³¹ As in most corporations, however, those with the authority and the resources tend to have the last word. Due to power asymmetries, ‘tradition workers’ with a strong sense for ‘historical truth’ and ‘authenticity’ had to sometimes compromise to cater to the interests of stronger corporate parties. Members involved in archival research and historical writing, in particular, viewed these situations with a good degree of cynicism. Hence, an informant identified Audi Tradition “as somewhat a Janus-faced character […] posing a dichotomy between selling cars versus working the past according to academic standards” (Ethno. 11, l. 142). They were fully aware of the fact that their jobs involved negotiating the difficult territory between supporting an automobile business and creating historical accounts that could be described as accurate. Since the corporation could not control every aspect of work life, however, personal preferences nevertheless shaped the way the corporate history department was run. Informal roles and views that had developed due to personal experiences outside the workplace thus turned out to have a significant impact on official organizational remembrance.

4.2.4 Assuming the status of an institution In its role as the official carrier of organizational remembrance, Audi Tradition enjoyed the status of an institution. A number of aspects had led to professional legitimization and stability – two criteria of institutionalization (Strati, 2000). First of all, Audi Tradition had been set up as a genuine department with a fixed place in the greater organizational structure of the corporation. Second, Audi Tradition incorporated two fully consolidated ‘tradition companies’ with their own budget and a direct line to the CEO, which provided a level of sovereignty in terms of finances and dependency on other business units. Third, dis-

 Staff did not always consider corporate management’s decisions the best for the greater ‘tradition cause.’ Issues emerged when expectations attached to formal roles collided with interests emerging from informal roles. For example, a group of seasoned ‘tradition workers,’ who were big fans of post-war two-stroke engine cars, were outraged and personally offended when they were told that Audi’s marketing unit would like the corporate history department to “disregard the entry-level DKW and NSU brands” as these did not fit with contemporary premium claims (Int. 31, l. 86). What made sense from a contemporary business perspective did not necessarily make sense from the perspective of a classic car aficionado.

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tinct areas of ‘tradition work’ with concrete job descriptions had been defined and filled with expert staff. Fourth, material structures re-enforced the status of the corporate history department as an official carrier of organizational remembrance. And fifth, even in their informal roles, members of Audi Tradition acted as vintage car aficionados, which gave them credibility and authority. In consequence, Audi Tradition was more than just a group of people inside AUDI AG who happened to recollect the corporate past. It was, in fact, a stable institution that was granted legitimacy (cf. Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975) to officially ‘work’ the past in professional terms. Now that the corporate history department has been discussed on several structural levels, the important topic of which elements of the corporate past Audi Tradition was officially remembering in practice will be addressed.

4.3 Remembering the Corporate Past through Thematic Lenses As mentioned before, the objective of Audi Tradition was to ‘cultivate the tradition’ of AUDI AG. The question emerges what exactly ‘tradition’ was constituted by in a corporate setting, and what elements of the past were actually recollected by the corporate history department. In everyday corporate life, ‘tradition’ was ubiquitously used as an ambiguous term loaded with different meanings. From the perspective of staff, ‘tradition’ included a vast number of concepts, such as ‘the past,’ ‘history,’ and ‘heritage,’ – also including the numerous vestiges, manifestations, and representations of retrospection. Conceptually, ‘tradition’ encompassed a manifold array of mental models, social practices, and material elements – e. g. the past as mode of time, the writing of history, the collection and maintenance of vintage automobiles, and so on. An informed differentiation between these concepts was not made by the majority of ‘tradition workers.’ With the term ‘tradition’ wielded in such a vague and all-encompassing manner, one could assume that nearly any aspect of ‘yesteryear’ could be elevated to the status of ‘tradition.’ This was not the case, however. The corporate history department employed a number of thematic lenses that helped them to frame the corporate past in meaningful ways. The three main lenses focused on 1) brands, 2) products and technology, and 3) organization. While they were not formally explicated anywhere, ethnographic fieldwork identified them as complexity-reducing schemata in the minds of ‘tradition workers,’ which became visible by observing their actions and scrutinizing their productions.

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4.3.1 Thematic lens 1: Brands Through the brands lens, the members of Audi Tradition focused their thinking on elements of the corporate past that could be directly related to AUDI AG’s most valuable symbolic capital – the Audi brand. In addition to the post-war Audi brand, the lens focused on the array of ‘tradition brands’ the company owned – i. e. Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, Auto Union, NSU, and post-war DKW. It covered territory such as registered trademarks (e. g. Audi), logos (e. g. the quattro logotype), emblems (e. g. the ‘Four Rings’), brand slogans (e. g. Vorsprung durch Technik), and visual corporate identity components. Beyond these elements, this particular lens required staff to dig for anecdotes surrounding the foundation of the aforementioned brands (e. g. how the Audi name had come into being). In this effort, historical figures were brought into the picture who were claimed to have substantially shaped the respective brands (e. g. August Horch). Historical brand values were also taken into consideration as generators of meaning (i. e. what a brand used to stand for, or what attributes had been ascribed to it – e. g. that Horch used to stand for luxury and craftsmanship on a par with Mercedes-Benz and Maybach). Associations between brands, people, and values were meant to imbue the brand with ‘emotion’ through techniques of ‘brand emotionalization’ – a concept that will be explained in chapter 5.5. Furthermore, this particular lens enabled ‘tradition workers’ to inquire how brand segmentation had looked back in the old days (e. g. Horch as a luxury brand for the established elite in the 1930s). This type of information permitted corporate historians to make inferences about the views of former customer groups and their perceptions of the company. As a result, former brand images and changes to them over time could be identified as valid subjects for historical reconstruction. A brand perspective made it possible to arrange and relate a number of select elements of the corporate past into a brand history, in which the ‘Four Rings’ were the guiding star. This history followed the structure of a seemingly coherent family tree of multiple ‘tradition brands,’ finally culminating in today’s Audi brand (cf. Fig. 2 in chapter 3.2). It served as a meaningful framework for staff, allowing them to link the present with the past in a stringent manner. One of the main objectives was to explain to audiences “where the ‘Four Rings’ actually come from, what they mean, what they stand for […], and that the brand essence of the Audi brand can also be expressed in terms of tradition” (Int. 31, l. 38), as the department manager argued. The brand was thus embraced as a dominant lens.

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However, not every ‘tradition brand’ was employed equally. At the Ingolstadt chapter, Audi Tradition was strongly focused on the Auto Union side of the family tree – i. e. pre-war Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, post-war Auto Union, and modern Audi. As a ‘tradition worker’ admitted, “NSU is often neglected here. […] Quite honestly, it’s not on the top of my mind” (Ethno. 36, l. 155). This was due to the fact that ‘working’ the NSU past was considered the responsibility of the local chapter in Neckarsulm. As the most important decision-makers were sitting on the Ingolstadt side of the table, though, the NSU brand regularly slipped from the radar of those who were composing the broader strategy. Organizational structures therefore also had a pronounced effect on the contents that were remembered.

4.3.2 Thematic lens 2: Products and technology The second lens commonly employed at Audi Tradition attended to motor vehicles and their technologies. This tied very much into the brands lens, as products generally constitute the most tangible representation of an automobile brand. Recollection encompassed individual production cars, such as the 1980 Audi quattro, or the 1912 Audi Type C. But it also embraced entire generations of model lines, such as the Audi 100, or the Audi A8. In connection with these cars, the recollection of factual data, such as production numbers, dates, trim lines, what special accessories and color combinations had been offered, and so on, was deemed important. With respect to technologies, this particular lens shifted attention to developments that had been incorporated into the company’s motor vehicles. Technology not only constituted the inner workings of the individual product, but also determined its features and qualities. The majority of technologies remembered through this lens were those that had been used across multiple product lines, because they could be fashioned as elements that were ‘defining’ for the company and the brand. For instance, the quattro drive system, front wheel drive, and TDI engines were framed as ‘typically Audi,’ while 8-cylinder engines or lightweight aluminum body construction stood for particular cars in time. Understandably, the dominant ‘vehicle’ for representing these technologies remained the automobile, so almost no technology was remembered without a link to a product. Products and technologies were not looked at as individual dots in a historical vacuum. Instead, they were put into relation to one another. They were placed in a line of progress and continuous advancement; specific cars were seen to build upon, and derive from, each other, which entailed that later models

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were seen as superior to their predecessors. This approach perpetuated the conviction that ‘new is always better.’ It guaranteed that the product and technology portfolio AUDI AG was currently offering could be fashioned as the best and most advanced the company had ever offered. This particular lens was the most prominent in the public discourse about AUDI AG’s past. An explanation for its prominence was given by a corporate historian: AT: It is clear that the product history takes priority over many other aspects, because it is requested more frequently, and it is a popular representational aspect. Besides, the slogan of the company is Vorsprung durch Technik, and not Vorsprung durch Organisation [Advancement through organization] […]. Displaying the technology through products thus takes priority. (Int. 28, l. 144)

The fact that products and technologies were most often remembered by Audi Tradition was a result of how the company wished to brand itself – as a creator of innovative products. Moreover, a strong focus on the product side was a result of popular demand. Internal and external stakeholders were most interested in relatable products of the past, which is why Audi Tradition had decided to cater to that demand.

4.3.3 Thematic lens 3: Organization Though not the prominent one, the third lens concerned itself with the organization – i. e. AUDI AG as a business and company. This lens drew attention to the intra-organizational developments, processes of (re)structuring, predecessor and successor companies, legal developments (such as ownership transformations due to mergers and acquisitions), and so on. Moreover, statistics regarding profits, economic successes and failures, the size of the workforce, layoffs, and other company-related data were gathered under the organizational lens. It also looked at spatial developments of the company on site, such as the physical spread of corporate facilities across Ingolstadt. Each organization is not just made up of formalized structures, but also of people of flesh and blood. In consequence, the organizational lens directed attention to specific managers, engineers, leader figures, and racecar drivers who were identified as important in and to the corporate past. Their visions, ideologies, strengths, and achievements, from which the company had benefited, were seen as crucial. Attending to these elements allowed for the writing of a more human-oriented corporate history that also took into account emotional aspects.

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4.3.4 Multiple pasts through multiple lenses In theory, the corporate past consisted of multiple pasts, depending on which lens was employed. In practice, however, these three lenses were not clearly separable. They not only complemented one another, but also overlapped. No meaningful reconstruction of the corporate past could be achieved by exclusively employing a single lens. Instead, the majority of reconstructions created by Audi Tradition used elements from all three lenses. They were spun into comprehensive narratives, which were treated as ‘corporate history’ and ‘tradition.’ This included, for instance, the company’s official history book titled “Four rings: The Audi story” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009). Depending on the prominence of the underlying lens, though, these narratives could be classified as brand history (e. g., AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2005), product history (e. g., Friese, 2008), or organizational history (e. g., Kukowski, 2003). What was actually retained, reconstructed, and recalled very much depended on selective, man-made content frames. As will be seen in chapter 5, different purposes of organizational remembrance called for different thematic lenses. It was also possible to identify dominant cultural dimensions that were scrutinized more often than others. Judging from the focus of staff, the ‘tradition’ aspect of the company was mainly tied to the material dimension, residing in products, documents, and other material artifacts of former times. One reason for this was that elements of the material dimension seemed the most concrete and tangible: A classic car or an old file were easier to obtain, retain, maintain, analyze, and display than, e. g., a set of skilled working practices than had been passed on among the workforce. This kind of fixation on the material dimension had direct implications for what was not considered ‘tradition.’ Of little relevance were most social elements within regular company life. In general, the ‘tradition’ term did not touch upon the everyday work life of the average company members; it did not embrace decade-old professional skills, concrete production techniques that had been refined over time, or the business unit-specific management styles that had evolved. While one could argue that these aspects were more difficult to grasp, the main reason for neglecting them was that material aspects were more visible and interesting to the world outside the company – i. e. to those external audiences that Audi Tradition had to serve. This is why the everyday working traditions of mundane company life received little attention. Anything beyond the bounds of the three lenses was considerably less relevant. The ‘historical truth,’ as promoted by the corporate history department, thus was only able to cover a small subset of organizational life.

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4.4 Short Summary This chapter explained that the way organizational remembrance at AUDI AG was practiced did not evolve by coincidence. The corporate past was actively ‘worked’ in professional terms by an official carrier of organizational remembrance called Audi Tradition. Here, the structure of the corporate history department was delineated and the past as professionally dealt with through the twelve areas of ‘tradition work’ explained. These areas formalized the work involved in ‘cultivating tradition’ and put the past in the service of contemporary business concerns. A number of qualities were mentioned that rendered remembrance organizational, rather than just collective. It was then argued that not each and every aspect of the past was of interest to the department. By default, three thematic lenses were commonly employed through which specific elements received special attention, while others were virtually excluded – namely brands, products and technologies, and, to a considerably lesser degree, the organization in its more mundane, everyday life. In consequence, the term ‘tradition’ only pertained to a fragment of the corporate past that had been selected according to present concerns.

5 Purposes and Cultural Forms of Organizational Remembrance At AUDI AG, ‘tradition’ was not ‘cultivated’ for the mere sake of looking back. The corporate history department was part of a commercial enterprise, and thus its activities were expected to contribute to business success in one way or another. While most activities carried out by the various business units of the company were meant to eventually result in selling more automobiles, ‘working’ the past served as a means to multiple ends. My research distilled seven purposes of official organizational remembrance, which will be discussed in this chapter. While they were not the only purposes the company pursued when recollecting its past, they proved to be the most prominent ones. They include 1) retaining physical proof of one’s existence, 2) legal protection of trademark rights, 3) historical accountability, 4) corporate identity construction in public relations, 5) brand identity construction in marketing, 6) direct economic utilization, and 7) satisfaction of entertainment demands. These purposes of organizational remembrance were manifest in what the members of Audi Tradition did and produced when conducting official ‘tradition work.’ They only became visible after scrutinizing the cultural forms of organizational remembrance through which the corporate past was retained, represented, and reactivated. The following sub-chapters discuss each of the purposes mentioned above in connection with a selection of matching cultural forms of organizational remembrance. In this manner it becomes possible to understand what was intended to be achieved and by which means – i. e. the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of Audi Tradition’s official recollection efforts. For reasons of space, the pairing remains exemplary rather than exhaustive. Moreover, most cultural forms did not merely fulfill a single purpose. The more complex in design, the more multi-functional they proved to be. The first purpose of organizational remembrance discussed here is the most basic one, upon which the fulfillment of any other purpose depended.

5.1 Retaining Physical Proof of One’s Existence Any company wanting to make claims based on the length of its existence needs to provide tangible proof of the historicity of its operations. In general, the most tangible proof can be found in physical materials from the corporate past: Old business records, photographs, vintage products, historical advertisements, and other cultural artifacts bear testimony to the company’s doings. As remnants

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and markers of time, these artifacts can be used to represent the activities conducted and outcomes produced, prior to what the majority of stakeholders would typically remember on an autobiographical level. In order to be able to activate these artifacts in the present, a company needs to build and maintain a useable collection in the first place. This is often done by gathering and retaining materials in a centralized fashion. Once gathered, systematized, and properly stored, these materials then form a useable stock that can be worked with. In order to explain the manner in which this purpose was actualized, three cultural forms of organizational remembrance will be discussed here that were encountered during fieldwork: the historical archive, the collection of classic motor vehicles, and the practice of car restoration. They provided physical materials which were used as historical sources to prove that AUDI AG was an established player in the automobile industry with a long-standing history.

5.1.1 The historical archive The general point of the historical archive was to provide a repository of media from, and information about, the corporate past. Its formal purpose was to “store existing and yet to be acquired materials that serve the documentation of the company’s corporate history, including its predecessor firms” (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1983, May 9, p. 1). Viable materials included print media, such as business records, press releases, letters, internal memos, strategy papers, folders with information about corporate leader figures, technical blueprints, motor vehicle specifications sheets, sales brochures, user manuals, employee handbooks, PR campaigns, advertisements, and a variety of other remaining documents produced by AUDI AG and its predecessor companies. It also encompassed design concept drawings, automobile-related artwork, posters, slides, negatives, and printed photographs of products, technologies, the plant, corporate life and select organizational figures. A fraction of the latter media was also available in digital form (Ethno. 7, l. 94). Moreover, there was a small library of motor vehicle-related books, corporate history publications, and internal research publications that helped to place these materials in context (Int. 29, ll. 496 – 506). In addition, plenty of more unpredictable memorabilia had made their way into the archive, such as classic model toy cars, racing trophies, signs, vintage clothes, some furniture, and old office machines (Ethno. 8, l. 88). Over the years, a considerable stock of material artifacts had been generated, which filled several dozen archival shelves. Archival content included both materials from the distant past and from more recent times. However, due to historical reasons that will be explained later, the further back in time one sought to

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investigate, the more difficult it was to retrieve sufficient amounts of relevant material. Certain periods of AUDI AG and its predecessors were better represented than others at the Ingolstadt site. For instance, many of the documents dating back to pre-war Auto Union AG were, in fact, stored at the Saxon Public Records Office in Chemnitz and in various national archives in Eastern Europe (Ethno. 42, l. 82). Since some important documents were found in public collections, AUDI AG was not in full control of documenting and making truth claims about its past. As a physical storage space, the archive did not ‘do’ any organizational remembering (cf. Linde, 2009). It was the archival staff who performed the respective activities. The practice of archival work was formally laid out in five steps (see AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 1999, p. 6): It commenced with the acquisition of material from internal and external sources through transfer, donation, or purchase. It continued with the assessment of material and the selection of archiveworthy components. Next, new materials were catalogued and shelved, so that they would become retrievable. Existing archival contents were ideally maintained or – if necessary – restored. After these steps had been completed, the archive was able to pass on information from, and copies of, materials to parties who made a formal inquiry. Because the historical archive did not possess unlimited storage space, it had to be selective. According to an archivist, only four percent of all materials screened were actually retained (Ethno. 23, l. 189). Internal guidelines existed, which were informed by the recommendations given by the German Association of Business Archivists (see Vereinigung Deutscher Wirtschaftsarchivare e.V., 2012). Nevertheless, decisions regarding inclusion and exclusion were often made based on informal preferences that had been established in the corporate setting over time. As a long-term archivist pointed out: AT: We are a corporate archive and not the Deutsches Museum. We can choose what we want to keep. If we decide that we’re not interested in the Audi 50 then nothing about it will be available anymore. […] We’re not scientific here and we don’t have to be. […] You can’t completely deny any scientific aspirations, but we are subjective and not objective. (Ethno. 18, l. 84)

Retention of materials was intended to provide internal stakeholders, such as corporate historians, the press office, or marketing, with reliable and accessible historical sources. These physical materials allowed them to reconstruct and instrumentalize elements of the corporate past, based on which they could write convincing historical accounts, prepare press releases with historical facts, and equip advertisements with vestiges of the past. However, the archive could determine what they wanted to keep. Since they were not required to fulfill

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academic standards, it was up to company-internal regulations how selective the retention of content was. It should be pointed out that the existence of a historical archive is not taken for granted in any corporate setting. Apart from fulfilling a few statutory regulations, the systematic long-term retention of materials was exclusively the choice of the company. An archivist provided an explanation by contrasting the role of a corporate historical archive with the archive of a public institution: AT: Concerning the archive, there are quite explicit statutory regulations: Public archives have to exist, and [archives] under private law may exist. Well, there are companies that don’t have one anymore. The renowned company AEG submitted its archival contents to a regional business archive. Of course, they still have their documentation department, just like the […] central archive here. You have to have that. […] But an archive that also does additional things is not prescribed by law when it comes to companies. It means that we may do it, we can do it, but we don’t have to do it. And public authorities, municipalities, federal states, and so on have to do it. And when it comes to the public archive, it has to be ensured that you can use it; as a citizen you are entitled to do so. And here you are allowed to use it. That’s the difference. (Int. 29, l. 616)

This extract indicates that the purpose of a corporate historical archive was decidedly different from that of public archives. The main disparity stemmed from the legal regulations in which certain obligations were, or, in this case, were not, articulated: A private business organization did not need to have a historical archive from a legal standpoint. Based on the German commercial code, the company was legally obliged to keep its business-relevant records for a statutory period of up to ten years (HGB, 2004, §257). Retention of these records took place in a central registry, which was called the “central archive” at AUDI AG (Ethno. 18, l. 78). However, the central registry did not look into the contents it stored, unless there was a legal reason to do so. Its exclusive task was to “store in an administrative sense” (Ethno. 18, l. 78), and this meant that as an archive it was neither utilizable nor intended for history-related activities. Anything that transcended the statutory period could be discarded, unless it concerned crucial documents retained for legal proof, such as patent ownerships, brand registrations, and so on. In contrast, the corporate historical archive was an optional facility, the existence of which was negotiable. It could cease to exist or be outsourced if the company decided to do so. Nevertheless, the historical archive also provided crucial evidence in legal disputes. As an archivist noted, “The archive can keep and retrieve things that prove the objective truth – for instance when it comes to the Nazi past or product liability cases in the U.S.” (Ethno. 65, l. 78). While certain parties inside the corporation reportedly had an interest in glossing over various

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‘dark spots’ in the corporate past, the archivist argued that “somebody [outside the organization] always knows something [incriminatory], so it’s better to know more than him” (l. 82). The idea was to have the archive function as a long-term resource that would allow the company to ‘stay ahead’ on the knowledge front. Similarly, another archivist emphasized that “you can also avert lawsuits because you can prove that you’ve been aware of specific technological problems and you’ve actually searched for solutions” (Ethno. 23, l. 189). The historical archive thus served both as an informative and protective body by providing material evidence that worked in AUDI AG’s favor.

5.1.2 The collection of historical motor vehicles Business records, blueprints, and photos were not the only remnants of the corporate past. Actual products served as the most tangible proof of previous operations. Audi Tradition had collected numerous passenger cars, sports cars, concept vehicles, vans, military vehicles, motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles that bore the emblems of Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, Auto Union, and NSU. The historical collection was comprised of approximately 400 automobiles and 100 two-wheelers at the time of this investigation (Int. 29, l. 566). The goal was to maintain a representative selection of fully operational vehicles that gave diachronic insight into the vast range of brands and model series upon which the company claimed to rest its ‘tradition.’ A representative selection, in this case, did not mean that all vehicles were intended for public display. The “holy halls of [Audi] Tradition” (Int. 31, l. 214), as the historical depot was dubbed, were generally inaccessible to the public and the average employee of AUDI AG. Only 56 of these automobiles and a few dozen two-wheelers were on permanent display in the corporate museum in Ingolstadt (Int. 30, l. 94). The vehicle collection, on the other hand, constituted an internal “body of reference” that could physically document, claim ownership, “comprehend, and prove” what the company and its predecessor firms had once produced (Int. 29, l. 666). It was intended as a repository of products, upon which the company could draw. This approach ensured that it was not only the most aesthetically astonishing, or mechanically extravagant, vehicles that were collected, but that a stock of standard ‘bread and butter’ vehicles would also be retained – i. e. the ‘cash cows’ of business. According to an employee responsible for the acquisition process, the most basic goal was to secure “a stock of typical models from history,” while also retaining the “occasional exotic” vehicle (Int. 29, l. 666). He had attempted to gather a selection of vehicles from every era, covering each series,

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but not necessarily every model configuration. He added, “Judging by the history we have, which is almost unique in Germany, with the four or five brands, you simply cannot have everything” (l. 666). Money and storage space imposed restrictions. The source of most classic motor vehicles stored in the depot was also an aspect of interest. One might think that it would be easy for a company to retain a selection of its own products on a regular basis. This was not the case at AUDI AG, however. For historical reasons that will be explained later, the company had only started to retain and collect products in a systematic fashion as late as the early 1980s (AUDI AG, 1993). As a direct consequence, the company had to retrieve the vast majority of vehicles by purchasing them from external sources, such as private owners, commercial collectors, junk yards, and external museums. A Horch car from 1903, for example, was a permanent loan from the Deutsches Museum in Munich (Ethno. 72, l. 52); a 1939 Auto Union Type D ‘Silver Arrow’ Grand Prix race car had been obtained from an auto museum in Riga in exchange for a replica (AUDI AG, 2012, August 10). Given that the historical collection was established relatively late, acquisitions had initially been fueled by the urge to secure as many vehicles as possible before losing certain models altogether. After all, motor vehicles, despite being made of metal, are not spared by decay. At the time of fieldwork, though, the collection of classic vehicles was in a good overall state. Audi Tradition had become more selective, as the portfolio of typical stock products was by this time mostly represented. The focus now shifted toward the purchase of interesting ‘oddities’ and rare classics, such as a fully electric DKW rapid transporter from the 1950s, or a Brazilian DKW GT Malzoni sports coupe from the 1960s (Auto Bild Klassik, 2008, December 10). Stocking up the depot now raised serious questions of inclusion and exclusion. While the oldest motor vehicle in the collection was a Horch car from 1903, the youngest motor vehicle retained was a 2010 Audi A1. In addition to vintage cars, the acquisition plan also foresaw to “retain and conserve a single new vehicle of each contemporary or future model series” (AUTO UNION GmbH, 1985, p. 5). Audi Tradition had managed to gather current Audi models from the technological development unit and/or the production unit. ‘Working’ the past in this respect was not only viewed from a contemporary perspective, but also took into account the future. The automobiles of today would eventually become the vintage cars of tomorrow. Retaining physical proof of one’s existence was thus identified as an ongoing activity. Moreover, the depot housed one-of-a-kind concept cars, such as the 1997 AL2 aluminum car, the 2004 Pikes Peak quattro SUV, and the 2010 R8 e-tron electric sports car. The general idea of keeping some prototypes was to document the

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outcomes of intermediate steps taken in the automobile design and engineering process. Besides, some of these vehicles were stunning from an aesthetical perspective, as they were often more advanced in design and feature implementation than the final production vehicle. Concept models thus served as a testimony to what had been technically possible (but not economically reasonable) at AUDI AG during specific points in time. Historical concept models could therefore be fashioned as physical proof of visionary movements and harbingers of new directions taken by the company. Vehicles in the possession of the corporate history department were supposed to be in mint condition, “just like they came out of the factory” (Int. 29, l. 666). An impeccable condition ensured that they retained the highest monetary value, since they were officially considered “assets” the company had “invested” in (l. 338). Another reason was to enable fans, who would privately “own a pile of junk,” to gain a reliable idea of the vehicle’s original condition (l. 666). Company-owned vintage vehicles were expected to serve as role models and “reference points” for the “historically accurate” reconstruction of similar mass-produced vehicles (Ethno. 36, l. 40). They needed to fulfill a quality norm that would set the benchmark in the vintage motor vehicle scene. Since pre-war automobiles in adequate condition were especially scarce, several vehicles which had been purchased over the years required major repairs. The next cultural form of organizational remembrance fulfilled precisely this purpose.

5.1.3 Restoration of classic motor vehicles The majority of vehicles which Audi Tradition possessed were required to be in mint condition, and vehicles that did not fulfill this quality criterion received a restoration job that would accomplish as much. Due to cost reasons, however, not every single vehicle stored in the historical collection was a viable candidate. Those that were deemed worthy of a restoration job were mostly rare pre-war Horch, Wanderer, DKW, and Audi cars, Auto Union Grand Prix race cars from the 1930s, and 1980s Audi quattro rally cars. Such vehicles were considered the ‘milestones’ of corporate history – an elevation in meaning, retrospectively rewarded. The vehicles intended for public display, in particular, needed to be presentable. Exceptions existed, such as a car dubbed “the last Horch” (Ethno. 12, l. 74) – a rusty luxury sedan stripped of its paint by the sandy winds of the Texas desert, and that had been left to rot before it was retrieved by Audi Tradition (cf. Auto Bild Klassik, 2008, March 8). If the patina of the motor vehicle supported a compelling anecdote, then this kind of “emotional value” (Int. 28, l. 888) was considered worth preserving.

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The extent of the restorations varied greatly. Some vehicles only needed rust removal, a new coat of paint, and some chrome replacements; others barely offered anything but a rotten chassis as a starting point. In the latter case, the majority of car parts had to be reproduced, which rendered it more a replica than an original. The crucial part was that the car possessed an original vehicle identification number (VIN), which officially made it a vestige of the past. The process of thorough restoration can thus be interpreted as a resurrection of a material artifact that would have otherwise been gone forever. It was an established way of bringing the ‘almost bygone’ back to life. The majority of restorations were performed by external firms that had specialized in vintage cars. While AUDI AG had restored a handful of classic vehicles in the 1980s themselves, in-house restorations were no longer performed, due to reasons of cost and quality (Ethno. 30, l. 117). Authentic restorers not only imitated the visual aspects of the vehicle’s original production condition, but they also tried to use original materials and production techniques. Entire discourses were built around, for instance, the accurate chemical consistency of “historical car finishes” and the right processes of applying them (Ethno. 15, l. 84). This way, restorers hoped to achieve the most ‘authentic’ quality possible, setting the bar that Audi Tradition desired. If done properly, the restored artifact made the distant past appear physically graspable by imparting such an accurate impression of what the company once produced. While the idea of setting bars was well-intended, the practice of restoration was sometimes more contested. An automobile designer, for example, complained that several vintage vehicles in possession of the company had been “mercilessly over-restored. […] Everything is restored to death” (Int. 7, l. 242). Critics argued that contemporary materials, such as modern clear varnish, had been used for the restoration process, despite the fact that they had not existed when the product had first left the production line a century ago. The restoration process had thus rendered their condition ‘better than new.’ Therefore, some informants did not acknowledge over-restored vintage products as authentic vestiges, but instead as objects that were “just nice to look at” (Ethno. 30, l. 22). On the other hand, over-restoration was not necessarily a conscious attempt at deception. Some of the pre-war vehicles AUDI AG had purchased in the mid1980s had often been heavily modified or were in poor condition (Ethno. 71, l. 152). Due to historical circumstances that will be explained later, little documentation remained available to enable a “historically accurate” restoration (Ethno. 34, l. 40). This was also a question of cost, since a historically accurate restoration of low-priced vehicles would not have been economically ‘worth it.’ In consequence, material artifacts of the distant past were not always reconstructed to resemble their original state.

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Restoration also fulfilled an important legal function. Since the process transformed “old junk into new cars” (Ethno. 90, l. 122), AUDI AG could prove that it not only held the trademark rights to the ‘tradition brands’ on paper, but that the brands were still actively used to produce properly functioning automobiles. Restoration of classic motor vehicles thus helped to protect trademark rights, which leads over to the next purpose.

5.2 Legal Protection of Trademark Rights ‘Working’ the corporate past had straightforward legal implications. Identified as the purpose of legal protection, this study found that Audi Tradition was employing various cultural forms of organizational remembrance to ensure that AUDI AG remained the legally accountable owner of its ‘tradition brands.’ In this way, the car manufacturer protected its historical trademark rights, stayed in control of their utilization, and prevented them from being deleted, exploited, or infringed upon by third parties. In the following section, three cultural forms will be discussed which helped to fulfill this specific purpose – i. e. the establishment of two ‘tradition companies,’ the reproduction of branded spare parts, and the marketing of branded history merchandise.

5.2.1 Tradition companies Organizational entities can be cultural forms of organizational remembrance in their own right. The two ‘tradition companies’ – AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH – were such specimens. Their coming into being was tied to a specific moment in history: On 1 January 1985 the company Audi NSU Auto Union AG renamed itself AUDI AG.³² Company names, however, are not just symbolic manifestations that exist solely for marketing purposes, but they also have legal

 By the mid-1980s, the long company name, which had been generated in the process of a merger, was assessed to be outdated and confusing to consumers (Ethno. 60, l. 230). Competitor Daimler-Benz AG was marketing Mercedes-Benz cars, BMW AG was doing the same with BMW cars, but Audi NSU Auto Union AG had exclusively been producing Audi cars for almost a decade. On top of that, these automobiles were marketed by a joint sales organization called ‘VAG.’ These circumstances made the Auto Union and NSU brand names superfluous suffixes that were perceived as inactive relicts of the past. The name change was meant to increase the perceived coherence between the company name and the product brand offered on the market (Int. 28, l. 16).

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implications. With the name change, the two brands Auto Union and NSU would have been defunct, because there was no longer a product or a company to actively carry them. In order to prevent the potential loss of brand ownership, the corporation founded these ‘tradition companies’ before the name change legally took effect. AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH were fully consolidated by the corporation. The fact that they carried the historical brand names in their registered business names signaled that the ‘tradition brands’ remained in use and attached to the corporation. According to an informant, the formal business purpose of the two ‘tradition companies’ was to “legally secure the trademark rights of the historical parts of the [company’s] name, Auto Union and NSU” (Int. 28, l. 16). This included the “preservation of the company emblems and trademarks” (AUTO UNION GmbH, 1985, p. 3) of which AUDI AG claimed exclusive ownership. Under this premise, they were assigned to secure the inactive ‘tradition brands’ Horch, Wanderer Automobile, and also DKW (Int. 29, l. 38). Moreover, the job of these ‘tradition companies’ was to fend off external parties that unrightfully tried to stake a claim in these trademarks. For instance, in situations when other companies used these names, emblems, and trademarks for their own purposes without being granted permission by AUDI AG, the ‘tradition companies’ were to investigate and prohibit such activities (Ethno. 91, l. 62). It was not considered sufficient for these ‘tradition companies’ to react defensively and wait for cases of trademark infringement. They were also expected to proactively do something with the ‘tradition brands.’ The goal was to secure these trademarks in the long run, for which they could not be allowed to sit idle for a period of five years – in the case of which the trademark could be taken over by a third party. Hence, the two ‘traditions firms’ activated the trademarks of the respective companies by placing them on new products. Two specific forms of organizational remembrance will be discussed next, which will serve as examples of such use.

5.2.2 Reproduction of branded spare parts When a vintage car possessed by Audi Tradition required restoration but lacked original parts, replacements needed to be gathered from an internal inventory, purchased on the enthusiast market, or reproduced manually when otherwise unobtainable. The last option is of particular interest here, because in addition to resulting in the crafting of a mechanically necessary item, reproduction fulfilled the important function of proving the active status of the respective automobile brand, provided the spare carried the ‘tradition brand’ (Ethno. 90, l. 122).

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Even if such parts were as small as a hubcap, a front light lens, or a hood ornament (Ethno. 49, l. 319), the fact that they were manufactured in new condition legally protected and prolonged the ‘tradition brands.’ The same applied to building replicas, such as a pre-war Wanderer streamline racecar (Ethno. 88, l. 122). As with the restoration work done on the vehicles, Audi Tradition did not craft these reproductions of branded spare parts themselves. Accredited manufacturers with the necessary tools and professional expertise carried out the job on behalf of AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH. As one could imagine, reproduction on a small scale “doesn’t pay off” (Ethno. 55, l. 396), as a ‘tradition worker’ pointed out, so spare parts that were not needed in the restoration process went into the internal repository, or were listed for sale in the official spare parts online store. By turning them into commodifiable products available on the market, Audi proved that the ‘tradition brands’ were in active use. This strategy helped to fend off other companies attempting to seize seemingly dormant brands.

5.2.3 History merchandise Another cultural form of organizational remembrance which kept the ‘tradition brands’ legally activated was so-called history merchandise. It mostly comprised branded apparel and accessories that fans of classic motor vehicles could obtain to demonstrate their identification with a specific ‘tradition brand.’ History merchandise encountered during fieldwork included driving gloves, wallets, lanyards, t-shirts, base caps, jackets, boule sets, key chains, wristwatches, and patches, which featured one of the six ‘tradition brand’ emblems (Ethno. 49, l. 45). Of course, it was more than easy to take a random commodity and slap a brand emblem on it. Regardless of legal implications, the interesting part about history merchandise was that most of these products were intended to evoke a historical feeling. This was mainly achieved through the aesthetic – history merchandise was designed to be vintage-looking. Items gave the impression of referring to bygone times by employing classic cuts, plain designs, and lowtech materials, such as rugged leather, brass or gold-colored applications, cotton fabric, and embossed old-style fonts. Their overall feel was decidedly different from the regular Audi brand merchandise, which aimed for a sportier, more modern, high-tech look. But to legally own an assortment of historical motor vehicle brands was only half the battle. In order to take true ownership of times gone by, AUDI AG needed

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to know and be able to communicate what had happened in the corporate past. This takes us already to the next purpose of official organizational remembrance – becoming accountable to one’s past through the reconstruction and writing of corporate history.

5.3 Historical Accountability In the context of this study, historical accountability is understood as a company’s ability to possess and manage detailed knowledge about its past in terms of corporate history. This type of knowledge needs to be grounded in valid and traceable sources. Most importantly, historical accountability means that the company is able and willing to pass on this historical knowledge to other stakeholder groups who proclaim an interest. In short, historical accountability entails the company officially taking responsibility for, and ownership of, the corporate past. At AUDI AG, being historically accountable meant adhering to a number of interrelated steps. First, ‘tradition workers’ had to retrieve relevant sources that provided information about what had (supposedly) happened in the corporate past. Second, they needed to synthesize relevant information into useable knowledge. Third, this type of knowledge would ideally make possible to stitch together a cohesive and viable version of the corporate past in the form of a history. Fourth, media and services meant for providing access to, and disseminating, historical knowledge were to be created. This, in turn, made it possible to respond to inquiries posed by internal and external stakeholders concerning the history of the Audi brand, its products and technologies, and the business organization. In the words of a key respondent, it was a matter of “finding history,” “writing history,” and “communicating history” (Int. 28, l. 42). The following section will discuss this process in more detail by investigating a number of cultural forms of organizational remembrance.

5.3.1 Historical research and knowledge production The main objective of historical research was the “finding of history” and the creation of “indisputable” historical knowledge about the corporate past (Ethno. 11, l. 134). The majority of historians employed at Audi Tradition operated with a positivistic understanding of history. In contrast to reflexive constructivists such as Hayden White (1987) or Paul Ricoeur (2002), a number of corporate historians believed that “one cannot change history” because there was only a sin-

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gle true version out there (Ethno. 11, l. 134). Hence, it was their job to discover “how it really was” (l. 134), and to “[objectively] deliver the truth” (Int. 28, l. 92) – the content of which they ‘discovered’ with their work. Before any research activity would commence, however, a formal request, inquiry, or official project had to be in existence to legitimize the practices of ‘finding history’ as a worthy task necessary for producing a specific outcome. As a cultural form of organizational remembrance, historical research was a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself (Ethno. 26, l. 97). Actual historical research generally started with searching the accessible archives (Int. 28, l. 134). These included the historical archive of Audi Tradition, the Saxon Public Records Office in Chemnitz, and the National Archive, where various pre-war Auto Union AG records were stored. If needed, additional research was conducted in private home archives several corporate historians had built over the years (Ethno. 25, l. 46). The goal of archival inquiry was to retrieve a variety of historical documents, such as business records, press releases, letters, files, photographs, blueprints, sales brochures, and user manuals, that would enable one to assemble “hard facts” (Ethno. 61, l. 124). Hard facts consisted of, for instance, contractual details, exact dates of events, production numbers, vehicle identification numbers, and names of persons that could unambiguously be “picked out from the records” (Int. 28, l. 220). Since an enumeration of dates, names, and numbers does not necessarily make an interesting historical account, so-called “soft facts” needed to be gathered, as well (Ethno. 43, l. 44). They were comprised of details about social interactions between actors within the organization, as well as their feelings, views, and relationships – i. e. anything that typically would not be recorded in official business records. These soft facts were deemed important because they gave insight into company life and the sociocultural sphere that had ushered in crucial developments. Sources for retrieval were diaries by former employees, tape-recorded oral history interviews and background talks with long-term or retired members, personal notes, and letters of correspondence – basically any source that had made its way into the archives, and the hands and ears of individual historians (Ethno. 52, l. 200). This list of sources already indicates that historical research was comprised of numerous sub-practices of organizational remembrance that demanded different skills. Relevant soft facts were then used to account for the “human factor” within the organization (Int. 28, l. 220). The stock of historical knowledge obtained this way, however, was a somewhat exclusive resource. It was accessible to only a handful of people – mostly corporate historians and a few higher ranked and/or long-time employees within Audi Tradition. Not everything these historians had discovered over the years was automatically scripted in a document or was passed on to other parties.

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Their brains were the primary storage/retention system that, when tapped properly, served as capital for the company. They were knowledge workers in the most literal sense (cf. Stehr, 1994). Organizational remembrance, in this regard, was the act of gathering, retrieving, and creating historical knowledge through professional experts. A number of Audi Tradition’s research and knowledge production activities “d[id] not serve the glossy marketing of cars,” as a corporate historian emphasized (Ethno. 26, l. 149). Historical accountability also meant that corporate historians were occupied coming to terms with, and clarifying, ‘dark periods’ of AUDI AG’s past (l. 149). Conducted when a crucial situation emerged that called for immediate reaction, these projects helped dealing with historically-rooted allegations leveled against Audi and its predecessors. These situations mostly unfolded within the context of lawsuits, compensation claims, or urgent image threats. Since these projects cost money, time, and precious manpower, they were mostly executed if the issue at stake had already entered the public sphere via journalists or academics – i. e. if they were considered ‘pressing’ from a PR perspective.³³ These studies then provided the expert knowledge that formed the basis for any official standpoint taken by the company. Some of the results of these projects remained classified if an influential actor within the organization decided as much. At the same time, corporate historians proactively served a “protective function” (Int. 28, l. 302). Not every bit of historical knowledge was communicated to the company at large, let alone the public. Individual research results deemed too delicate were classified in order to remain “internal knowledge” (Ethno. 26, l. 153), which required discretion and a degree of self-censorship. In the words of a ‘tradition worker,’ the corporate history department was occasionally in the practice of “keeping [crucial] things under the lid that are not obvious” (l. 249). While it was important to “have knowledge about [the dark past] so that you could react respectively, [delicate] topics are held back at first and you don’t necessarily bomb the public with them” (Int. 28, l. 302). Corporate histor-

 The strategy of suppressing historical issues by dodging, avoiding, or downplaying them, which was occasionally applied inside the company, was disapproved of by a couple of corporate historians who were in favor of full historical disclosure. In their opinion, “history cannot be divided into good and bad things; you’re responsible for everything” (Ethno. 26, l. 149). Corporate historians demanded the freedom to conduct research on all kinds of topics – regardless of whether it posed a threat to the image of the company. It was argued that they needed to know certain historical details “offhand” in case an internal or external party requested clarification (l. 149).

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ians thus acted as gatekeepers, because they assessed what was deemed suitable or unsuitable for audiences outside the department.

5.3.2 Mnemonic media and the writing of corporate history One of the most established cultural forms of organizational remembrance was the publication of corporate history via media. Historical writings in narrative form were meant to convey a selection of historical knowledge to an audience in a palatable fashion. Despite the constant search for ‘historical truth,’ a corporate historian acknowledged that any history was always reliant on a “selection” one had to make (Ethno. 97, l. 25). In his words, he drew from a repertoire of materials, which he then assembled into a history. Moreover, he stated that he did not always manage to be objective. His personality and his “affinity for the Audi brand” were surely affecting his writing (l. 27). In consequence, various publications, which represented official versions of the corporate past ‘in a good light,’ had been produced by Audi Tradition. They included press releases and websites, which provided basic accounts (e. g., AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2011, March 25; AUDI AG, 2013), but also corporate history books that were more elaborate. The company had released these types of publication on a more or less continual basis since the early 1970s.³⁴ The most prominent media specimen, by far, was a book called “A history of progress” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2001). Better known by its German title, “Das Rad der Zeit” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2000), the book had undergone numerous revisions, updates, and redesigns over the last four decades. While the first edition was a 65-page brochure of plain design addressing “the hasty reader wishing to gain a brief overview” (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1973, p. 1), the 2009 edition was a 368-page marketing instrument filled with glorifying texts and thousands of large color images (Audi Tradition, 2009). The mode of writing and visual presentation was decidedly non-academic. The targeted audiences of such books were mainly fans and customers, seasoned employees of the company, and journalists, who wished to inform themselves about ‘highlights’ of the corporate past in a coherent fashion. The most recent edition of the book (Audi Tradition, 2009) provided a colorful overview of the official history of the Audi brand and included graphics that  In fact, the earliest corporate history publication registered in the historical archive was written in the 1950s. It is a thin, internally available chronicle created by a former employee who was not trained in the writing of history, and it had been created for PR purposes only (Ethno. 86, l. 175). It does not offer a coherent narrative, however.

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rendered this history visually accessible. The goal, which structured the content, was to help a disparate array of audiences to understand how the modern AUDI AG came into being as a producer of premium automobiles – thus conveying the ‘tradition’ upon which the company was supposedly built. The historical narrative presented within was chronologically structured around individual ‘tradition brands,’ product milestones, leader figures, and major business developments. The thematic content lens also aimed to establish a relationship between the six ‘tradition brands’ with the modern Audi brand, their products, and technologies across time and space. Due to the strong focus on automobiles, deeper insight into the underlying organizational development was less pronounced. Likewise, various publications edited by Audi Tradition existed that were exclusively dedicated to the history of individual ‘tradition brands’ and car models – e. g. Kirchberg and Pönisch’s (2006) “Horch: Typen – Technik – Modelle”, Westermann and Erdmann’s (2008) “Wanderer Automobile”, and Friese’s (2008) “Audi Typenkunde: Audi 60 bis Audi A5.” These publications were glossy books loaded with photographs and graphics that were, first and foremost, entertaining to read. They were chiefly of informative value to the reader interested in automobile product history, but offered few details of interest for the academic business historian. As the historians Bormann and Tiedtke (2010) argue, “this range of popular science literature is mostly dedicated to [documenting] the development of types [of motor vehicles], illustrating it by means of many pictures” (p. 6). This type of historical accountability was understood to lie in the meticulous reconstruction of which motor vehicles had been produced when, by whom, and with which features. At the same time, some historical publications catered to specific sub-topics – e. g. a history of Audi brand emblems (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2005), which traced visual trademark developments and the design process of its ‘tradition brand’ emblems. Another example is a small photo book that traced the roots of Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt by showing pictures and maps of former production facilities (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2007). The thematic lens would determine the content of the different media. As of 2014, I have not encountered a complete business history of AUDI AG and its predecessor firms, covering the entirety of development from their foundation to contemporary times, which can be termed properly academic (cf. Bormann and Tiedtke, 2010). While single epochs, such as Auto Union AG’s Third Reich past and its Eastern German post-war years, have been partly reconstructed by previously independent scholars (e. g., Hockert, 2012; Kukowski, 2000, 2003; Kukowski & Boch, 2014), blind spots remain. Those readers interested in more comprehensive accounts of the inner workings of the corporation across time had to resort to a rare, out-of-print publica-

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tion. A two-volume history book entitled “Im Zeichen der Vier Ringe: 1873 – 1945” and “Im Zeichen der Vier Ringe: 1945 – 1968” (AUDI AG, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, 1992, 1995) had been written on behalf of the company in the early 1990s. In contrast to the more product-focused literature mentioned above, it was meant to present “a unified and comprehensive corporate history” (AUDI AG, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, 1992, p. 11) of all predecessors claimed by the company. A third volume dealing with more recent times had been planned, but was never finalized due to company-internal complications (Ethno. 61, l. 124). The two-volume book did not, however, aim to adhere to academic standards. The goal had been to create an enthralling literary account imbued with emotion, rather than a watertight study that could stand academic scrutiny. Moreover, the book had been created by enthusiast historians, who were partial to the company. As vintage car aficionados and automobile journalists, their expertise was undoubtedly to be found in the technical aspects of vintage motor vehicles and in their ability to create riveting representations. However, their methodological qualifications in the study of business history surely ranked behind those of renowned experts such as Peter Hayes or Hans Mommsen. And lastly, some of the data used for writing these books were at least partially flawed and inaccurate due to a lack of archival material back in the day (Ethno. 61, l. 124). The writing of corporate history was dependent on the current state of historical source material and the professional expertise of the authors involved in the process of reconstructing the corporate past.³⁵ From the perspective of those who had created the two-volume corporate history, the publication nevertheless aimed for “authenticity and truth” (Ethno. 36, l. 173). When asked what the quality of ‘being authentic’ actually meant, a corporate historian responded, “In my opinion authenticity simply means honesty; honesty to yourself” (Int. 28, l. 290). His personal aim was to remain true to his historical knowledge, to avoid the twisting of history and the fabrication of blatant lies. This is why the two-volume history was embraced as offering a more critical, detailed, and less glamorous version of AUDI AG’s past than the more polished and less fragmented narrative communicated in the Rad der Zeit series. The same member explained: AT: [In the] book Im Zeichen der Vier Ringe […] there is quite a bit written about forced labor – also [about] the unpleasant things, the periods where the company was not well off,

 In defense of AUDI AG, it must be noted that it was not until the 1990s that the HistorikerVerband (Germany’s association of professional historians) “suddenly declared their commitment to business history” (Schröter, 2003, p. 170), thereby overcoming their previous animosity. Business history has become a respected field of study rather late compared to other areas.

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where there were problems with management or specific political situations. [The corporate history book] was created by [the tradition company], and it wasn’t constrained by anybody else. (Int. 28, l. 88)

Following this statement, the two-volume history attempted to draw a more complex picture of the organizational past. It provided deeper insight into organizational developments, legal hassles, personal conflicts, select aspects of the Third Reich past, corporate crises, and the human stories that had shaped the company. Negative aspects were not glossed over, but also, to some extent, addressed. In the respondent’s opinion, it made the publication a more balanced and authentic account, which indicated a certain level of consciousness regarding the existence of not-so-glamorous elements of the corporate past. While the book was marketed to the public, it had mostly been issued to “friends and patrons of the company” (Ethno. 94, l. 187), who wished to learn about those elements of the corporate past that transcended a brand and product focus. The previous pages might have suggested that the writing of corporate history was an activity which happened every other decade. This was not the case, though. Various history book projects, which targeted a multifaceted range of topics, were in the making during the time of fieldwork. Moreover, corporate historians kept track of contemporary occurrences and activities at the company by composing a chronicle. The writing of history was thus an ongoing process, the realization of which nevertheless depended on manpower, the availability of sources, and a budget. Occasionally, Audi Tradition also outsourced research projects to external scholars in academia and the journalistic field if the department’s capacities were not sufficient or if a promising proposal had been pitched (Ethno. 59, l. 195). The dissemination of historical knowledge did not exclusively happen in the form of books or press releases, of course. There were also a range of more performance-oriented practices employed by the members of Audi Tradition, which will be discussed next.

5.3.3 History lectures and history consulting Historical accountability also meant that the company had a contact person who was able to disseminate historical knowledge and fact-check historical accounts. Historical knowledge was expected to be used as a resource both in proactive and reactive ways. A proactive form of organizational remembrance was the practice of giving history lectures and presentations. For example, twice a year a group of approximately twenty new managers who had transferred from different companies received a one-hour lecture on the history of the company, which

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was held by a corporate historian (Ethno. 112, l. 56). The lecture was a coherent account which traced the development from Horch to present-day Audi. It followed the official narrative structure reflected in the most recent brand-centric history book (see AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009; cf. chapter 3.2 of this book). Managers were supposed to internalize a history of the ‘Four Rings’ that was multifaceted and rich. Consequently, the account pointed to the multiplicity of ‘tradition brands,’ historical figures, ruptures, and organizational changes that had occurred during mergers and acquisitions, World Wars, and spatial relocation. After the lecture, the group of new managers received a guided tour through the corporate museum. They were encouraged to ask questions and dig deeper into specific elements of the past. Corporate historians, in this regard, were expected to be “capable of providing viable information” (Ethno. 26, l. 149). This capability was also the prerequisite for another cultural form of organizational remembrance. Corporate historians acted as “consultants” to other departments, such as legal services, public relations, and marketing (Int. 28, l. 82), when they inquired about matters of the past. Corporate historians possessed expertise in the form of specialist knowledge, which was considered helpful when it came to issues of trademark and production rights, legal succession of predecessor companies, formulating marketing slogans, replying to critical journalistic inquiries, and other topics that had to be approached from an informed historical perspective. They were expected to give unambiguous answers and to provide clarity by retrieving material proof. In this way, for instance, AUDI AG reportedly managed to fend off a company that once tried to usurp the Horch brand (Ethno. 90, l. 122). The ability to create and retrieve factual knowledge about the past also served the purpose of protecting claims to ownership, defending corporate interests, and averting threats. Historical accountability was one of the most complex and fundamental purposes of organizational remembrance. The ability to ensure it made possible the strategic instrumentalizing of elements of the corporate past for more businessminded purposes, which will be discussed in the next section.

5.4 Corporate Identity Construction in Public Relations Most companies which produce and market consumer goods seek positive attention and desire that their products, brands, and company name be represented favorably in the public sphere. In markets characterized by strong competition, exceptional visibility (as long as it is oriented towards positive aspects of the company) guarantees advantages toward competitors. The underlying premise is that customers are more likely to buy a product if they have been exposed

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to positive opinions about said offering – even more so when these views are expressed by seemingly independent parties. This is why many corporations not only conduct direct-to-customer marketing, but also carry out a host of other operations which are intended to influence external opinion makers. In the automobile industry, the most influential opinion makers with the biggest outreach were motor journalists who published articles in newspapers and magazines. Media outlets such as DER SPIEGEL, The New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit, and Die Welt dedicated entire sections to the automobile. Niche magazines, such as BBC’s Top Gear, Auto Motor und Sport, Auto Bild, and Autozeitung, were exclusively dedicated to automotive journalism. If a good PR network has been established, these types of journalistic media offered a prominent stage on which manufacturers could communicate to a broader audience. As a former chief officer of PR at Mazda Germany was once quoted as saying, “When you consider how much an ad in a newspaper or ads on TV cost, then a journalistic article about a car […] is downright cheap. […] It is important to us, however, that we can control [what journalists write]” (FR, 2013, April 18, para. 15). In other words, it was common practice in the automobile industry for a company to attempt to influence and shape how it was represented by journalists. While journalists primarily cover newsworthy contents, such as upcoming products, future technologies, and the present state of business, a particular topic has emerged in the last decades: Classic cars and so-called ‘tradition content’ (cf. Diez & Tauch, 2008). There has been a rising demand for ‘automobile retrospection,’ and several media editors have picked up on the trend.³⁶ At the same time, German automobile companies have pushed ‘tradition topics’ as a legitimate journalistic topic capable of generating positive publicity (cf. Herbrand & Röhrig, 2006; Schug, 2003). As mentioned before, a part of Audi Tradition was incorporated into the PR unit. This segment was responsible for the communication of historical topics. A member stated, “Of course, [what we’re doing here] also has something to do with public relations. In addition to the obligatory documentation requirement, we have the honor and job to show the beauty of [the history] we’ve got” (Int. 29, l. 618). Activities which were not covered by journalists did not fulfill their PRoriented purpose. The goal was to win over external media as an accomplice

 It is not clear whether this trend is a reader-oriented response to the growing significance of classic cars as a viable investment alternative (e. g., Focus Money, 2013, January 9; SPON, 2012, March 22; SZ, 2012, August 21; Welt Online, 2013, February 8), or yet another practice catering to the longing for mechanical simplicity in an overly complex, digitalized world (e. g., FOCUS, 2012, October 2).

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and multiplier of a corporate message – namely that Audi not only had a long history, but was also adhering to this long ‘tradition’ (Ethno. 48, l. 35). As the following section will show, ‘tradition workers’ used various forms of organizational remembrance to project a positive image and gain a certain amount of control of journalistic media. Examples discussed here include press releases and planted newspaper articles which featured ‘tradition content,’ anniversary celebrations, and commemorative ceremonies. They all supported contemporary corporate identity claims, which, in turn, influenced the image of the company and the brand in public.

5.4.1 Press releases featuring the ‘cultivation of tradition’ Intended as an official communiqué to external parties, press releases were the most common format the company used to communicate with journalistic media. According to a ‘tradition worker’ in PR, they were seen as “notifications” about current ‘tradition work’ (Ethno. 12, l. 67). In essence, every publicly-targeted activity the department engaged in received its own press release. Common topics included current exhibitions at the corporate museum, vintage car rallies the department was sponsoring and participating in, and corporate history book projects that had just been released. Press releases with ‘tradition content’ were sent by mail and were often propagated in digital form with file attachments and links to Audi’s media server where various multimedia contents could be accessed. Press releases were mostly written by people trained in the journalistic style, because they had to be formulated in a catchy way, while still “respecting the journalistic ethos” (Ethno. 12, l. 67). In terms of language, press releases were proclaimed to be decidedly different from marketing texts (l. 76). Serving as ‘feed material,’ they were supposed to communicate “the facts” (l. 67), and thus avoided formulations that merely glorified products. In practice, however, these texts would, of course, always approach their topics in a favorable light. At the same time, these texts still had to spark journalistic interest and result in genuine articles. The rhetoric employed thus had to resemble the media’s own. Press releases were distributed and pitched to select news agencies, newspapers, magazines, and freelance journalists, from which articles about the promoted ‘tradition content’ might result. This is why Audi Tradition had to rely on a tightly knit network of professional, and in part also amicable personal, relationships with members of the local, national, and international media scene (Ethno. 46, l. 247). Being selected for media coverage was not an easy endeavor, however. Company-specific manifestations of organizational remembrance com-

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peted for attention in the public sphere; competitors, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche, were also exploiting their pasts for PR purposes. In addition, journalists were commonly bombarded with hundreds of potentially newsworthy press releases from various business organizations every day. Moreover, ‘tradition topics’ were relatively difficult to place in mainstream media “because you’re not really offering any news – just old cars that once used to be new” (Ethno. 12, l. 74). Press releases about new products, in contrast, were fast-selling items because “everybody is interested in how the new Audi A7 drives” (l. 74). In consequence, ‘tradition topics’ were promoted based on the idea that they bore a good ‘peg’ for publicity-related actions. Press releases were not cultural forms of organizational remembrance per se. They had to transcend the function of a notification and contain retrospective components – for instance, by representing elements of the corporate past in terms of history. To provide an example, a one-page press release entitled “100 years of racing legend Ewald Kluge” (AUDI AG, 2009, January 15) offered a retrospective account of “the best motorcycle racing pilot in the world during the 1930s” (para. 2). According to the text, Kluge used to be a successful factory driver for Auto Union before and after World War II, and won several trophies on DKW machines. While Kluge had passed away almost five decades ago, the fact that 15 January 2009 would have been his 100th birthday justified a press release glorifying and commemorating his achievements. The text recaptured his most important victories and emphasized how big Auto Union had been in motorsports. Similar press releases were issued for round birthdays, tenure anniversaries, and obituaries of important leader figures associated with the corporation. In fact, the commemorative press release constituted one of the oldest cultural forms of organizational remembrance at the company. An investigation of the Donaukurier Audi archive (2009) revealed that, for instance, the 25th anniversary of CEO Richard Bruhn’s tenure with the organization was commemorated on behalf of the company (DK, 1955, November 17). Moreover, Hanns Schüler, cofounder of Auto Union GmbH, received an article honoring him on his 50th birthday (DK, 1956, March 16). The same applied to Richard Bruhn on his 75th (DK, 1961, June 24/25). Although dead by then, the Wanderer founder Johann B. Winklhofer’s 100th birthday was commemorated in the Donaukurier (DK, 1959, June 26) as well. Beyond offering journalists a potential topic to write about, these types of press releases were a way of officially honoring people and their achievements. Through commemoration, AUDI AG constructed its identity as a company which acknowledged and cared for those who had made substantial contributions to it.

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Another case demonstrates that a press release could prepare the public for a whole battery of further cultural forms of organizational remembrance. In 2005, AUDI AG celebrated an anniversary entitled “25 years of quattro” (Ethno. 84, l. 29). The anniversary promoted the first Audi quattro sports car, released in 1980, to the status of a ‘product milestone.’ A press release, which was created by product communications in collaboration with the corporate history department, reminded external stakeholders of the product’s significance in the history of the company. The text hailed the original quattro car as “the absolute top of the line back then […] which, from the beginning, sold excellently, despite its price” (AUDI AG, Kommunikation Produkt, 2005, February, p. 6). The vehicle was recalled as “a permanent natural winner” (p. 3) – a designation that owed much to its international rally racing victories in the 1980s. The permanent all-wheel-drive technology it had introduced under the “quattro moniker” was hailed as having “become a fundamental pillar of the [Audi] brand, establishing its significance on the market” (p. 3). The press release then outlined historical details from the technological development process of the all-wheeldrive system under Ferdinand Piëch and its employment across the whole product portfolio. It also recalled the popular “Eskimo” TV commercial from 1997, featuring an Inuit elder who recognizes the tracks of a car in the snow and utters “Audi quattro” (p. 12; see YouTube, 2011, July 22). To make the press release stand out, it was accompanied by an elaborately designed press kit filled with mnemonic media – a folder that contained two CDs with historic videos and digital images of the quattro portfolio, a print brochure featuring the current Audi lineup available with quattro drive, and another print brochure called ‘quattro moments’ that promoted what made the quattro an ‘outstanding machine.’ Taken as a whole, the initial press release was meant to inform, remind, and prepare media representatives which element of the corporate past was to be celebrated on which terms. By setting the language and providing content cues, it offered a set of meanings ascribed to the quattro, which was accompanied by historical videos and still images that documented what was being written about. Other press releases followed, which communicated what commemorative activities the company had in store to honor the quattro. In addition to a special exhibition displaying numerous rally cars from the 1980s in the corporate museum, Audi Tradition organized an elaborate anniversary show for the Ingolstadt workforce and Audi fans who wanted to join (Ethno. 84, l. 31). The commemorative event cited distinct elements from the corporate past known to be related to the quattro: At the Ingolstadt plant, a 10 meter high ramp covered with snow was erected where every other hour a quattro car ascended unassisted (Int. 25, l. 236). The stunt referenced a famous 1986 TV advertisement in which an Audi 100 lim-

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ousine with quattro drive manages to drive up a ski jump (see YouTube, 2010, January 3). As part of the show, former rally pilot legend Walter Röhrl drifted around in a quattro rally car on an ice plate that was installed where the event was hosted. In another attempt to reference quattro advertisements of the past, a group of Inuit were invited who represented the “Eskimo ad” previously mentioned (Ethno. 84, l. 31). Altogether, the company managed to stage itself as a highly successful manufacturer of sporty cars that owed a great deal to the quattro all-wheel-drive technology. Numerous journalists picked up the topic, publishing articles which lauded the ‘revolutionary driving system’ of the quattro as the foundation of AUDI AG’s success and technological appeal. For instance, the magazine Auto Motor und Sport (2005, February 22) claimed, “There’s hardly any other technology that represents the Audi premise ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ better than the all-wheeldrive system introduced 25 years ago that goes by the distinctive ‘quattro’ name” (para. 2). The newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, 2005, October 7) entitled, “The Audi quattro is 25 years old. The Ingolstadt-based manufacturer managed to change his image through the all-wheel-drive system” (para. 2). The newspaper Die Welt (Welt Online, 2005, March 12) and others published similar articles, recalling AUDI AG to have gained its technology-oriented appeal mainly through the quattro and Ferdinand Piëch’s inventive talent. Moreover, AUDI AG was displayed as a company that actively cared about its recent past, as the company’s efforts to celebrate and honor it were regularly mentioned. It was communicated to the reader that the company was proud of what it had achieved (e. g., Berliner Zeitung, 2005, February 26; N-TV, 2005, February 23; SPON, 2005, January 4). These types of articles were inarguably based on what had been pitched in the initial press release. Journalists, virtually word for word, passed on the meanings that had been ascribed to a specific element of the corporate past by official carriers of organizational remembrance. External media thus served as multipliers of corporate identity claims, from which the company benefited. The anniversary and this overtly positive publicity must have been a meaning-changing event. According to several accounts, prices of secondhand Urquattro cars increased significantly over a period of weeks – mainly because the event “conjured up the quattro among people who would not have thought about buying one before” (Ethno. 47, l. 21). The rise in demand and monetary value certainly contributed to the quattro being retrospectively ascribed the status of an icon. This example demonstrates what impact an official anniversary celebrated and promoted by a company can have on a product’s status as a classic object of cultural significance. This cultural form of organizational remembrance is an aspect journalists typically tend to forget when they try to explain

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why certain vintage automobiles become collector items while other cars do not (e. g., Die Zeit, 2012, November 23). If the corporate history department did not manage to distinguish their own press releases among the sea of those released, however, there was another cultural form of organizational remembrance which was more collaborative, and considerably more expensive and laborious to execute.

5.4.2 Planted articles featuring ‘tradition content’ Once in a while, a newspaper or a magazine published an exclusive feature article that told a unique story which was built around an element of AUDI AG’s product-related past. In contrast to articles based on pitched press releases, these stories were exclusive journalistic assignments that had been set up by Audi Tradition. If, how, and where an article was published did not arise by chance, but was based on an agreement between the department and collaborating journalists who ‘planted’ it in an external publication. For example, the motorsports magazine Pitwalk (2011, February) released a 14-page article about Audi Tradition’s collection of Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ Grand Prix race cars. The article celebrated the cars as “the true forefathers of today’s Formula 1 […] that predetermined the [technological] construction of the premier league” (p. 10). It commenced with a section on the history of the ‘Silver Arrow’ cars, then shifted its focus to a particular mechanic within the corporate history department who maintained these vintage motor vehicles. The article portrayed how the mechanic’s commitment enabled Audi Tradition to showcase these remnants of the distant past at the Goodwood Festival of Speed – a vintage motor vehicle racing event in England. The article was accompanied by a series of photographs taken by a professional photographer, who had been hired by the corporate history department. It exclusively featured shots of the ‘Silver Arrows’ and uniformed staff of Audi Tradition working on the vehicles. The goal of these planted articles was to create a story that would grab the reader’s attention. As a ‘tradition worker’ responsible for PR explained, “You’ve got to craft an emotional story around the car. […] Otherwise it wouldn’t be more than rubber, individual parts, and gasoline” (Ethno. 12, l. 69). To achieve this, ‘tradition workers’ were constantly hunting for existing opportunities or would sometimes stage new ones, which they thought would make a good ‘tradition story.’ These included, for instance, the discovery of a long-lost or extremely rare motor vehicle in a foreign country, a celebrity being passionate about a specific vintage model, and the hardships of the restoration process. Being ‘emo-

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tional’ meant that a human component was involved in the story. At the same time, historical knowledge was incorporated gently, in the form of technological details, background information about the genesis of a specific ‘tradition brand,’ and interesting anecdotes. These types of articles were mostly published in car-oriented niche magazines, such as Auto Bild Klassik, Motor Klassik, Octane, and Oldtimer Markt. They catered to an audience that not only showed a strong interest in automobile product history and technology, but often had a preference for a specific car brand (Ethno. 12, l. 67). It would have generally been evident to the reader that AUDI AG had arranged the story. As a ‘tradition worker’ explained, “We have to fly the flag that we are part of the scene” (Ethno. 12, l. 67). The ‘scene’ consisted of motor journalists, private brand-bound aficionados of classic cars, automobile collectors, club members, and high-income individuals who considered a vintage car a fashionable accessory to their lifestyle. The language employed in these articles was overtly positive because of the closeness of the collaboration between representatives of the corporate history department and specific journalists, which was often based on a longstanding professional relationship, or even “friendship” (Int. 31, l. 176). While journalists were not paid directly by the automobile company, they nevertheless received a number of perks that were intended to win them over (Ethno. 44, l. 192). The nature of such collaboration will be discussed later in more detail. In any case, through the voice of journalists who were well-disposed toward the company, AUDI AG managed to present itself in a flattering light – namely as a historyconscious company that was actively ‘cultivating its tradition.’ Every year the corporate history department also managed to arrange a handful of articles in major German publications. Supra-regional magazines and newspapers such as DER SPIEGEL, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung were important targets because they addressed a different readership of considerable size. The difference between these efforts and the articles in niche magazines was chiefly that ‘tradition content’ could not be instantly decoded as a planted PR effort. Their corporate origin remained covert. Naturally, these articles were more difficult to place in well-renowned publications, so they called for a more subtle approach. Content-wise, they followed an established scheme: A story was crafted about the particular circumstances surrounding a specific car model, which belonged to one of the six ‘tradition brands.’ The journalistic focus was not on the technological aspects of the motor vehicle as a mass product, but the ‘emotional context’ of the particular model. For example, one of these camouflaged articles, published in Die Welt (Welt Online, 2011, January 15b), tells the story of a 95-year old Wanderer ‘Puppchen’ vintage car that belonged to a rich noodle manufactur-

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er in Lima, Peru. While addressing the history of Wanderer and its international export business, the article focuses on how the owner purchased the rare model, how it had been restored, and what oddities he liked about this particular car. Audi, as a brand or a company, is not mentioned a single time. In other articles, the car just appeared as an accessory to the main story. Historical knowledge about the brand, its former product lineup, and its manufacturing predecessor company were only mentioned in passing; the Audi name and its role as a successor were left out or appeared in a single subordinate clause. The goal was to foster a public awareness of the existence of the six ‘tradition brands’ without hitting them on the head with the ‘PR bat.’ These camouflaged ‘tradition’ articles were written by freelance journalists who then sold multiple versions of the story to a major newspaper, a regional newspaper, and a niche magazine (Ethno. 12, l. 74). This way, it was possible to “widely spread [tradition content] among multiple media that aren’t competitors” (l. 74). This explains why a rewritten version of the Wanderer ‘Puppchen’ case mentioned above could also be found in an elaborate Auto Bild Klassik feature (2011, February). The fact that these pieces contained only covert PR messages, expressed through a journalist’s voice, granted them an authentic and independent aura not otherwise easily achieved. Nevertheless, the more these types of articles were camouflaged, the more unlikely it was for the reader to consciously link them to AUDI AG. In their role as cultural forms of organizational remembrance, they did not necessarily help to construct a corporate identity. Audi Tradition was not short of other forms that would provide an actual impact in this regard, though. The following section further discusses PR strategies employed.

5.4.3 Anniversary celebrations and commemorative ceremonies The case of ‘25 years of quattro’ previously mentioned already touched upon the PR practice of celebrating anniversaries through big events. The corporation was certainly not short of such occasions. Each year, the corporate history department released a brochure entitled “anniversary dates” that aggregated “anniversaries in our corporate history” (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2010, p. 2). The booklet informed internal stakeholders what elements of the corporate past could be celebrated. In the year 2010 alone, about fifteen occasions were listed for recalling and honoring personalities, milestones of the company, and its products. Hand-picked by a small group of corporate historians, these ranged from “25 years since Audi NSU Auto Union AG [was] renamed AUDI AG” (p. 3), “30 years of Audi quattro” (p. 11), “40 years of start-up of Technical Development

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in Ingolstadt” [sic] (p. 24), to “125 years of establishment of the Wanderer Werke” [sic] (p. 7). Which anniversaries were eventually celebrated, however, was decided by the management. Historically, anniversaries were one of the oldest cultural forms of organizational remembrance at AUDI AG. While most of them served to shape the brand image, one specific event exemplifies how anniversary events could aid in corporate identity construction: In the summer of 1985, AUDI AG faced public allegations of neglecting the ‘cultivation of tradition.’ An article in the local newspaper Donaukurier had brought public attention to the company’s hesitations in building a corporate museum. A PR spokesperson was quoted, Most certainly [AUDI AG] will make an effort to increase the cultivation of tradition in the automobile sector. As a matter of principle, however, this is a field of activity which falls into the hands of the corporate parent in Wolfsburg. (DK, 1985, August 8, p. 16)

Dissatisfied with the perceived lack of corporate engagement, a wave of furious readers from the Ingolstadt region replied with angry letters to the editor. One reader complained about the company’s indecisive position, writing, It would be extremely sad if Audi does not manage (in collaboration with the city [of Ingolstadt]) to document its history, so rich in tradition, in the form of a museum. […] Maintaining a good international reputation demands it. (DK, 1985, August 20a, p. 12)

Another Ingolstadt citizen commented on the issue, “It is not astonishing to see that Audi’s blatant disdain for the consciousness of tradition conjures up disappointment and irritation on a widespread level” (DK, August 20b, p. 12). Similarly, a disappointed citizen complained about the failed plans to erecting the automobile museum with the statement, If this is going to happen, thousands of Auto-Union and/or Audi employees will be robbed of their hope to see the result of their long and exemplary work being visibly preserved for later generations […]. The carrier of tradition for Auto Union and the preceding firms Audi, Horch, Wanderer and DKW is not the Volkswagenwerk in Wolfsburg but solely Ingolstadt, where Auto Union was re-founded after the war, living on in today’s AUDI AG. (DK, 1985, August 21, p. 14)

The public criticism can be boiled down to the following points: First, it was assumed that AUDI AG undoubtedly had a rich past. Remembering it was seen as something the company unquestionably had to do, which made organizational remembrance an obligation. Second, the public accused AUDI AG of deliberately trying to suppress its Auto Union past, which was the absolute opposite of what was expected. Third, the lack of official organizational remembrance was not

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only interpreted as evidence of a missing historical consciousness, but also as a lack of acknowledgement of and respect towards what the workforce had achieved at the Ingolstadt site. Not accounting for the corporate past tarnished AUDI AG’s social credibility. And fourth, a museum was considered something only the plant in Ingolstadt and not the corporate parent in Wolfsburg could legitimately create. A heated media debate emerged between the citizens of Ingolstadt and the company that threatened its local reputation as a caring corporation. When public pressure intensified, the company finally tried to close the issue. In order to symbolically demonstrate that AUDI AG was in fact paying tribute to its past, the company decided to install a commemorative plaque (DK, 1985, November 28). The occurrence of a brand anniversary provided a convenient occasion, and thus the plaque, in the end, commemorated “75 years [of] Audi: 1910 – 1985” (p. 23). The front facade of the former headquarters of postwar Auto Union at Schrannenstrasse 3 in the old town of Ingolstadt was chosen as the site of the plaque. Since a plaque mounted to a building does not do much active ‘working’ of the past, it primarily served as a cue. A festive unveiling ceremony was held, covered by the Donaukurier which served as the PR outlet. According to the newspaper, the ceremony was attended by “all living members of the board of management, the executive committee, honored employees and former racing drivers” (DK, 1985, November 28, p. 23). Special guests included VW CEO and chairman of the Audi supervisory board, Carl Hahn Jr., the granddaughter of August Horch, the former Minister of commerce, and the leader of the Industrial Union of Metal Workers, IG Metall. Featuring various representatives of the company spanning multiple generations, their purpose on stage was to represent different epochs of the corporate past. They gathered around the plaque in order to demonstrate unity and show their connectedness to the company, while the company orchestra of AUDI AG provided the musical accompaniment and festive appeal. The resulting article was titled, the “Ingolstadt-based automobile manufacturer cultivates the commemoration of its foundation phase” (p. 23). The meaning ascribed to ’75 years of Audi’ was not left to the whims of the public. During the unveiling ceremony, corporate representatives in key positions gave speeches. One of the speakers, Wolfgang Habbel, recalled that 75 years ago a new brand called Audi had been introduced by August Horch in Zwickau. Habbel then recounted the different stages of AUDI AG’s genesis in a linear narrative, which was structured according to the major organizational changes the company had undergone. According to the article, Habbel recounted the merger of the four predecessor companies into Auto Union AG, the expropriation phase after World War II, and the new beginning of Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt. The

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last of these organizational changes, purportedly, produced a period of success in which the company was “like a phoenix rising from the ashes” (DK, 1985, November 28, p. 23). The speech also recalled the phase under Daimler-Benz, the acquisition by Volkswagen AG, the merger with NSU, and the integration into the Volkswagen Group. The speech concluded that “the present situation was a result of consistent effort during a race for technical progress and against the ‘choking grip of the competition’” (p. 23). In this way, Habbel honored the people who had contributed to the development of the company. A speech by the works councilman Fritz Böhm then emphasized that contemporary working conditions at the Audi plant “have set the course for a sound future,” and serve as “the best proof of the fact that the responsibilities of tradition and progress are taken seriously here” (p. 23). Commemorative speeches purposefully connected the past with the present in a way that suggested a continuity of operations over time. All speeches built upon a central topos – namely that AUDI AG and its predecessor firms had managed to overcome an array of organizational changes thanks to the “indefatigable efforts […] of several men and women” (DK, 1985, November 28, p. 23). The past was fashioned as a partly tragic, yet eventually successful, series of ups and downs. Historical hardships were proclaimed to have prepared the company to face the challenges of the future. The company and its members were displayed as a unified entity that had suffered multiple deaths and undergone substantial transformation. The idea of new beginnings, resurrection, and the continuity of existence was played up. On multiple levels, the ceremony played with the motifs of life and death, new and old, and the current and the former. For example, the idea of ‘tradition’ and continuity throughout time was materially supported by the display of a brand-new “Audi quattro 200 and [various] Audi classic cars that flanked [the participants]” (p. 23). After the speeches, a minute of silence was held to commemorate “the deceased among the circle of first employees” (DK, 1985, November 28, p. 23). In the words of Nora (1989), the minute of silence could be seen as “an extreme example of a strictly symbolic action [that] serve[d] as a concentrated appeal to memory by literally breaking a temporal continuity” (p. 19). The collectively performed practice appealed to the memory of those workers, employees, and managers who had contributed to the development of the Audi brand and its predecessor companies. This case shows that different cultural forms of organizational remembrance were combined and simultaneously employed in order to commemorate ‘75 years of Audi.’ The unveiling ceremony of the plaque was an orchestrated arrangement of mnemonic practices. Through these practices, the company reconstructed the corporate past in a way that established a connection to the present and the fu-

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ture. These practices were performed collectively by key corporate actors and joined in on by an audience who claimed affiliation with the company. Material artifacts that represented the corporate past were used in a supportive fashion. They furnished the event with a tangible link to the past and physically marked the occasion. Altogether, the ceremony was a practice that first and foremost served local public relations purposes. AUDI AG staged itself as a history-conscious company that claimed to be proud of its long tradition building motor vehicles. The ceremony also served an internal purpose. Retired men and women, who had formerly worked for AUDI AG, were collectively honored for their personal efforts and contributions during their working lives. As a university might do with its alumni, the company reached out to those who had served well. They received formal acknowledgement, and, in turn, demonstrated loyalty to their employer. This was also a sign of identification that transcended active membership-based boundaries. The ceremony thus helped to construct the organizational identity of AUDI AG as a socially responsible employer which honored the past of its workforce, as well.

5.5 Brand Identity Construction in Marketing A central purpose of organizational remembrance was the construction of a favorable Audi brand identity. Select references to the corporate past added meanings to the brand that were considered beneficial for business. While the aforementioned PR efforts undoubtedly did so as well, shaping a brand identity entailed distinct marketing practices. In these practices, customers and the public were targeted directly. The ultimate goal of ‘tradition marketing’ was to help propel the sales of new products. As a corporate historian explained, AT: [The cultivation of tradition] is not an end in itself. Of course it is clear that the company pursues a specific goal, and this goal first and foremost is the ‘emotionalization’ of the brand and generating customer loyalty. Hence, at the end of the day we are an instrument of public relations and marketing. (Int. 28, l. 44)

This sub-chapter begins with a discussion of what the company aimed to achieve through marketing-oriented practices of organizational remembrance. Why exactly ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ were considered essential components in marketing premium automobiles is finally explained. Following this, a selection of cultural forms of organizational remembrance are presented that fulfilled the purpose of

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brand identity construction. They include vintage car show races, classic car rallies, a corporate history museum, and guided exhibition tours.

5.5.1 History and tradition as essential qualities of premium automobile marketing As previously noted, the Audi brand had been marketed for the past decades through the slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ A brand identity that exclusively followed a future-oriented, technology-driven course, however, was eventually perceived as a construct that seemed ‘technocratically frigid’ and with which it was difficult to identify. A marketing technique called ‘brand emotionalization’ promised to make the Audi brand more relatable to customers.³⁷ One way of emotionalizing the brand was believed to be found on the ‘corporate history track;’ the past was seen as offering components that could be selectively exploited to render the brand more human and relatable. A key aspect of brand emotionalization was eliciting the idea that Audi was a historic ‘premium brand.’ For this claim to operate effectively, one had to communicate that Audi actually had a history. A marketing manager proclaimed, “There is no premium brand that doesn’t have a history” (Int. 23, l. 244). Another manager stated in this regard, “The claim that you can refer to history is essential for a premium brand; you stand on shoulders that can credibly carry you” (Int. 10, l. 376). Undoubtedly, this idea had not emerged out of nowhere. The corporate history departments of Daimler AG, BMW AG, and Dr. Ing. H.c. F. Porsche AG had already employed these tactics in the early 1990s (Int. 31, l. 32). In the German premium car market, the possession of a long-standing history was thus considered a fundamental prerequisite to legitimately compete. From a consumer perspective, being able to embrace one’s ‘tradition’ of building automobiles symbolizes the continuous accumulation of professional knowledge and skills. It implies a level of experience in product development,  ‘Brand emotionalization’ is a concept in neuro-marketing that emerged in the late 1990s and 2000s (e. g., Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999; Lynch & Chernatony, 2004; Ruth, 2001). Its basic premise is the idea that customers do not exclusively base their decisions to purchase products on rational considerations such as an in-depth assessment of the ratio between price and product quality. Instead, emotions towards brands have the capacity to trigger demand, from which responses in consumption result (Slywotzky & Weber, 2012). It is not just the facts and measurable qualities of a product but also how the ‘world’ that is spun around it makes consumers feel that is relevant. Spurred by the promises of academia, the positive emotionalization of a brand has become a common practice in highly competitive markets (Haimerl & Ohnemus, 2008), most notably in the automobile industry.

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which promises that the quality of the product would be refined over time. ‘Having history’ thus represents stability and endurance. It makes it more likely that customers will make a leap of faith and choose to trust in a brand and its products. Of course, it was not useful for the Audi brand to associate itself with just any kind of history. Marketing efforts aimed to demonstrate that the company owned a history determined by success and prestige, which conjured up the impression of luxury and upscale manufacturing. Content-wise, mentions of ‘corporate origins’ and ‘brand foundations’ were always useful in this regard. Interestingly, when Audi Tradition started marketing the company’s past, it was not the oldest ‘tradition brand’ in the stable they staged as the foundational origin. Instead, they went with a younger, yet far more prestigious brand. The rationale behind it was explained by a member: AT: It was in the 1990s that we started saying – If we offer such a car [the Audi A8] then we also have to somehow justify ourselves to the competition [and] to the public why we actually make the claim of building good and large, powerful cars. And here’s this August Horch who once claimed the same about himself, and we can refer to him. […] And [Horch] just fits way better than NSU AG which somehow was into motorcycle production most of its life – also automobile production – but [NSU] never got beyond the mid-range segment. Well, [if we referred to NSU] it would be quite difficult for us to create our arguments, so we say that our corporate history starts with August Horch in 1899 and his claim to only build good and powerful vehicles. It really fit perfectly back then. (Int. 30, l. 38)

While AUDI AG was the legal successor of NSU Motorenwerke AG (cf. Amtsgericht Ingolstadt, 2007), the history of the Neckarsulm-based ‘tradition brand’ was deemed incompatible with contemporary efforts. The notion that NSU was primarily associated with affordable small cars and the midrange market segment at best, let alone never competed in the upscale market segment, did not fit with the identity to which a premium brand would aspire. Fortunately for marketing, the Horch brand, which was associated with a more luxurious past, could also be exploited. Horch, moreover, was part of the original ‘Four Rings’ that constituted the brand emblem, which ensured visual coherence between the past and the present. Marketing-centered ‘tradition work’ thus reminded the public that luxury barges, such as the Audi A8, stood in a long line of tradition beginning with Horch cars. Founding father August Horch’s claim to build only large, powerful, and good vehicles provided sufficient parallels to presentday Audi and could be used to legitimize contemporary endeavors. In this way, Audi aimed to elevate themselves into the pantheon of the German automobile nobility, joining the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and BMW.

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A central role of Audi Tradition was to communicate the desired brand characteristics to the market. A core member of the department explained, AT: First of all, the goal is to give external [stakeholders] a feeling for the fact that the Audi brand – the premium brand it is today – has a great automobile tradition; that it has already brought respective motor vehicles on the market at an early stage; and […] that today’s quality is on a par with that of the past; and that we are in fact not an artificial brand but a tradition brand. […] [E]ven today, the main job remains that we explain to those people who don’t really know it yet where the ‘Four Rings’ actually come from, what they mean, what they stand for – quite frankly, from quality, to luxury, to premium, and to the point of motorsports above all; and that the brand essence of Audi can also be constituted in terms of tradition. […] I believe that [young] people in particular […] are supposed to be able to differentiate that the Audi brand does not just have a tradition since the 1960s, when the Audi brand reappeared for the first time again, but that it’s already rooted in pre-war times. (Int. 31, ll. 36 – 38)

At the time of fieldwork, the notion that Audi was an old brand with pre-war roots was more established in the public sphere than it had been 30 years ago. The ‘100 years of Audi’ brand anniversary celebrated in 2009 had had a significant impact. Nevertheless, certain segments were cast as ‘unknowledgeable’ and supposedly assumed that Audi was “a young brand” with little experience in the ‘art’ of manufacturing premium cars (Ethno. 26, l. 145). At best, they could recall that in the 1960s and 1970s the company with the ‘Four Rings’ used to produce automobiles with a square, civil-servant type brand image. It was these people that Audi Tradition sought to re-educate, and to which it wished to communicate the three core brand values of modern Audi – high quality, sportiness, and technological progressiveness – were historically rooted in the very beginning of the European automobile industry. The notion of the ‘continuation of old traditions’ was promoted in order to craft a specific brand identity in the present. Others would argue that this pursuit was a highly constructed invention of tradition (cf. Hobsbawm, 2010). Fieldwork showed that the parallels drawn by marketing between vintage Horch and modern Audi were still a source of some skepticism among critics. These critics also questioned the legitimacy of Audi’s place in the pantheon of the German automobile nobility. In the attempt to counter these voices, the intention behind tradition marketing was sometimes defensive in the pursuit of self-justification. For example, a former CEO of AUDI AG stated, “It is our concern to demonstrate to the public and to our employees that the proverbial ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ did not just start with the Audi quattro or turbocharged direct injection [TDI]” (Ethno. 27, l. 90) – two technologies that had been developed as late as the 1980s.

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Moreover, ‘tradition marketing’ served to demarcate the brand. Since the 1990s, a handful of Japanese automobile manufacturers, such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, had infiltrated the premium car segment with their luxury sub-brands Lexus, Acura, and Infiniti. All three Japanese premium automobile brands had been founded by their respective corporate parents in the late 1980s. Their early product efforts all started with so-called ‘badge-engineering,’ which involved the fitting of existing mass-volume models with a different trim, performing modifications in technology and styling that made them appear more luxurious, and then marketing these vehicles under a different brand badge. The same member of Audi Tradition quoted above proclaimed: AT: [These] competitors from the Far East […] who do not have any tradition […] have tried to penetrate this particular market segment, but they have not been accepted due to the lack of history. And at least in Europe they haven’t had any sales success. And through history, Audi could far better emphasize that we have the respective tradition. (Int. 31, l. 36)

When it came to the emergence of foreign competition, the instrumentalization of the past was deemed essential for demarcating Audi from so-called ‘traditionless’ Asian premium brands. The distant pre-war past of Horch and Audi in particular was fashioned as a unique selling point that made the brand with the ‘Four Rings’ appear significantly older and more genuine. Asian competitors were ascribed the role of ‘the Other’ that could not rightfully be on a par with the Germans because of their supposed lack of a past. In the game of marketing, the ‘history track’ was a way of enhancing the brand with prestige and status. Now the question emerges what exactly these practices of ‘tradition marketing’ entailed and what elements they employed, apart from usurping Horch’s past. One of the most publicly visible forms of organizational remembrance was advertisement. Over the years, AUDI AG had initiated a number of campaigns that employed historical images and video footage of various historical elements from different epochs to underline their contemporary efforts. However, advertisement was not the primary domain of Audi Tradition. The strategy of the corporate history department was to create lasting first-hand impressions through the ‘eventification’ of corporate history.³⁸

 Hauptfleisch (2004), a theater and performance scholar, conceptualizes “eventification” as “impl[ying] that everyday events/issues are theatricalized, then presented to the public in a specific place at a specific time (or on a special occasion), which turns the resulting play, performance or festival into an event of socio-cultural, sociopolitical and possibly even socio-economic significance” (pp. 293 – 294).

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5.5.2 Vintage car show races If the company wanted to convince the public of its historically-rooted qualities, Audi Tradition needed to use their vintage cars the same way customers were using contemporary products. As representations of a time gone by, classic motor vehicles had the biggest impact when driven out in the open. The practice of driving turned objects of steel, glass, and rubber into automobiles that fulfilled their intended purpose. In more affective terms, the sensation of velocity, engine noise, smoky exhaust fumes, squealing tires, and shiny chrome offered an experience for the senses. Vintage motor vehicles from the historical collection were not supposed to be moved randomly, though. As “technological memorials” of high financial value (Ethno. 23, l. 207), they required careful handling and constant maintenance, depending on their age and condition. A driving event thus required a proper occasion, which justified the risk of possibly damaging the artifact. From a marketing perspective, this occurred when the motor vehicle could be showcased to a large external audience. In the classic car scene, potential occasions existed en masse. One particular pair of events was a household name – the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England previously mentioned (cf. SZ, 2003, July 19), as well as its historical version, the Goodwood Revival. Latter festival, which was hosted annually by Lord March at Goodwood House, was a large vintage motorsports event that paid tribute to the motor vehicles of yesterday. Private racing teams, large automobile companies, individual enthusiasts, and visitors alike gathered in the town of Chichester. They brought along their motor vehicles, dressed up in historical attire, set up camps that looked like something one might encounter in a time warp, and collectively performed a ‘retro show’ that was focused on everything old that had an engine and was moving fast (cf. SZ, 2010, September 13). It was said to resemble “a cross between the Monaco Grand Prix and Royal Ascot” (The Times, 2007, June 10, para. 2). Goodwood was an established ground for car companies that wanted to showcase their own vestiges of the corporate past to a broader public audience. The Telegraph (2011, March 17), for example, described the event with the words, “Car makers saw the Festival as an opportunity to show off their historic models and the public flocked to rub shoulders with race and rally stars, contemporary and modern” (para. 9). At the time of fieldwork, Audi Tradition had already attended both Goodwood festivals several times. An account of their first appearance serves as an exemplary case of the way in which a vintage car show worked. In the early 1990s, the ‘tradition company,’ AUTO UNION GmbH, had started commissioning the restoration and replication of a handful of 1930s Auto Union

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Grand Prix race cars (cf. DK, 1993, April 10). Upon the completion of these, the event that was chosen to present these historic motor vehicles to an international crowd was the 1997 Goodwood Festival of Speed (Int. 1, l. 141). Dressed up in historical racing suits, Audi set up camp and show-raced a 1938 Auto Union Type C/ D, which was piloted by Hans-Joachim Stuck. The car, which was equipped with a powerful engine, generated an excruciatingly loud sound. It was deemed “something really flashy that had not been seen [in public] before” (l. 336). According to an informant, the multi-sensorial experience of watching, hearing, smelling, and feeling the historical race car perform in its ‘natural habitat’ on the track was one-of-a-kind. The pilot employed, Hans-Joachim Stuck, was a famous German racing driver who used to drive for the Audi Sport factory team during the 1980s and 1990s (Andorka, 2010). His late father, Hans Stuck Senior, had raced the original Auto Union vehicle during the 1930s himself (AUDI AG, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, 1992). When a British TV team interviewed young Stuck about the race car he was driving he responded: HS: [It is special] because of two reasons: the one reason is that it is a sort of timepiece of history; the second is that it’s my father’s car. So my father was sitting in this seat with this steering wheel, and of course this is a very precious moment, you know. (Youtube, 2009, October 16, min. 05:28 – 05:41)

Stuck, who was working as a representative of Audi Tradition, publicly embraced his ride in the historic race car as a special occasion. His father had piloted the car in several competitions, and Stuck junior staged his stint in Goodwood as a special opportunity to reconnect with his father’s legacy. Driving the vintage car was presented as a highly emotional act, tied up with family legacies and the inter-generational continuation of a racing tradition – an idea AUDI AG also aimed to communicate on the brand level. This example gives an idea of the selectiveness of tradition marketing and the politics of representing the past. The ‘dark Nazi past’ affiliated with these 1930s Grand Prix race cars was completely muted at the time. The historical fact was suppressed that the 1930s German Grand Prix series, the development of these race cars, and their pilots had been financed, promoted, and instrumentalized by the Nazi regime (cf. Reuß, 2010, October 19). Individual Audi officials thought they could celebrate the ‘Silver Arrow’ vehicles detached from their political context (Ethno. 42, l. 75). The company tried to exclusively highlight and emphasize the “glorious racing past […] because you can always fascinate the people with race cars and victories” (Ethno. 74, l. 122), as a manager explained. Elements of the corporate past were trimmed to what seemed to adhere to con-

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temporary brand identity claims – i. e. motorsports for the sake of competition, technology for the sake of progress, and hero figures for the sake of sportsmanship. The material artifact was dissociated from a historically documented context that was undoubtedly rife with social and political conflict (Kirchberg, 1964). ‘Tradition marketing’ was meant to be emotional but not political. This case demonstrates four important components of marketing the ‘tradition topic’ through driving events: the existence of an occasion that draws the attention of the public and the press, the featuring of classic motor vehicles ‘in action,’ employing celebrities as pilots, and an emotionalizing storyline that remains positive. It is important to know that there were different types of driving events where Audi Tradition showcased the machinery they owned. In addition to show races and historical motorsports festivals that mostly took place on closed circuits, there were numerous other types of events that brought vehicles out on the open road.

5.5.3 Classic car rallies Originally intended as competitive races on public roads, the majority of classic car rallies are now relatively tame driving events for aficionados of old motor vehicles, who want to show off their own automobiles, and mingle with likeminded people. The basic concept entails a starter field of up to 200 classic vehicles covering a distance of 500 – 900 km on country roads over the course of multiple days, which are divided into stages. Drivers and their ‘copilots’ have to fulfill a number of driving assignments for which they gain points. Those who have gathered the most points at the end of the rally are pronounced winners and receive a trophy. The majority of classic car rallies were organized by private business organizations that made money via admission fees. Italian events such as the Gran Premio Nuvolari and the Mille Miglia – “the mother of all classic car rallies” (Welt Online, 2012, May 31, para. 1) – regularly attracted enthusiasts from all over the world who shipped in their classic automobiles. In Germany, a vivid classic rally scene has been established by the automotive magazines – most notably Auto Bild Klassik and Motor Klassik. Popular annual events went by the name of Sachsen Classic, Eifel Classic, Crème 21 Youngtimer Rallye, Silvretta Classic, Rallye Hamburg-Berlin-Klassik, and the Bodensee Klassik. Because private participants generally belonged to a more affluent echelon of society, these events were furnished with superb accommodation, good food, and other luxuries. These were also the clientele that could afford a new premium car, which was the main reason why car manufacturers had gotten into the game.

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With the increasing involvement of automobile companies, classic car rallies became a popular form of organizational remembrance. In fact, it was one of the most common forms used in ‘tradition marketing’ during the time of this investigation. In 2010 alone, Audi Tradition participated in more than a dozen rallies, sending off their motor vehicles and event staff to various locations in Germany and Europe. Rally events served as platforms for the corporate history department to push specific ‘tradition topics.’ The selection of vehicles depended on the respective theme that had been chosen. At the time of fieldwork, ‘30 years of quattro’ had been selected as a theme, and therefore the majority of vehicles being showcased were old Audi cars equipped with the company’s four-wheeldrive system. Classic car rallies served as the industry’s battlefield for public attention. With the exception of a select few, these rallies were open to all types of brands, participants, and corporate actors. At high profile events, such as the Mille Miglia, the team of Audi Tradition competed with the teams of Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar, and others. Smaller rallies, such the ones hosted by German motor magazines, were less competitive. As a symbol of being “part of the scene,” sponsoring these rallies was regarded “a matter of courtesy” (Ethno. 12, l. 67). Being the main sponsor ensured preferential news coverage and brandbound promotion of the ‘tradition topic’ through the magazine’s channels. Commonly, AUDI AG also brought along a selection of their newest vehicles. Camouflaged as “service and organization vehicles” (Ethno. 29, l. 33), it provided a way of showcasing contemporary products. Once in a while, the corporate history department organized a rally that was exclusively organized around its ‘tradition brands.’ In 1999, for example, the company celebrated the 100th anniversary of Horch (DK, 1999, January 5). Among other activities, a so-called “memory ride” was arranged (DK, 1999, May 17, p. 111). A roster of 44 pre-war Horch vehicles embarked on a four-day, 400 kilometer tour from Zwickau to Ingolstadt. The lineup was arranged by a Hamburg-based Horch Club. It consisted of privately-owned cars, but it also included a handful of Horch automobiles owned by Audi Tradition (DK, 1999, May 15/16). Several ‘tradition workers’ participated in the memory ride – among others, a corporate historian who was a respected authority in the Horch scene. The rally was intended to be a “trip following the traces of the past” (DK, 1999, May 17, p. 11). The point of departure was chosen as Zwickau in Saxony “in order to pay respect to the ‘birthplace’ of many Horch cars” (DK, 1999, April 28, p. 21). It was proclaimed to have been the biggest Horch gathering in a single town since the end of production during World War II (DK, 1999, May 17). The departure from Zwickau symbolized the distant beginnings of the ‘Four Rings,’ as Audi had also been founded there by August Horch. One of

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the historically relevant stops on the way to Bavaria was in Reichenbach, Saxony – a town where Horch had set up shop for a limited period – while other stops were made merely for scenic reasons. The trip ended in the old town of Ingolstadt, where historical cars drove in convoy through the streets. The final destination marked the present location of AUDI AG, and made it possible to view the rally as Auto Union’s symbolic exodus from Saxony to Bavaria. The event ended with a festive ceremony and a banquet dinner, where all participants celebrated each other, their Horch vehicles, and the founding figure August Horch. From a marketing standpoint, the major goal was the presentation of classic Horch luxury vehicles to a public audience, while simultaneously linking the classic Horch cars with contemporary Audi brand identity claims. Hundreds of spectators followed the vintage car parade with “curiosity and happy waving” along the road (DK, 1999, May 15/16, p. 11). At each stop a crowd of people gathered around the party of old cars. Members of the Horch Club used the gathering to ‘talk shop’ among enthusiasts (DK, 1999, May 17). Since marketing and PR efforts could not always be clearly divided, Audi Tradition had arranged for the local and supra-regional media to cover the event. External journalists were expected to draw connections between Horch and the present-day Audi brand, so that a wider audience could learn about the relationship. In the case of the Donaukurier, all three articles published about the event either explained the foundation of Horch and Audi by August Horch, the merger of Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer into Auto Union, and the exodus to Ingolstadt after World War II, or pinpointed Horch as “one of the parent companies of […] contemporary AUDI AG” (DK, 1999, May 15/16, p. 11). Horch was depicted as having been one of the leading automobile brands in the world. Journalists emphasized that the cars were highly valuable and scarce, and that they had been among the most progressive and successful motor vehicles one could purchase back in the day. For example, a journalist from the Donaukurier wrote: Precious wood decorates the spartan dashboard; the interior trim is dapper and unobtrusive. It is particularly this kind of ‘understatement’ in combination with a high build quality (which is also a top priority at Audi, bringing the brand back to the top class) that seems to constitute the fascination with Horch vehicles. (DK, 1999, May 15/16, p. 11)

In unsolicited accordance with Audi’s desired brand identity, a direct analogy between vintage Horch products and the current Audi portfolio was drawn via the aspects of build quality and luxurious interior design. An image of Audi was painted that placed it as a legitimate successor of Horch. This way, present-day Audi was staged as the embodied continuation of old manufacturing

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qualities. Moreover, the article cited here mentioned that the Audi brand was ‘returning’ to the premium class – a statement which presumes that Audi had once been in this market segment. In conclusion, it can be said that journalistic media generally supported AUDI AG’s marketing endeavors involving the staging of contemporary brand identity claims as deeply rooted in history. While the representation of the corporate past was highly selective and one-sided, publicity was successfully generated for the ‘tradition topic.’ As will be discussed later, a number of external stakeholders were, in fact, accomplices in the attempt to further corporate interests. The next cultural form of organizational remembrance to be discussed here is a marketing tool that did not necessarily require accomplices, however. A specific site of remembrance produced an impact on visitors in the most direct sense.

5.5.4 The corporate history museum and guided exhibition tours The most eye-catching instrument employed in the official ‘cultivation of tradition’ was, by far, the corporate history museum. Called Audi museum mobile, the site of remembrance was situated directly at the plant in Ingolstadt, and it showcased AUDI AG’s official history. To understand its function and intended purpose, it is important to know that the museum was not an isolated entity. As an integral part of the Audi forum, it had been erected for conducting directto-customer marketing. The Audi forum was a compound of publicly accessible buildings, the individual components of which formed a consumer-centric “brand world” (Manning, 2010, p. 38). Like a visitor’s center, it was intended to, as a marketing manager proclaimed, “adequately receive the customer [with the aim that] he […] shall feel at home here” (Int. 28, l. 58). It was conceptualized as playing a special role for those customers who had picked up their newly purchased automobiles. On site, they were “presented an experience that incorporates all aspects of the brand – that is the past [through the museum], the present via the guided plant tour, and […] the handover of the product that confirms the purchase” (Int. 23, l. 258). Also dubbed “the Bermuda triangle” (Ethno. 12, l. 82), the experience was meant to completely immerse customers with the Audi ‘brand world.’ The fact that the Audi museum mobile was an integral part of a larger marketing concept also becomes clear when comparing it to a lesser known museum in which the company also had its stake – the August Horch Museum in Zwickau. Both museums were financed and curated by AUDI AG, and yet the manner in which exhibitions were conceptualized was entirely different. In the words of a ‘tradition worker,’ the museum in Ingolstadt was a sleek “showroom for pub-

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licity,” which had been designed by modern trade show planners and an advertisement agency (Int. 30, l. 16). The collection and presentation of immaculately restored vehicles was intended to impress customers and impress upon them, “You’re one of those people who’s driving a car like that” (Ethno. 12, l. 82). In contrast, the museum in Zwickau approached its material via historical re-enactment. Visiting the exhibition allowed one to experience the streetscapes of yesterday. It was therefore a museum for automobile history enthusiasts who wished to learn about the industry and its technology. Another ‘tradition worker’ made the following comparison between the two museums: “The museum mobile is a jeweler’s display cabinet, whereas the one in Zwickau is a cute sewing basket” (Ethno. 8, l. 86). In any case, the Audi museum mobile in Ingolstadt served as the main corporate site of organizational remembrance. From the perspective of many respondents, it embodied the historical consciousness of the company. Individual informants considered “dealing with history” synonymous with visiting the museum (Int. 16, l. 480). In this respect, visitors actually had to use the museum in practice for it to have an impact – i. e. they had to enter the place, look at the classic motor vehicles, read the exhibition texts, follow and listen to the trained guide who performed the tour, and understand that this particular arrangement of exhibits was meant to represent the official history of the company. Visiting the corporate museum in a ‘proper’ fashion was a cultural practice which demanded distinct skills. For example, if one was to fully comprehend the permanent exhibition, there was a recommended order in which it was intended to be seen. The exhibition began with a short video trailer that, according to one of the curators, was meant to prepare customers for the mode of retrospection (Int. 30, l. 240). Visitors then took an elevator to the top level of the building, where the actual exhibition began, starting in the late 19th century with August Horch. From here, one was expected to follow the visitor path from the top floor to the ground level. This enabled a chronologically linear corporate history to neatly unfold from the distant past to the present. A ‘proper’ experience of the exhibition was best ensured by joining a guided tour, in which visitors were exposed to a trained guide’s oral rendition of the coherent historical narrative. While questions were allowed and encouraged, the guide set the tone and the pace, according to which the exhibition was experienced (Ethno. 5, l. 50). A guided tour was a convenient way of learning about corporate history in a carefree way, as it merely required basic listening and observation skills. If visitors went through the museum on their own, on the other hand, it was almost obligatory to closely examine the carefully crafted web of multi-media contents. In order to be understood in the sense intended by corporate histori-

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ans, the collection of exhibited motor vehicles had to be actively examined in combination with written exhibition texts, historic photographs, graphics, videos, historic films, and audio recordings of oral history interviews. Unless these were attended to, one would only notice the stylistic differences in products across time. In this respect, a member of the technological development unit criticized, “[Y]ou’re basically left alone. You’re simply shown the exhibits and that’s it. […] There’s no explanation for anybody who doesn’t join a guided tour but just goes through the museum; nothing” (Int. 7, l. 238). While this particular critique was not entirely justified, the design of the museum was minimalistic and it did not physically stage its exhibits in a historical setting. It resembled a modern trade show floor. Exhibited objects did not necessarily speak for themselves, apart from their status as impressively polished machines from the past. A museum curator admitted that the conceptualization of the exhibition demanded the visitor consciously explore and “work out [history] himself” (Int. 30, l. 96). For an assembly of historical products to become a history of a business organization, visitors actually had to concern themselves with the media accompanying the exhibits. In contrast, Zwickau offered the opportunity to immerse oneself in history. The August Horch Museum presented a range of historical dioramas, which were housed in a former Audi factory building. The exhibition design did not necessarily demand the visitor actively consume (i. e. read) all media offered there, as there was more to look at and listen to. This matters insofar as people did not necessarily visit the museum in Ingolstadt in order to receive a full-blown history lesson. From a marketing perspective, it was more important that visitors learned about the actual existence of Audi’s brand-related history, rather than memorizing the historical details of its organizational development. It was deemed sufficient if customers left the museum with an impression that Audi built upon six ‘tradition brands’ which had always offered motor vehicles. Provided that visitors used the museum skillfully, the exhibition served to orientate the visitors by presenting history in an accessible manner. Especially when it came to learning about the pre-war past of Auto Union and the four ‘tradition brands’ that made up the ‘Four Rings,’ the museum effectively translated the complex ramifications of their coming into being into a coherent, easily graspable narrative. An employee from the technological development unit described the effect: TE: [T]he fact that you can experience the history there, that’s a really important thing, because… yes, the palatable reappraisal of history… especially, when it gets a bit more complex… Auto Union alone, which is comprised of those four brands; and then there are fur-

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ther points of diversion. The further you go back, the more it branches out. And I believe that it is very important to make it transparent. [It] is way easier with regard to other firms; our [history is] complicated. (Int. 7, l. 218)

The permanent exhibition offered visitors a compact and coherent representation of what AUDI AG officially considered part of its history. It disentangled the knot that was Audi’s predecessor brands in a clear and unambiguous way, and provided a straightforward explanation of contemporary AUDI AG coming into being. The museum offered plausible explanations of numerous economic crises, name changes, mergers, and acquisitions, which it connected via ‘bridging narratives.’ While the museum was heavy on the product side, giving only little insight into the exact organizational developments and the historical production processes, this version of corporate history made sense. It took the form of a coherent string of ‘tradition brands,’ tangible product milestones, technologies, and leader figures. The museum presented a version of the corporate past that was in line with the brand identity the company wished to convey. Apart from a few exhibits from World War II, the exhibition primarily portrayed successful and glorious chapters of the company’s existence. A filter had been applied, according to which certain exhibits were included based on their marketing viability. The fact that products like the Audi 100, the Audi quattro, or the Audi A8 had been included, while comparatively unsuccessful vehicles such as the DKW Munga, the Audi 200, and the Audi V8 had been excluded, left the impression that the company’s past was only filled with success stories. The museum communicated those elements the company considered worth remembering in order to promote their brand.

5.6 Direct Economic Utilization Thus far, all purposes of organizational remembrance discussed here served the company’s interest in generating profit in an indirect way. They were supportive measures, and the forms taken by organizational remembrance helped to run the company and support the sale of automobiles, but did not generate revenue themselves. In fact, most of them were costly affairs. For instance, admission to the corporate museum for non-customers and non-employees was only a few Euros – a price that did not even cover the operating costs of the site. To partially make up for the losses, there were a number of cultural forms that directly generated profit, providing an additional source of revenue for the corporation. A host of ‘tradition services’ and material products were offered to customers in

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exchange for a price that was not just symbolic. Select forms to be discussed here include a vintage car rental service, history merchandise, and model cars.

5.6.1 Classic car rental service The corporate history department owned a range of vintage motor vehicles in impeccable condition that had been identified as suitable for representational purposes. They mostly included top-of-the-line Horch models, quattro rally cars, and other impressive specimens. In exchange for a considerable fee, these vehicles could be rented by trustworthy corporate actors, such as auto dealerships, trade fair organizers, event planners, and external museums. Audi-internal departments and foreign subsidiaries could also book the vehicles of their choice. While they were not allowed to drive these historical artifacts themselves, they could exhibit them for whatever cause they wished. Numerous companies aside from AUDI AG had an interest in exploiting the product-related past of the firm with the ‘Four Rings,’ and Audi Tradition had learned to turn this into a viable business. Examples of such usage include a millionaire’s fair in Moscow, where a shiny Horch car was displayed, and an event in Shanghai where a similar vehicle was showcased (Ethno. 16, l. 92). According to an employee who organized the rental service, the rationale behind it was, “What’s the benefit of having these vehicles in the depot? They only cost money and take away valuable space that we don’t have. They’re meant to be on display among the people” (l. 93). The stock of rentable motor vehicles was thus coordinated in order to ensure a constant flow of vehicle circulation and thereby generate the most profit. Only trustworthy (affluent) clients were granted the right to rent these vintage motor vehicles. Those private enthusiasts who wished to purchase their own piece of corporate history were offered different options.

5.6.2 History merchandise and model cars A range of affordable products were designed and created on behalf of Audi Tradition, offering ‘tradition’ in commodified, tangible form. These mass produced items were offered directly to consumers through various retail channels, including the museum shop, the Audi merchandise shop, trade fairs, and an online store. In contrast to the spare parts and history merchandise produced for protecting trademark rights, however, the sole purpose of these items was to generate a continuous stream of revenue. For example, Audi offered what they called a

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“heritage-collection” of polo shirts, sweater jackets, sunglasses, and messenger bags (Ethno. 64, l. 38). This attire was a throwback to the fashion associated with 1980s rally motorsports. It took up the color scheme, graphics, and emblems of the original Audi Sport team gear, but combined these historical elements with modern cuts. Designed to be ‘retro,’ yet not old-fashioned, visual components had to comply with contemporary brand identity guidelines as defined by the corporation. Moreover, the museum shop offered items with reprinted slogans from old Audi advertisements – for instance, a “Don’t try to catch a quattro in the snow” sticker from the 1980s, a t-shirt displaying an old quattro rally car with the text “quattro – Born to win”, as well as numerous reprints of pre-war Auto Union advertisement posters (Ethno. 64, l. 38). A range of corporate history publications created by Audi Tradition, aimed at fans and customers, was also on offer. At almost thirty Euros a piece, these professionally produced picture books were meant to generate a profit. It also explains why their design and language was decidedly non-academic and more oriented toward the private enthusiast. The merchandise that received the most attention, by far, was model cars. The corporate history department offered a vast collection of cast-iron toys comprised of small-scale replicas of existing motor vehicles. At a retail price of 20 to 170 Euros, they were highly detailed and comparatively expensive items, which featured different materials and many functional parts. Rather than serving as toys, they were collected and displayed in showcases by adults, who considered these models an affordable way of owning ‘the real thing.’ They “function as bearers of the longing for the real car one used to drive once, owned, never owned, or dreamt of” (Ethno. 75, l. 120), as a ‘tradition worker’ explained. Customers could, this way, realize their dream garage without breaking the bank. While almost every new series production car and motorsports vehicle was offered in miniature, Audi Tradition had also come up with a comprehensive range of “classics” (Ethno. 27, l. 108), including the 1980 Audi quattro, the Auto Union Type D, the 1910 Audi Type A, and a Horch 855 Roadster, among others. The goal was to offer a small-scale replica of every product ever produced. Given the rich past of the corporation, the full lineup of all predecessor brands had not yet been exhausted, and there was a constant stream of new toy models every year. Many of these models were by default limited editions. The artificial creation of scarcity ensured demand for the products, and out-of-production items quickly increased in value and fetched high prices. At the same time, a whole economy of professional collectors and traders had emerged, who operated model shops, organized model car trade fairs, and even ran model car museums, where one

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could acquire the missing object of desire (Ethno. 77, l. 47). Some enthusiasts reportedly ran up debt in their urge to buy and collect every model car of a specific ‘tradition brand.’ At a trade fair, I observed several customers spending more than a thousand Euros on what others would consider ‘toys.’ From an economic perspective, committed collectors were good Audi customers, even if they could not afford a new Audi automobile in regular size. In addition to generating a substantial amount of revenue, model cars served as a popular cultural form to commemorate concept vehicles. According to a respondent, the first model produced on behalf of Audi Tradition was based on a concept car called “Audi Avus quattro” (Int. 31, l. 16). Originally presented at a trade show in 1991, the concept showcased what had been feasible from a design and engineering perspective. Interestingly, the original concept car was a cultural form of organizational remembrance in its own right. The Avus quattro exhibited a range of visible references to the distant corporate past. Designed as a futuristic supercar that managed to connect the past, the present, and the future, it merged markers of different epochs into a single body shell. The super sports car concept was fitted with a 12-cylinder mid-engine and a polished aluminum body with lightweight construction, which echoed the mid-engined 12cylinder Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ vehicles of the 1930s. Grand Prix racers had competed on the famous Berlin highway stretch called Avus. The connection between the past and present was thus made by combining the historical Avus name with the brand name of the modern quattro four-wheel-drive system, by employing visual design cues from the 1937 Auto Union Type C AVUS Stromlinie race car, such as the streamlined aluminum body and the protruding fenders, and by using technical cues such as the monocoque (a special structural approach), and the lightweight frame construction. While the actual Avus quattro was a unique concept car that never went into production, the mass-produced model car, on the other hand, enabled customers to own a physical representation. In conclusion, this sub-chapter has attempted to convey how the ‘tradition topic’ could be economically utilized by charging external stakeholders for services and tangible products. This made it possible to directly capitalize on corporate history, rendering it a commodity in the most traditional sense. In the midst of all the efforts aimed at ‘working’ the past for business, there was also a lighthearted side to organizational remembrance. The aspects of fun and entertainment that accompanied retrospection will be discussed in the next section.

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5.7 Satisfaction of Entertainment Demands Several scholars have argued that today’s society has turned into an ‘experience society,’ striving for fun and entertainment in its practices of consumption (e. g., Schulze, 1996; Pine & Gilmore, 1998). Naturally, automobile companies have attempted to capitalize on this. At AUDI AG, history and ‘tradition’ was widely regarded as a topic that fulfilled customer demands for entertainment. Vintage cars, in particular, were “generally ascribed positive characteristics” (Int. 31, l. 44), as a core member of Audi Tradition proclaimed. Classic motor vehicles served as triggers for the recollection of precious experiences individuals had had in their autobiographical past. Members of the department and the museum team reported that they were regularly approached by visitors who recalled that, for instance, they used to own a similar vehicle – a vehicle they connected with specific experiences such as family road trips across Germany, their first amorous encounter in the backseat, or camping holidays in Italy (Ethno. 87, l. 59). Random bystanders at classic car rallies were observed to light up and become overjoyed when they recognized a long-forgotten vehicle from their childhood days. Spiegel Online published an article entitled, “Mom, dad, car. There were times in Germany when the car almost belonged to the family – it got cared for, washed, presented proudly” (SPON, 2013, November 19, para. 2). The automobile was ascribed personal, even intimate, meanings by many, and these were recalled in the encounter of specific vehicles. In addition to triggering recollections of past experiences, these vestiges of ‘bygone times’ were interesting to look at in their own right. The encounter with the extraordinary also provided entertainment. Pre-war cars, in particular, were decidedly different from today’s ‘computers on wheels,’ in terms of their size, proportions, design features, technological complexity, texture, sound, and smell. The realization that these archaic vehicles could still be driven safely on public roads elicited awed as well as bewildered reactions. People who had the opportunity to ride in a historical motor vehicle were often impressed by how much effort was required to maneuver a car that had been built in the first half of the 20th century (Ethno. 51, l. 74). Unsynchronized gears that produced excruciating shrieks when shifted unskillfully, the need for double-clutching, wobbly steering, and weak breaks all amounted to a thrilling and unusual experience. A handful of cultural forms of organizational remembrance were intended to deliver this kind of entertainment to various audiences on a regular basis. The two examples to be discussed here include a historical driving tour through the city of Ingolstadt, and a vintage car chauffeur service.

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5.7.1 Historical driving tours One of the entertainment-oriented events was the so-called “DKW Rapid Van tour” (Ethno. 42, l. 37). As advertised in the corporate museum, it allowed participants to “follow the footsteps of Auto Union” across the old town of Ingolstadt (l. 37). A photo book that went by the same title (see AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2007) had inspired the corporate history department to offer the guided tour. Groups of up to half a dozen people were driven to a range of historic local sites, which were the remnants of Auto Union GmbH’s former production facilities. The tour started at the Audi museum mobile and followed the route laid out in the publication. Eleven stops were made – for example, at the former Auto Union headquarters, and the former DKW motorcycle factory (Ethno. 43, l. 37). Participants could step out of the tour van, walk around, and take pictures. An external contractor, who owned a fully restored DKW Rapid Van from the 1950s, had been contracted to execute this service, and acted both as driver and the narrator. The 1.5-hour tour was a throwback to a time long gone by in terms of comfort, exhaust fumes, and noise level. The DKW two-stroke engine, with its distinctive ‘tok-tok-tok’ rattle, was prominent throughout the tour, and forced the audience to listen carefully to what the guide had to say. It was exactly this experience of the old automobile in the midst of the old town of Ingolstadt that made the performance appear authentic. The van had been produced at the sites one drove by, and, even more significantly, the Rapid Van had been the first automobile produced in Ingolstadt. Meanwhile, the guide, who was dressed in a cream-colored suit and a matching hat from the 1950s, recounted where Auto Union GmbH had run their operations, and actively used the aforementioned photo book to demonstrate how production facilities used to look. He used historical photographs to point out remnants of the former cityscape that could still be seen, which also revealed how the scenery had changed over the years. Many of Auto Union’s former facilities were either gone or had long been repurposed by the city. Apart from the commemorative plaque at Schrannenstrasse 3 discussed before, there were almost no signs left that this was the area where the company had resumed and recovered their business after World War II. Another historical driving tour offered by the corporate history department was a “1950s themed tour” (Ethno. 42, l. 50). Participants dressed up in 50s clothes, played music on an old portable receiver, and drove around town in the DKW van, also enjoying a “1950s dinner” at the local Audi Avus restaurant at the plant (l. 50). These kinds of tours were popular among members of AUDI AG and the citizens of Ingolstadt. As the city offered comparatively few ‘touristic gems,’ these

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tours were quickly booked out. While these tours were educational, encouraging participants to learn more about AUDI AG’s predecessor company and its relationship to the region, they were first and foremost meant to be ‘a good time.’ By ‘working’ the corporate past, they were satisfying an entertainment demand.

5.7.2 Classic car chauffeur service The last cultural form of organizational remembrance carried out by Audi Tradition which will be addressed here was a service offered to all employees of AUDI AG. ‘Audianer’ who were getting married had the opportunity to use an old Horch convertible, complete with chauffeur, on their wedding day. Offered for the bride and groom at charge, the automobile was one of the most representative, top-of-the-line vehicles the company owned. The idea of pulling up in front of church in a meticulously restored vehicle, which had once been the epitome of luxury, made the offer a popular one among the workforce. Moreover, Audi Tradition sometimes surprised members of other business units with a ride in a classical vehicle. To celebrate of birthdays, anniversaries of time served at the company, and retirement ceremonies, vehicles were sometimes requested by superiors who wanted to make their subordinates happy. Generally, a ‘tradition worker’ would pick up the person to be honored in a car that had been produced around the same time this person had joined the company. For example, after more than 40 years of service, a retired employee in quality control was given his “last test drive” in a 1968 Audi Super 90 (Ethno. 62, l. 251). An employee in finances who had joined in the 1980s, on the other hand, was picked up for his last commute to work in a 30-year old Audi quattro. While these chauffeur services were intended to increase member identification with the Audi brand, or, more specifically, the ‘tradition cause,’ they were first and foremost a joyful and memorable experience. Nevertheless, creating a fun environment was serious work for the members of the corporate history department. Playing the friendly entertainer at all times involved a large amount of impression management and the willingness to spread ‘good vibrations’ in all circumstances – also known as “emotional labor” (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993, p. 88). This is why ‘tradition workers’ did not want to be perceived as a “happy-go-lucky department” that did entertaining things merely for the sake of self-entertainment (Ethno. 23, l. 192). It was a service offered to an audience, both inside and outside the company.

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5.8 Short Summary This chapter clarified that ‘tradition’ was not ‘cultivated’ for the mere sake of looking back. The past was officially ‘worked’ to fulfill a range of purposes, which supported the business organization in various ways. ‘Tradition work’ was a means to an end and not an end in and of itself. The seven purposes of official organizational remembrance discussed here included 1) retaining physical proof of one’s existence, 2) legal protection of trademark rights, 3) historical accountability, 4) corporate identity construction in public relations, 5) brand identity construction in marketing, 6) direct economic utilization, and 7) satisfaction of entertainment demands. Because business organizations possess no supraindividual brain with which to remember, they have to use practices and tools to do so. Various cases here exemplified the complex array of cultural forms of organizational remembrance that were commonly employed to ‘work’ the past. A core argument in this book is that these cultural forms should not be viewed as detached from their intended purpose(s). They offered the mnemonic means by which a company could pursue its business-oriented goals. Hence, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of organizational remembrance were tightly intertwined. While numerous ‘tradition workers’ commonly proclaimed, “We are the only ones here who really care about history” (Ethno. 83, l. 471), the corporate history department was not the only corporate agent that was ‘working’ the past, however. The corporate past was found to be a popular topic among a number of different groups. The fact that these groups did not just consume the forms and content offered by Audi Tradition, but came up with their own ways of, and purposes for, recollecting, will be addressed next.

6 Multiple Stakeholders of the Corporate Past Ethnographic fieldwork revealed that there were multiple actor groups who claimed a stake in AUDI AG’s past. Identified here as stakeholders of the corporate past, they employed a range of cultural forms of remembrance, through which they recollected and represented aspects of the corporate past. While these stakeholders, aside, that is, from Audi Tradition, did not ‘work’ the past on a full-time basis, they still pursued specific goals by occasionally engaging in such practices. This chapter identifies these stakeholders and their interest in and perspectives on remembrance, as well as the ends to which they put it. The corporate past was not represented in a consistent manner. Different stakeholders employed different thematic lenses which in turn shaped what elements were recollected in which way. Invoking stakeholder theory (e. g., Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006), one would say the focus of theses lenses was shaped by group-specific logics and interests. In the words of the historian Thomas L. Haskell (1998), thematic lenses were thrown “like fishermen’s nets into the unfathomable depths of the past,” and “what we catch depends as much on the shape, weave, and texture of our conceptual nets as on what the sea contains” (p. 3). In direct consequence, not every act of retrospection conformed to the corporate history as framed by Audi Tradition. An important finding made during fieldwork was that, even inside the company in Ingolstadt, different stakeholders did not necessarily assume the same perspective on the corporate past. As I will show, the marketing and sales unit, for instance, remembered different content through different cultural forms than the HR unit and the legal services department. Variations in representation and instrumentalization were influenced by the business unit-specific working conditions, formal membership roles bound to job positions, and underlying departmental interests. While some of these interests overlapped with those of Audi Tradition, there were also circumstances when they diverged and conflicts emerged. The resulting negotiations were often marked by power plays, of which the outcome depended on the legitimacy of the claims, the power of individual voices, the extent of the decision-making power held by the parties involved, and the availability of resources. A number of cases illuminate how such company-internal competition regarding the past played out in practice. As previously indicated, the corporate past of AUDI AG was a topic that did not exclusively concern the company. In contrast to more isolated organizations, it sparked interest among a variety of groups who were situated on the fringes of the organization or entirely external to it. In order to account for their involvement, this study distinguishes between internal, semi-internal, and external

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stakeholders of the corporate past. Each stakeholder group employed a selection of cultural forms, which they used not only according to their own thematic lenses, but also to pursue their own interests in remembering the corporate past. If observed individually, these arrays of cultural forms, thematic lenses, and purposes of remembrance could be considered to constitute their own cultures of remembrance. To provide a better understanding of this multiplicity, this chapter provides a short discussion of each stakeholder group found to have had a share in shaping the various discourses about AUDI AG’s past. An important empirical insight is that, in practice, the boundaries between these cultures of remembrance were semi-permeable and partly overlapping. Respondents were sometimes members of multiple stakeholder groups simultaneously. Likewise, many cultural forms of remembrance were not exclusively employed by a single group; they were shared and adopted by other stakeholders. Moreover, stakeholders collaborated with each other within and beyond the boundaries of the organization. Various cases of negotiation and conflict were also observed. Stakeholders thus interacted in a wide-reaching network of remembrance that spanned the automobile industry, academia, the journalistic and private hobby spheres, and other domains of life. Within this network, dominant groups served as central hubs. In light of this complexity of entanglements, I argue that organizational cultures of remembrance must be seen as a highly constructed conceptual model. The concept is not capable of grasping ‘systems of meaning’ that denote the distinct sets of cultural forms, contents, and purposes of remembrance employed by groups in reality. However, it does allow for basic differentiation between, and holistic inquiry of, the reasons various stakeholder groups remember the corporate past and the manner in which they do this. The following discussion will commence with an account of the internal workings of the corporation, then will move on to the semi-internal and external spheres.

6.1 Internal Stakeholders Generally, two types of organization-internal stakeholders of the corporate past could be distinguished: On the one hand, there were business units and/or individual departments which occasionally proclaimed a business-related interest in remembering the corporate past. They included the communications division, marketing and sales, the production marketing department, legal services, and human resources. They all considered organizational remembrance a legitimate instrument for their work. On the other hand, there were sub-groups of the general workforce whose interest in the corporate past was mostly driven by an in-

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formal desire for community. Both types, and the respective impact they had on discourses about the corporate past, will be discussed here in more detail.

6.1.1 Communications The communications unit was the entity within AUDI AG responsible for public relations work. While communications was “primarily focused on the present and future” (Ethno. 32, l. 85), as a member proclaimed, there were two departments that occasionally used acts of retrospection in their work – ‘product communications’ and ‘corporate communications.’ The product communications department was mostly interested in product and technology-related elements of the past which allowed the establishment of parallels or a lineage between these elements and product features in the present. These pieces of the past were considered relevant when they had the potential to pique press and media interest in the release of new products. As with Audi Tradition, common cultural forms of organizational remembrance were press releases and planted articles that incorporated elements of the corporate past. The difference, however, was that these elements were exploited exclusively to push new products. For example, when the 2011 Audi A6 sedan was introduced, product communications pulled out the first Audi 100 – a model from the 1960s – that was recalled to have started the specific model line. A photo shoot of the two cars standing next to each other was arranged, and was subsequently published in a four-page article in Auto Zeitung (2010, December 8). The motor magazine compared and contrasted the vehicles and reported on the technological ‘tradition,’ spanning generations, that supposedly characterized the particular model line. More importantly, the article emphasized that the new A6 was competing in an entirely different segment – one that “the [1968] Audi 100 LS would not have dared to dream about” (p. 25). The new A6 was touted as the pinnacle of the model line, which “integrates lightweight construction, quality, dynamism, and comfort as never before” (p. 23). In addition to imparting a sense of manufacturing tradition, the classic car was used as a foil for the contemporary product, foregrounding the aspects of technological progress and evolution in the brand image. While Audi Tradition was expected to cooperate with product communications on, for instance, arranging for classic car appearances and compiling historical background information, it remained the product communication department’s prerogative to write press releases. From their perspective, the corporate past offered a repertoire from which new products could be imbued with a his-

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torical aura, which would simultaneously imply the company’s stability, continuity, and experience. In addition to producing emotionalizing stories about founding figures, product communications also organized product presentations where journalists could drive vintage cars for their pleasure alongside the new products being introduced (Ethno. 96, l. 99). ‘History’ and ‘tradition’ here played a supporting role and undergirded the contemporary product portfolio. Corporate communications, on the other hand, was not so focused on products. They informed the public about the workings of AUDI AG as a corporate entity. Their interest in the corporate past was mostly centered on how the company had changed across time (e. g., AUDI AG, 2011, March 8), and how it had affected the Ingolstadt region and its workforce. Additional interests included the improvement of production techniques, increases in production numbers, and the development of financial aspects of the company. For example, corporate communications reported that 2010 had been a “historical record year,” both in terms of profits and deliveries (AUDI AG, 2011, January 7, para. 1). The overall goal was to portray the company as a successful player across time. An interesting cultural form of remembrance was observed when a long-term employee celebrated his 50th anniversary at the company (Ethno. 100, l. 32). The employee was honored in two elaborate articles published in the Donaukurier (DK, 2011, January 28/29) and the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ, 2011, February 3). Corporate communications arranged an interview and a photo session with him at his workplace. He was asked to pose next to a classic DKW F102 from 1964 – the decade he had joined the company and reportedly “the first car he had worked on” (DK, 2011, January 28/29, para. 3). In the interviews, the employee was encouraged to recall his working life and how it had changed over the course of half a century. The impression was given that he had enjoyed a great time at the company, which was also the only employer he had ever known. Both articles displayed the corporation as a caring organization that still offered life-long jobs. Product and corporate communications were both interested in elements of the past that would make a compelling story for journalists. Elements seized by the departments were those that would make good publicity, and thus directed public attention toward Audi as a good product, brand, and employer. The departments differentiated themselves from Audi Tradition in that the initial perspectives assumed were quite different. The corporate history department began by ‘working’ the past and wondered later how they could utilize elements of it for contemporary purposes. The other departments operated in reverse – they concentrated solely on the promotion of contemporary causes, for which they occasionally functionalized select elements of the past, if these elements deemed beneficial.

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6.1.2 Marketing and sales As discussed in the previous chapter, the corporate history department did in fact ‘work’ the past for marketing-related purposes. Independent of this, however, the marketing and sales unit also instrumentalized the elements of yesteryear in order to help push new products on the market. Their goal was to promote Audi as a future-oriented brand which could also rely on a long and rich history. A high-ranking product marketing manager explained, “One shouldn’t overstate the past. […] New cars are the main focus here, which is why history merely serves as an aspect that can be used” (Ethno. 44, l. 173). However, he then relativized his statement by adding, “With a premium brand it is more than a simple factor, though – tradition gives a brand authenticity” (l. 173). In other words, ‘tradition’ was considered one of the many registers for marketing automobiles. Marketing and sales employed all three thematic lenses used by the corporate history department – i. e. brand, product/technology, and organization – but their focus was considerably more selective. As the manager quoted above explained, “We’re picking the parts of history that fit best [with our contemporary agenda] and those that are exciting” (Ethno. 44, l. 163). Those were mostly “the highlights and gems” (l. 167) – i. e. elements that were ascribed positive meaning, dealing often with the company’s successes, high quality standards, and leadership. Marketing slogans were constructed around Audi’s status as ‘the key innovator of specific technologies’ and ‘one of the oldest German luxury car brands,’ as well as August Horch’s status as a major pioneer in the early days of automobility. That which enabled the marketing unit to demarcate the brand from competitors was of special interest; the unit often claimed that Audi was the first manufacturer to release or implement a specific technology, by, for instance, putting the first four-wheel-drive system in a sports car in the 1980s , introducing front-wheel drive as standard in the 1920s, or using a turbocharged direct injection diesel engine in a 1990s luxury sedan. ‘Cherry-picked’ elements were not remembered in their full complexity, but only to the extent required. For example, while the Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ race cars from the 1930s were fashioned as milestones of progressive engineering, the fact that they had been partly financed by the Nazi party and extensively exploited for fascist propaganda remained invisible in marketing materials that referenced to the cars. Remembrance was highly selective; only those facets that seemed favorable from a contemporary perspective were reactivated. While this was also the case with Audi Tradition, marketing and sales were significantly more selective and reductive in their approach to history. The interpretation of certain elements was also bent to better suit contemporary brand identity claims. For example, August Horch was commonly fashioned

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as the founder of Audi’s lines of luxury vehicles. Marketing campaigns had been conducted that featured shiny 1930s Horch cars, top-of-the-line Audi vehicles from the contemporary product portfolio, and a portrait of old August Horch (Ethno. 86, l. 39). The interchangeable use of the historical person and the luxurious Horch models, however, created false impressions. A group of cautious historians once clarified in an internal meeting that August Horch “was not the founder of the luxury segment. […] No matter how enticing this may sound, it was not him, as all of us in this room know” (Ethno. 26, l. 163). August Horch had only contributed to the Horch company during the first ten years of its existence, after which time he was let go by the board of management due to a number of organization-internal discrepancies. In consequence, August Horch had already been out of the company for several years before the brand eventually became established in the luxury market segment. In other words, he had never worked on the 1920s and 1930s Horch cars that marketing commonly associated with his persona. In light of these historical circumstances, corporate historians warned that external critics could assail the company with the allegation, “You pride yourself in that past, but if one investigated it in detail, the conclusion is that [August Horch] didn’t even work on the cars we celebrate” (Ethno. l. 161). From a historical perspective, the connection was too much of a stretch; from a marketing perspective it was viable. In any case, hardly anyone in the public sphere ever complained about these types of transfiguration, and this seemed to only further justify the practice of bending history. This is why marketing and sales also tended to gloss over the numerous ruptures contained in the corporate past. They constructed a linear narrative across time, which attempted to legitimize contemporary claims of standing in a long line of unbroken tradition. The Nazi past of Auto Union AG, the humble working class beginnings of DKW, and the whole chapter of the NSU past were largely disregarded. In the words of a marketing manager, entire epochs and two ‘tradition brands’ were considered “out of place” (Ethno. 44, l. 163). These elements were passed over, because they were not thought to sell cars. Cultural forms of organizational remembrance commonly employed in marketing included print and TV advertisements, websites, customer brochures, product catalogs, sales events, and trade fairs, where elements of the corporate past – most notably vintage products – were featured alongside contemporary products. The goal was to imply the continuity of premium automobile manufacturing across time. For example, in 2007, marketing constructed a direct link between the newly released Audi R8 sports car and an Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ from the 1930s. With the help of a Hollywood producer, the department released a TV commercial (Youtube, 2007, March 29), staging the R8 as a descendent of

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the famous Grand Prix race car. In the advertisement, the R8 is shown doing prerace test laps in a historical setting. After starting right next to a ‘Silver Arrow,’ maintained by a group of mechanics dressed in 1930s gear, the R8 leaves the pit and does a test lap on the raceway. The setting, most notably the audience, mechanics, and parked vehicles alongside the raceway, gradually modernizes as the car drives on, and the visuals are accompanied by a voice-over, which lists important technologies introduced by the company over the last 70 years. Commencing with the mid-engine layout in 1934, the narrator lists inventions such as the ‘mid-engine,’ ‘light aluminum construction,’ ‘quattro,’ and ‘RFSI’ as revolutionary keystones that “marked the beginning of a new racing era” (min. 00:33). The voice-over concludes with the punch-line, “We have spent 70 years preparing for this start” (min. 00:45), while the R8 is featured at the starting line. The new R8 is staged as the pinnacle of 70 years of Audi engineering – a technically advanced ‘Silver Arrow’ – which draws a historically coherent line between the 1930s and 2000s. Recent endeavors also followed the ‘storytelling track.’ During the time of fieldwork, an audio book targeted at new employees and issued by marketing was in the making (Ethno. 52, l. 120). As will be explained later, the audio book attempted to define Audi’s brand values by recollecting episodic stories of founding figures and important leaders, who were recalled to have contributed to the company at different points in time.

6.1.3 Production The production unit had its own marketing department. As it was concerned with promoting the plant as a high-tech production site, the department expressed a heightened interest in those elements of the corporate past which demonstrated how the production process, the plant, workplace safety, and ergonomics in manufacturing had progressed over time. The department had come up with a range of cultural forms of organizational remembrance that were meant to communicate the various improvements to its workforce and the public. As in most departments, celebrating work-related anniversaries was a popular activity. The production unit, for example, had received an award for “20 years of accident free production” (Ethno. 84, l. 91), and the display of the award in the production halls communicated that one was operating in a ‘safe environment.’ Another anniversary marked the production of 10 million Audi 80 / A4 automobiles. It was captured with a commemorative photograph, featuring a group of workers and managers standing next to a red Audi A4 at the assembly line. Articles about the event were published in the local in-house mag-

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azine Audi mobil, on the intranet Audi mynet, and in a press release (AUDI AG, 2011, October 12). The most visible form of remembrance was a visitor path through the Audi A4 assembly line, which incorporated two retrospective components. The first was a large timeline mounted to a wall in the production hall. It showed a chronological line of photographs displaying products that had been produced at the site over the last 60 years (Ethno. 74, l. 83). According to the manager who had conceptualized the timeline, employees were meant to be given memory cues “of the products they or their family members had once worked on” (l. 89). Visitors, on the other hand, were supposed to be reminded “of those products they had once driven or knew from their childhood” (l. 89). It was mostly post-war DKW and Audi automobiles that were of interest to the department in this regard, and products that had been manufactured in Saxony were completely disregarded. Moreover, Auto Union GmbH’s brief yet significant motorcycle past after the war went unrepresented – mainly “because people think about cars when they hear Audi; and Audi is not going to produce motorcycles in the near future, anyway” (l. 83). The time line supported AUDI AG’s identity as a Bavarian automobile manufacturer, and thus the historical details falling within the frame of interest remained highly selective. The second retrospective component of the visitor path was a battery of ‘light boxes’ which were attached to a section of the assembly line (Ethno. 48, l. 153). These light boxes housed old black and white photographs from the 1960s and 1970s, and had been pulled from the historical archive. They featured different groups of workers assembling Audi automobiles at the plant. Dressed in regular street clothes and equipped with regular tools, workers were displayed climbing through unfinished vehicles in acrobatic postures. These photographs called up an image of the past in which automobile production constituted laborious and casual ‘dirty work.’ This particular effect was emphasized by the visual differences visitors would encounter between the contemporary plant and the photographs. Contemporary assembly line workers were nicely dressed in standardized uniforms; they used specialized tools, computers, and modern machinery. In this way, a none-too-subtle contrast between the backwardness of the past and progressiveness of the present day was highlighted. This effect was amplified by the tour guide, who commented on the historic photographs, “Here you can see how the workers needed to climb into the car; it used to be very wearisome back then; today it’s much easier and hassle-free” (Ethno. 48, l. 153). Changes in processes, tools, techniques, and even the color schemes of machinery were considered worthy of recounting, because one could contrast them with superior conditions in the present. According to the tour guide, modern assembly line workers were provided with tools and techni-

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ques to limit repetition and physical strain on the body, overall work ergonomics had improved significantly, the production halls were clean and painted in bright colors, and most of the laborious tasks had been taken over by fully automated robots. With the image of a backwards past so obviously pitted against the superior working conditions of the present, it was made clear that the ideologies of progress and improvement had prevailed. Another cultural form of organizational remembrance employed by production marketing was a multimedia presentation of the plant’s history. Held in front of a group of young apprentices as part of their educational curriculum, the title of the 15-minute PowerPoint presentation promised the recapturing of “Progress in automobile manufacturing across time” (Ethno. 85, l. 70). It recounted the development of the company infrastructure in Ingolstadt from the beginnings of the plant in the late 1940s to the present. A sequence of time-stamped aerial photographs documented the gradual spread of the premises across the northern part of the city. The narration, provided by the presenter, communicated hard facts about the increase in production output numbers, automatization rates, the workforce, the size of the plant, and the number of assembly lines. Thus the message to apprentices was that their plant and workplace had grown tremendously over the last six decades, reportedly becoming one of the most modern European production facilities in the automobile industry. Moreover, the development of the plant was said to be “closely intertwined with the history of the city of Ingolstadt” (Ethno. 74, l. 118). Also exposed to facts about the growth in the city’s population, apprentices learned about the plant’s role as the most important driver of economic success in the region. Taken as a whole, production marketing aimed to communicate a coherent narrative of ongoing progress on the manufacturing level. The crafting of an organizational identity as a successful production site of premium cars that was at home in Ingolstadt was the underlying purpose of their organizational remembrance.

6.1.4 Legal services Yet another stakeholder in the corporate past was legal services – the legal division of AUDI AG. They attended to anything that could have a legal impact on the company as a liable entity, or its brands, operations, finances, and assets. For instance, they were responsible for the legal defense of trademark rights once a violation was reported by the corporate history department. Elements of the past that were of relevance to legal services included ownership details and founding dates of predecessor companies and brands, legal details of historical

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mergers and acquisitions, old contractual agreements, and historical patent rights. Furthermore, facts about corporate entanglements with the Nazi system during the Third Reich, which could have legal implications in trials about compensation claims, were also important for the department. Legal services also focused on the more recent past. Of particular interest were product liability cases and problematic product claims about specific motor vehicles that had created problems for the company. One particular event served as an occasion for the performance of two cultural forms of organizational remembrance. Every year, the legal department hosted a ‘product liability seminar.’ At this event, a group of attorneys from AUDI AG, Volkswagen AG, and other affiliated companies “re-enacted how product liability cases had played out in court [for Audi] – especially the ones that had happened in the U.S.” (Ethno. 91, l. 140). The goal was to learn from past errors the company had committed. A special case, the so-called “Audi 5000 unintended acceleration incident” (Ethno. 91, l. 140), had led to the establishment of the tradition of educational re-enactment. Back in 1986, a handful of American customers had accused the company of producing a technologically flawed car, the Audi 5000, that supposedly accelerated automatically (cf. New York Times, 1986, December 24). The cause of various crashes, including the death of a child, was blamed on a malfunction in technology.³⁹ The story was picked up by the investigative TV show 60 Minutes, and they managed to reproduce the purported flaw in an attempt to incriminate Audi. While it was later proven that the TV show had faked the malfunction of the test car, the demonstration had already garnered a large amount of public attention, and a major lawsuit against Audi ensued. Meanwhile, corporate representatives argued publicly that it had been the customers’ fault because they had obviously mistaken the accelerator for the brake pedal. Since no technical flaws could be detected, the company claimed that these accidents must have been caused by “bad American driving practices” (Ethno. 12, l. 26). It was a claim that proved highly unpopular on a market that instead expected humble apologies, even when the consumer was at fault (cf. New York Times, 1987, Jan-

 The Audi 5000 case also had an impact on popular culture. According to the open source encyclopedia Wikipedia (2012), the phrase “I’m Audi 5000” made it into the hip hop-related slang language of American youths. For instance, the rapper Ice Cube (1991) finishes his song Alive on arrival with the line, “So at 10 P.M. I was Audi 5000” (min. 03:05; cf. Seeklyrics, 2012). It essentially expresses that a group of people is taking off quickly or leaving in a hurry. A YouTube (2012, February 14) clip of the popular TV animation series Aqua Teen Hunger Force features a character proclaiming “I’m Audi 5000” (min. 00:01) upon leaving the scene in an abrupt fashion. The popular website Urban Dictionary (2012) provides a number of similar interpretations of the phrase.

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uary 18). Audi’s issue management, recalled to have been downright disastrous, led to a significant drop in U.S. sales, and the brand image suffered tremendous damage. The aim of scrutinizing this particular case was to learn from the company’s poor issue management in this particular case. By recollecting and deconstructing the critical components that had produced such negative publicity, it was possible to identify the best practices with which to handle such matters from a legal standpoint. Systematic remembrance of these kinds of pitfalls, in other words, was the best way to ensure that similar disasters could be prevented in the future. Similarly, other cases from the past were recollected to demonstrate when the corporation should exercise caution. For example, a presentation entitled “Product liability and advertisement” (AUDI AG, Zentraler Rechtsservice, 2011, January 11, p. 1) used the case of the first generation Audi TT’s series of fatal accidents to demonstrate how misleading product advertisement could harm the company in retrospect. As a whole, these cultural forms of remembrance served as organizational learning devices for legal services. AUDI AG had once learned the hard way, and the recollection of these negative cases was meant to ensure that the same mistakes would not be made again when faced with similar circumstances in the future.

6.1.5 Human resources The unit for personnel and social matters, as HR was called, primarily focused on the people-centered elements of the corporate past. Since their activities predominantly catered to the workforce, they were interested in remembering those elements that appealed to ‘Audianer’ in their role as employees. Thus, a viable content often touched upon what the company had done for employees like them. This included acts of the successful involvement of the works council in corporate decision-making, HR measures that had allowed for jobs to be retained during times of crisis, and anecdotes that provided a glimpse into past working lives – e. g. “that workers in the welding shop used to receive an extra glass of milk because work was so exhausting” (Ethno. 74, l. 255). Through remembrance, the workforce was meant to feel that they, too, took part in the tradition of working for a socially responsible employer that had always cared deeply about its employees. On the other hand, HR remembered what individual employees, workers, and managers had done for the company. HR kept track of how long every member of AUDI AG had been with the company. Individual tenure was the basis for a well-received cultural form of remembrance that was probably one of the most

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established in the company: Every employee’s 25th, 35th, 40th, and 50th anniversary at the company was commemorated. In addition to listing each person’s name and their anniversary in the local in-house magazine Audi mobil, they were personally thanked at a so-called “jubilee event” (Ethno. 19, l. 127) – a company-internal ritual that was organized multiple times a year. According to an HR manager, the jubilee event was considered “a communicative means for the company to express appreciation” (Int. 10, l. 46). The ceremony honored the length of organizational membership as a special quality, signaling that the member who received the honors was genuinely committed to the company as a community for life. Long-term members were invited to a dinner party at the plant, where they were collectively treated to an upscale menu in a festive atmosphere. Everyone received a handful of anniversary gifts, such as engraved watches, commemorative pins, corporate history books, and other memorabilia. The audience was given laudatory speeches by various high-ranking representatives of the company. The whole event was marked by retrospection, as it was accompanied by slide shows of old work-related photos, the exchange of anecdotes about memorable work experiences, and amicable conversations between long-term colleagues over multiple glasses of beer. Whenever important leader figures had their anniversaries (and birthdays), their achievements were remembered separately through commemorative articles in in-house publications, the intranet, and even journalistic media. The same applied to exceptionally long-tenured members who went into retirement. Acts of organizational remembrance performed by HR shone a spotlight on the human being across time in his or her role as a member of the corporation. Material elements, such as products and technologies, were of interest when they could be used as a reference to, or milestone marking, a specific period experienced by the member to be honored – e. g. the Audi quattro sports car served as the epitome of the early 1980s. Elements of the distant past, such as the automobiles made by Horch and Wanderer, were of limited interest, because the contemporary workforce had never experienced them directly. This did not mean, however, that HR did not occasionally functionalize elements of the distant past. For example, there was an event in which a former Horch employee, who had gone on to work at Auto Union in Ingolstadt, was invited to report about his work experiences with the old luxury manufacturer. Dubbed “the last Horch employee” (Int. 21, l. 176), his talk established a tangible link between the former workforce of the predecessor companies and today’s AUDI AG. In general, however, elements of the corporate past were utilized by HR when they had the potential to relate to the contemporary experiences of workers at the plant. In consequence, most of the elements drudged up were local, Ingolstadt-based details and anecdotes from the last ten to sixty years. This also meant that the time-ho-

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rizon from which material was drawn constantly shifted according to the entry date of the longest tenured members. The five units and/or departments discussed in this chapter were not the only internal stakeholders of the corporate past that occasionally performed acts of organizational remembrance. Among others, the technological development unit, for instance, organized retrospective exhibitions displaying the development of Audi’s interior design language across time (Ethno. 7, l. 92). The plant fire department created an exhibition and a website that recounted the most spectacular fires and accidents on the Audi premises (Ethno. 34, l. 124). And every department seemed to have their own anniversary celebrations – for instance, “10 years of vehicle delivery Ingolstadt” (Ethno. 65, l. 223). Audi Tradition was definitely not the only actor ‘working’ the past in official ways.

6.1.6 The general workforce Remembrance inside the company was not always organized in formal ways. Regardless of the sector, business unit, or department, informal acts of collective remembrance could be observed in everyday work life among workers, employees, and managers alike. While the role of organizational remembrance for the workforce will be discussed in chapter 8, 9, and 10, it is important to understand that the general workforce was a stakeholder in the corporate past in its own right. Members learned and exchanged ideas about distinct elements of the corporate past, what had and had not ‘really’ happened, and this was done by listening to, and talking with, their colleagues. The elements recollected were often of an autobiographical nature; they overlapped with common working experiences; but they could also refer to well-known elements of corporate history. The recollection of specific elements simply had to make sense in a social situation. Overall, it is fair to claim that the general workforce was more interested in the recent past, the last 40 years, rather than the happenings prior to that, because it was more relatable to the individual employee’s own work biography. Recollection mostly took place through the practice of storytelling and exchanging anecdotes (cf. Brown, 1985; Brown, Denning, Groh, & Prusak, 2005; Gabriel, 2000). Situations in which this was done mostly came about by chance on the social side lines of daily business – for instance, during coffee breaks (Ethno. 6, l. 19), lunch at the canteen (Ethno. 29, l. 88), commutes during business trips (Ethno. 39, l. 70), departmental get-togethers (Ethno. 59, l. 195), Christmas parties (Ethno. 83, l. 578), and anniversaries (Ethno. 107, l. 99). In these social situations, members of the workforce did not just begin narrating the corporate past out of the blue, however. In line with Linde’s (2009) findings,

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storytelling required a “proper occasion” (p. 222). In contrast to the cultural forms of organizational remembrance discussed before, these occasions were not staged, but instead they emerged by chance, often precipitated by a thought about contemporary events, such as an issue at work or anything that would trigger a related memory. Verbally expressed in the form of an anecdote that established a link between the past and the present, this was a side of collective remembrance that was mundane, ordinary, unsystematic, and almost impossible to control. As I will show in later chapters, the purposes of informal recollection were as manifold as the reasons why people might converse with each other in the first place. For example, older members commonly recalled autobiographical work experiences to their younger colleagues in order to explain how present conditions at the department had evolved. On other occasions, they contrasted their past work experiences with present conditions in order to express criticism of a change that had been implemented. Collective remembrance was also a central means of informal socialization in the workplace. Senior members commonly recalled anecdotes from their work lives in order to explain to rookies how things were ‘really run’ at the company. Furthermore, it served self-fashioning purposes; long-term members would use their knowledge about the corporate past to demonstrate their superior status as ‘wise’ and ‘experienced’ members who ‘had it all figured out.’ In this way, the past was their “cultural capital” (Bourdieu, 1986, p. 46), through which they could express connectedness to, familiarity with, and establishment in, the company. In other situations, anecdotal recollections were just meant to be funny, interesting, or shocking, thereby creating an “affective space” (Overell, 2010, p. 86) between the participants – an in situ community bound by shared emotions. When looking at the company as a whole, the content, forms, and purposes of organizational remembrance were manifold, both on the informal and the formal level. While an interior designer, for instance, was interested in the craftsmanship that had gone into the wood panels of a vintage Audi car, this particular element seemed entirely irrelevant to a human resources manager who might be looking for old staff photographs. The details of Auto Union AG’s involvement with the Nazi regime, similarly, were highly relevant to corporate historians, but the majority of the workforce was not overly concerned about the period. Likewise, the collective work experiences of an assembly line team made for entertaining anecdotes at a local department mixer, while they meant nothing to the administrators in the finances unit. The existence of various internal stakeholder groups required the negotiation of, and catering to, different interests in the corporate past. Remembrance of Audi’s past was not restricted to internal

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stakeholders, however. It transcended the boundaries of the company. Various stakeholder groups could be observed acting on the fringes of the organization.

6.2 Semi-internal Stakeholders The majority of stakeholders falling into this category had some kind of business-related relationship with AUDI AG. It gave them limited insight into the inner workings of corporate life, which externals normally did not get. At the same time, they were excluded from certain organization-internal communication channels because they lacked formal membership status. Semi-internal stakeholder groups discussed here include retired members of the workforce, organized interest groups of former colleagues, Audi dealers, the corporate parent Volkswagen AG, and PR/marketing agencies. Depending on their involvement with the company, they participated, with varying degrees of power, in the remembrance and representation of the corporate past.

6.2.1 Retired members of the workforce AUDI AG was a company many people still felt connected to long after they had retired – especially those that had spent the majority of their professional life with the same employer. A long-retired manager proclaimed, “It was a wonderful time at Audi. [I] enjoy thinking about it. […] I’m always proud when I look at my three binders at home that contain [pictures and] stuff about my work life” (Int. 22, l. 89). The company offered various services to their so-called “plant pensioners,” which maintained a link between them and the company (Ethno. 105, l. 242). For example, they regularly received a fresh copy of the Audi mobil in-house magazine. Even if some informants considered the magazine “an internal propaganda instrument […] that doesn’t even pretend to be objective” (Ethno. 74, l. 391), it kept them updated on what was going on inside the company. Some business units, such as production, also hosted annual “reunion parties” for retired managers, where they could meet their old peers and connect with their successors (Ethno. 84, l. 71). These reunions provided occasions for retrospection. Retired production managers, for instance, would recollect autobiographical experiences to demonstrate to their successors that they already dealt with similar management problems decades ago. A rather unique cultural form of remembrance was the practice of writing work-related memoirs. A specific book, which was encountered several times during fieldwork, was Fritz Naumann’s (1999) “Blick aus der Grube: Erinnerungen

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eines Automobilingenieurs” [View from the pit: Memories of an automobile engineer], in which a retired engineer wrote from the autobiographical perspective of a technology-savvy car aficionado who had served in high-ranking management positions at AUDI AG. The book contained detailed background information about the development process behind certain automobiles, such as the Audi 50 and the Audi 100. Beyond entertaining anecdotes, his memoirs provided a glimpse of the labor pains of Audi NSU Auto Union AG in the 1970s, the central role of Mercedes-Benz engineers in restructuring the company in the 1960s, quarrels between high-ranking managers, technological details, and plenty of personal information that could not be found in any official corporate history book. His memoirs offered a non-glorifying account of the company’s operations from the 1970s to the 1990s, with all its quirks, successes, and problems. As the author proclaimed in an interview, he had decided to “write down my stuff to get it off my chest” before it was too late (Int. 21, l. 296). For him it was a way of preserving the memory of “how it really was” in order to offer an account that could serve as an alternative to “the garbage” that some journalists and the communications division had written (l. 326). His memoirs were thus composed of counter-memories, and sought in some ways to subvert representations of the corporate past as constructed by PR.

6.2.2 Organized mnemonic communities of former colleagues Retired members of the organization did not necessarily wait for the company to actively organize mixers at the plant, but also organized themselves into groups in order to fulfill the demand for a post-work-related community. A popular form of organizational remembrance was the pensioner regulars’ table.⁴⁰ Several regulars’ tables dedicated to AUDI AG existed in Ingolstadt, where former colleagues of the same business unit or department met up to stay in contact and chat about the ‘good old days.’ They constituted their own mnemonic communities. For instance, a committed group of plant pensioners was observed while engaged in a monthly “regulars’ table for development engineers” (Ethno. 83, l. 413). Open only to former managers and higher administrative staff of the technological development unit, approximately twenty retired members met at a restaurant in the Ingolstadt region. Over coffee and cake they told anecdotes about

 According to the German concept of a regulars’ table, a consistent group of people comes together on a regular basis to drink at a pub, play card games, or just share anecdotes. They often convene at the same pub table, which gives the event the name.

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interesting and funny incidents they had experienced ‘back in the days,’ traded insights into formerly secret matters, exchanged background information about the development process of specific technologies, assessed the current course of the company in contrast to how it had operated under their command, talked about mutual acquaintances, which of them had passed away, and so on. Once in a while, the participants went on a field trip to the plant or visited other companies in the region, where they informed themselves about the newest technologies on the market. According to a corporate historian who had accompanied them on a trip, “it gives them at least the feeling that they’re not entirely detached from what’s going on in the business” (Ethno. 53, l. 136). The regulars’ table helped to establish an exclusive mnemonic community of retired people in formerly powerful positions. They were reminded of their former roles, responsibilities, and achievements in their new, perhaps more contemplative, roles as pensioners. Their collective identity as ‘Audianer’ for life was based on the recollection of common work experiences at the same company and the fact that they had all worked in a similar position for the same business unit. The level of exclusiveness and organization among these semi-internal stakeholder groups varied. Some of them were loosely structured, meeting at random intervals; others were tightly knit, pursuing a well-defined agenda. A particularly interesting case was the “Interessengemeinschaft Audi Sport” – a ‘community of interest’ informally connected to the Audi motorsports factory team (Ethno. 57, l. 23). This mnemonic community was comprised of 75 former rally race car drivers, co-drivers, mechanics, and managers, who used to belong to the 1980s Audi Sport team. Some of them were still employed at Audi, which made the group a mix of retired, inactive, and active employees. What connected them were shared autobiographical memories of having worked in Group B rally racing during the early-to-mid 1980s – the most popular, and (perhaps not coincidentally) dangerous rally racing series, which had eventually been banned in 1986. In light of these particular circumstances, the participants fashioned themselves as the ‘true heroes of motorsports’ (Ethno. 63, l. 51). On the occasion of the ‘30 years of quattro’ anniversary in 2010, this mnemonic community organized a reunion event at a car garage close to Ingolstadt. In celebration of the four-wheel-drive car that had defined their careers, they collectively performed various mnemonic practices. For example, the rally team watched old video footage of Group B rally racing, staged commemorative group photo shoots, and exchanged hundreds of anecdotes recollecting the olden days. Apart from commemorating the loss of a fellow mechanic in a eulogy, a jolly atmosphere among the ex-colleagues prevailed, and they happily reminisced about times gone by. Even more than shared memories, it was these practices that held the mnemonic community together.

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Several artifacts and types of mnemonic media were utilized to support retrospection. For instance, the organizers had created an alumni network website that gathered information and displayed private team photographs from old racing events. They had also compiled a newsletter and a scrapbook with pictures and memorabilia from their shared past (Ethno. 57, l. 67). One of the participating mechanics, who happened to be a member of Audi Tradition, brought along two original rally cars from the historical motor vehicle collection and a selection of memorabilia, such as old racing suits, helmets, and posters from the rally racing period. While these artifacts were primarily used for decorative means to set the scene in the car garage, they also served as mnemonic cues and triggers. As remnants of a time gone by, they represented the corporate past in tangible ways, sparked memories among the participants, and led to oral recollection in the group. This example demonstrates that remembrance was highly selective in its social, material, and mental cultural dimensions. Mnemonic practices, media, artifacts, and memories exclusively concerned an organizational sub-entity of AUDI AG (the Audi Sport team), a limited period in time (the 1980s), and distinct elements of the corporate past (all things rally racing-related). This is why the company’s 1990s involvement in the German Touring Car championship or the participation in LeMans in the 2000s was of little relevance for the identity construction of said group. However, retired employees of AUDI AG were not the only semi-internal stakeholder group with an interest in the corporate past. There were others on the fringes of the corporation that had a stake, as well.

6.2.3 Audi dealers The hundreds of Audi dealerships in Germany were the first point of contact between customers and the brand. While most of them did not belong to AUDI AG, they played a major role in representing the pillars of brand identity as defined by the marketing and sales department. All dealers received training “to get them on the same page” (Ethno. 74, l. 144), as a member of the department for technology and product training stated. That training also included a presentation on the historical development of the Audi brand and how the sales structure had changed over the years. Additionally, all dealer websites included a standardized corporate history section that recounted a marketing-optimized version of the brand’s past. Some of them also featured an individualized section recalling the past of the particular dealership. Apart from using historical photographs of old Horch and Audi cars as occasional design elements in showrooms,

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however, they were not expected to activate elements of the corporate past in more elaborate ways. Nevertheless, a couple of dealers showed a greater, personally-motivated, interest in the corporate past. For example, one dealer decided to show historical video footage of old Audi cars to his customers that he had obtained from Audi Tradition (Ethno. 33, l. 174). Another dealer wanted to organize an exhibition of classic quattro rally cars on his premises “in order to attract people” (Ethno. 34, l. 78), for which he needed to rent some vehicles from Audi Tradition. A particularly enthusiastic dealer, who was also the president of a Swiss Audi quattro Sport fan club, owned a small collection of Audi motorsports vehicles from the 1980s, which he put on display in his showroom (Int. 6, l. 46). And lastly, there was the case of the Feser-Graf & Co. Automobilholding GmbH – the biggest network of Audi dealerships in Europe. Its founder was a well-known classic car aficionado with family ties to DKW and Auto Union (Ethno. 52, l. 122). He owned about fifty classic motor vehicles from pre-war and post-war times, which he put on display in own private museum and also used sometimes to compete in classic car rallies. More importantly, he showcased these vehicles in many of his dealerships, where they were meant to attract customers (Ethno. 46, l. 201). These examples demonstrate that Audi dealers were focused on the product dimension if vestiges of the past were seen to support contemporary sales efforts. Apart from a few exceptions, their interest was not so much in the organizational past of AUDI AG but in concrete motor vehicles that had a representative appeal. Since they were business organizations in their own right, they tended rather to embrace their own organizational past. Feser-Graf & Co., for instance, celebrated its 80th year in operation with a big anniversary event (Highlights Magazin, 2009).

6.2.4 Volkswagen Group The corporate parent Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg was a company that did not just stick to ‘working’ the past of its VW brand. As an umbrella organization, the corporation attempted to ‘cultivate tradition’ on a superordinate group level, which made it a stakeholder in each and every subsidiary’s past. Two examples shall illustrate this role: Around the same time as the Audi Forum in Ingolstadt, Volkswagen had erected its so-called Autostadt in Wolfsburg. Embracing all brands belonging to the Volkswagen Group, the gigantic entertainment area offered a multibrand experience to customers and visitors alike. Among other sites, it was home to the Zeithaus – the official automobile museum of the corporation. Pro-

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moted as the most visited museum of automobile history in the world, its exhibits were not restricted to the brands exclusively affiliated with Volkswagen. It included cars from more than fifty different brands (Autostadt GmbH, 2013, para. 2). The majority of its one hundred classic motor vehicles, however, were Volkswagen-related. After all, it was an instrument for building brand identity, and this came straight from the marketing toolbox. The Zeithaus also had various Audi-related products on display – most prominently the Audi 50, the Audi 100 5E, the Audi Front, the NSU Ro80, the Horch 670, and the Audi A2. These vehicles were fashioned as “milestones,” “design icons,” and “engine icons” of automobile history (para. 3 – 6). Audi and its ‘tradition brands’ were ascribed the role of Volkswagen’s ‘successful offspring,’ contributing to the technological and aesthetic evolution of the automobile. VW’s main interest in Audi’s past was the fact that it could be featured as a component of Volkswagen Group’s own history. Autostadt also had a booth at Techno Classica, Germany’s largest trade fair for classic motor vehicles, where they featured classic cars from every brand of the VW Group. Even though Audi Tradition officially represented the Audi brand with its own booth at the fair, Autostadt put some Audi-related vehicles on display – among them a 1979 Audi 80, as well as an Audi-powered Pininfarina concept car from 1988 (Ethno. 95, l. 143). VW neither followed Audi Tradition’s trade fair theme in their choice of cars to exhibit, which happened to be motorsports that year, nor made an advance agreement with Audi about which cars would be picked in order to ensure coherence. Both booths were located right next to each other. To the public audience, official organizational remembrance manifested itself in competing representations offered by the corporate parent and its subsidiary. These examples demonstrate that Volkswagen attempted to usurp select elements of AUDI AG’s product and technology-related past through cultural forms of organizational remembrance. Among critics, the opinion emerged that this particular stakeholder was adorning itself with ‘borrowed plumes.’ Nevertheless, it helped the corporation to fashion itself as a multifaceted group of many brands that could claim a contribution to, and ownership of, large parts of automobile history. On the way to becoming the world’s biggest automobile manufacturer, this claim was a crucial one. Hence, Volkswagen – most notably its own carrier of official organizational remembrance, Autostadt – was a semi-internal stakeholder of AUDI AG’s past.

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6.2.5 PR and marketing agencies Lastly, there were PR and advertisement agencies with whom AUDI AG collaborated on a regular basis. These stakeholders only proclaimed an interest in the corporate past if the realization of commissioned projects required it. Select elements of the past were deemed relevant if they could be exploited as content for advertisement campaigns, brochures, image books, video trailers, and commercial publications (Ethno. 28, l. 208). This included mostly the product and technology side of Audi, but the organizational past was also of interest if it offered relevant background information. Agencies commonly received briefings by, and raw materials from, AUDI AG, including historical images and video footage, historical texts, and guidelines for how specific brand identity claims could be rooted in the past. But they also conducted their own background research to find ‘workable’ elements. While some of their projects were professionally assisted by corporate historians from Audi Tradition (Ethno. 50, l. 133), agency research was occasionally conducted on the open encyclopedia website Wikipedia, as a number of informants criticized (Ethno. 11, l. 96). Historical accuracy was obviously not the biggest concern (l. 134), and to those agencies encountered in the field, corporate history was considered a malleable good. Elements of the past constituted a means through which contemporary goals might be achieved. As a piece of contract work, the final product merely needed to make sense in the present. All of the stakeholders mentioned thus far were semi-internal, because they had some kind of business relationship with AUDI AG that enabled them, at least to some extent, to cross organizational boundaries. The group of stakeholders to be discussed next had different relations to the company. These stakeholders existed in a sphere entirely external to the company, from where they developed their own interests in Audi’s past for a number of different reasons.

6.3 External Stakeholders Organizational remembrance was not always organizational. A number of groups further detached from the corporation were observed to carry out acts of retrospection, driven by their own interests. The company, its products, and its technologies remained the subject of recollection, yet they were positioned outside of the organizational sphere. External stakeholder groups discussed here include customers, public media and journalists, aficionados organized in automobile clubs, hobby historians, and academic scholars.

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6.3.1 Customers Not every customer with a new Audi vehicle was a stakeholder in the corporate past per se. The criterion for investigating them further in this study was the consumption of representations of the corporate past with a degree of intention. This group thus includes people who visited the corporate museum in Ingolstadt, read corporate history books and newspaper articles dealing with the past, and/or who watched old Audi commercials on YouTube. It also includes those customers who ascribed additional value to out-of-production vehicles, which elevated the status of an old automobile from a ‘used car’ to that of a ‘classic car.’ Such a shift in labeling involved the assigning of cultural significance to a product that would otherwise remain merely an outdated means of transportation. One might ask at this point why certain customers had become stakeholders in the corporate past while others had not. The average customer, i. e. those who were not devoted brand aficionados, typically sported limited knowledge of the corporate past. If they did not pursue the ‘tradition offers’ because they did not care, their knowledge was commonly restricted to general tidbits they had gathered through the odd encounter with journalistic media, advertisements, and the random historical information floating around in public. Autobiographical experiences with Audi were mostly limited to a handful of products, namely the one(s) they had purchased before or the cars they had seen on the open road. In addition to exposure to ‘tradition offers,’ the extent of knowledge acquisition had to do with the level of brand identification and plain enthusiasm for old motor vehicles. Customers often looked for arguments that would encourage and affirm their purchasing decision. Especially faced with the high price of premium vehicles, customers were generally susceptible to explanations of why the Audi brand was supposedly superior to alternatives. Marketing-driven representations of the corporate past provided such arguments. Because the underlying customer need surpassed the plain desire for basic mobility, the purchasing of an Audi vehicle became all about obtaining a product from an established brand which could rely on more than a century of experience and quality in craftsmanship. In this respect, customers wanted to know if the Audi brand actually had a history, where the ‘Four Rings’ came from, and how far back in time one could trace the brand. In an environment where brands are increasingly viewed as lifestyle accessories and expressive extensions of the self, learning about corporate history gave customers a sense of diving into the world of meaning surrounding the brand. They were thus more interested in a narrative that explained why the product they had just purchased supposedly represented the pinnacle of automotive engineering.

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With customer focus mostly directed toward the brand and the product dimension, the actual business organization behind these elements remained largely invisible. Most people were not shopping for a relationship to a company or a history lesson on organizational transformation, but a product they could drive, identify with, and show off. Customers who did not adhere to this characterization focused on concrete elements of the corporate past to which they could personally relate. This mainly included old Audi cars they recognized from autobiographical memories, like a vehicle similar to the one their father had driven during their childhood days, or simply one they had owned at some point in time. These material artifacts were of interest because they served as mnemonic triggers that ‘took them back’ to a time gone by. It was not necessarily the mass-produced vintage car as such that was of interest, but what it was interpreted to stand for from an autobiographical perspective. These kinds of memories personalized the customer relationship to the brand and the products. These aspects also contributed to brand loyalty. Customers who had owned multiple Audi cars over the course of their life often stuck with the brand (as long as they did not encounter any severe issues). Especially if they strongly identified with automobiles as an extension of their personality, they tended to link product history to their own biography. They associated specific products with decisive life events – for instance, the small hatchback of their first driving lessons, the spacious station wagon they obtained when their first child was born, or the sports car in which they survived a severe crash. Individual customers were also observed to make inquiries with the corporate history department about distinct elements of the past, and the fact that they had expectations of the company made them genuine stakeholders. For example, drivers of classic Audi cars frequently filed requests for product details, technical expertise, product-related validations, and certificates. Of interest was mainly fact-based information, such as the original trim configurations of their classic automobiles, or sometimes they requested digital copies of original product photographs. Anything that went beyond the product-related past was merely ‘nice to know.’ The desire to know more depended on the level of product identification, how brand-loyal they considered themselves, how much energy they wanted to invest in conducting historical research, and what opportunities they were presented with which to do so.

6.3.2 Public media and journalists As indicated in previous chapters, AUDI AG cooperated closely with journalists, and the close ties between domestic car makers and media channels ensured

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that German premium brands were well-represented in the public sphere. To journalists, car companies were first and foremost a source of news. The automobile industry was “the most important sector of the German economy” (Verband der Automobilindustrie e.V, 2011, p. 18). In addition to offering hundreds of thousands of jobs, it was also attached to a highly influential lobby group in the country (cf. FAZ, 2013, June 29; Die Zeit, 2013, October 27), and therefore journalists felt compelled to report on how these companies were operating and what they were producing. A common practice in this kind of reporting was historical contextualization. When journalists wrote articles about a new product offering, it was commonly compared to its predecessors (i. e. previous generations of the same model line), based on which the degree of product evolution was assessed. A similar technique was utilized in journalistic reports about the business development of the company. Information on production output, sales numbers, total revenue, and the net income of previous years was compared to contemporary figures in order to assess of the current state of business. The media did not fulfill the function of a news distributer for the sake of providing an educational information service to the public, though. Most publications encountered during research were businesses that also had to compete for customers. A popular way of increasing readership was to provide content with entertainment value. In journalistic terms, ‘a good story’ could sell a whole paper, and, in general, the past of Audi was acknowledged to provide material for ‘good stories.’ Especially when it came to historical leader figures, product developments, and competitive achievements in motorsports, the brand with the ‘Four Rings’ offered a multifaceted repertoire that one might exploit. The more exclusive, untapped, and extraordinary these elements seemed, the more attractive they were from a journalistic perspective. Not all media were the same, of course. One could distinguish between regional newspapers, supra-regional newspapers/magazines, and the specialized motor press. Their respective interests in the corporate past of AUDI AG differed according to their content orientation and customer target group. Of all regional media, the most important stakeholder of the corporate past was the Donaukurier. The newspaper, covering the Ingolstadt region, catered to a local audience that was well acquainted with AUDI AG. Its readership, in fact, included a large percentage of people who were employed at the car manufacturer. Publishing contents that dealt with the ‘Four Rings’ guaranteed the Donaukurier a loyal customer base among the workforce. The publication regularly covered elements of the product and the business past of Audi, but also provided retrospective accounts of everyday work life. These accounts were popular among the Audi workforce and the local residents of the Ingolstadt region, be-

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cause they allowed readers to relate to the company and its everyday operations (Ethno. 12, l. 74). They were a ‘sure read,’ and thus journalists were interested in insider accounts that reported on the peculiarities of organizational life (Ethno. 62, l. 343). Unsurprisingly, articles about other car manufacturers were significantly underrepresented. The Donaukurier, however, was also an influential opinion-maker that covered stories about AUDI AG which sometimes approached the company more critically. According to informants, the publication had gotten into fights with the company more than once (Ethno. 84, l. 71). Over the years, they had released so many articles about the company that the publication decided to create a DVD set called “Donaukurier newspaper archive: Audi history since 1945” (DK, 2009). Members of Audi could purchase the set at a discounted price. It was a cultural form of remembrance that offered an external perspective on the corporate past, and was different from the representations created by the company. Articles found in the archive provided insight into, for example, the heated public debates concerning the way in which AUDI AG had reportedly disregarded its history before building a corporate museum (e. g., DK, 1985, August 20a). Supra-regional magazines and newspapers, such as DER SPIEGEL, Die Zeit, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, on the other hand, rarely covered this kind of local content. Journalists were more interested in catchy stories than regional specificities. What did matter to these publications, though, were articles about classic cars, which appealed to the nostalgic tendencies of various audience groups, and therefore the topic of vintage motor vehicles could commonly be found in the motor vehicle section (e. g., Die Zeit, 2012, November 23). Because there were many German car companies one could write about, however, reporting about elements of AUDI AG’s past in particular remained a rare occasion. Moreover, their broader journalistic focus and heterogeneous readership prevented an overemphasis on particular brands and companies. Well publicized anniversaries, such as ’25 years of quattro’ or ‘100 years of Audi,’ posed an exception (e. g., Die Zeit, 2009, July 17; FAZ, 2009, January 31). In these cases, larger publications assumed the role of a highly influential stakeholder group in the corporate past, because they possessed such powerful voices in public discourses. Car-oriented magazines such as Auto Bild, Auto Motor und Sport, and Autozeitung had the most product-centric focus of all the media outlets examined in this study. While these car magazines primarily tested and reported on new motor vehicles, they also catered to the nostalgic tendencies of their readership by offering glorifying vignettes about old products. More importantly, these motor magazines had spin-offs entitled Motor Klassik and Auto Bild Klassik, which were niche publications that exclusively catered to vintage car enthusiasts

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and those in the classic motor vehicle scene. These publications reported on nearly every brand, manufacturer, and car segment. Moreover, they provided with elaborate background stories, price listings, event calendars, technical repair advice, and other information on classic motor vehicles. They set trends and influenced the classic car market – for instance, by referring to an old car as a future collectable, which was demonstrated by the ‘25 years of quattro’ anniversary case mentioned before. Journalists working at these niche magazines were interested in the corporate past as a source of content that might be relevant for their own articles. They either submitted an inquiry to AUDI AG, in which they stated their interest in specific elements, went through press releases, or worked collaboratively with the manufacturer. These motor journalists catered to an audience who not only showed a strong interest in automobile product history and technology, but often cultivated preferences for specific car brands (Ethno. 12, l. 67). In consequence, niche publications were expected to deliver more detailed representations of the corporate past. A popular form of remembrance was the feature article, explained earlier in this book. Other forms included special supplements, such as brochures and DVDs, which had specific themes – e. g. ’30 years of quattro’ (Auto Motor und Sport, 2010). Motor journalists wrote commercial books dedicated to specific brands, models, and motorsports series (e. g., Andorka, 2010; Lewandowski, 2007). Motor magazines also organized classic car rallies for automobile enthusiasts. Remembering the automobile past was a big business to them, and the automobile industry offered valuable content at low cost. Various media outlets also published articles about elements of the corporate past without collaborating with the car manufacturer concerned. For instance, niche magazines sometimes published stories about a meticulously restored Audi car owned by a private enthusiast, covering the lengths gone to in the restoration process (e. g., Auto Bild Klassik, 2012, May 31). They also released articles about interesting events in corporate history they had stumbled upon – e. g. the circumstances surrounding Auto Union racing driver Bernd Rosemeyer’s fatal crash in 1938 (Ethno. 34, l. 60; cf. Motor Klassik, 2011, January 11). In these instances, representations of the corporate past were decoupled from the influence normally asserted by the corporate actor. While some journalists were highly interested in the gradual evolution of AUDI AG into a successful business organization, others were just as interested in the malpractice engaged in by the company in the past. The practice of investigative journalism was commonly employed to unearth ‘dark chapters’ the company preferred to mute. As an informant from Audi Tradition reported, journalists were particularly keen on uncovering historical cases of exploitative

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business behavior, product malfunctions, and corruption that reflected poorly on the company’s social license to operate (Ethno. 42, l. 59). The latter was the case in the instance of Wirtschaftswoche (WiWo, 2010, September 27) publishing an article criticizing the lack of effort AUDI AG had displayed in coming to terms with Auto Union AG’s past reliance on forced labor. Public exposure of corporate malpractice did not only direct negative attention to the company on a discursive level; it could also generate serious repercussions in legal and monetary terms. Altogether, journalists and media outlets constituted one of the most influential stakeholder groups in the corporate past. They were the leading channels outside the organization perpetuating representations of AUDI AG’s past as intended by the corporation. On the other hand, they also published alternative representations and counter-accounts that challenged official corporate representations of the past. They were capable of digging up ‘dirty laundry’ that could compromise the corporation in the public sphere, and because their readership included external, internal, and semi-internal stakeholders alike, they were considered powerful voices that had to be handled with care.

6.3.3 Aficionados organized in automobile clubs and hobby historians One of the most committed stakeholder groups in the corporate past were aficionados of classic motor vehicles. These were private persons who owned an old car or motorcycle produced by AUDI AG and its predecessor companies. Aficionados did not just like their motor vehicles; they cherished them as artifacts imbued with cultural value. In their free time, they organized themselves in clubs and associations in order to form a community of likeminded people who could collectively enjoy their hobby. For example, there was the Auto Union Veteranenclub e.V. – a club that welcomed all fans of pre-war Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer, Auto Union, and post-war DKW vehicles. According to an aficionado, the club had about 1,200 registered members (Int. 6, l. 320), and it was the oldest club involved with the ‘Four Rings.’ The Horch Club e.V., on the other hand, was a smaller organization that only catered to owners of pre-war vintage cars carrying the Horch brand (Ethno. 6, l. 176). Other clubs included the NSU-Wankel Spider Club Deutschland e.V., which had about 200 members and mainly targeted fans of a specific NSU car model, and the Sport quattro Club in Switzerland and Audi quattro Owners Club UK, which served to unite drivers of the 1980s sports car (Ethno. 55, l. 261). Numerous other Audi-related clubs could be traced all over the world, but if one took into account the sheer variety in professed interests, they were not a single collectivity united by their love for Audi. They were either dedicated to

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modern Audi cars, a specific ‘tradition brand,’ a particular car model, or a time period – delimiting the boundaries of their clubs according to the personal needs and perspectives of those involved. According to the statistics provided by the president of the German Audi Club International chapter, the national scene alone featured at least five different Audi Classic clubs, six NSU clubs, and four Auto Union-related Clubs, amounting to approximately 4,500 total registered members (Ethno. 55, l. 261). Most clubs set their own agendas, and they preferred to stay among like-minded aficionados. This meant that it was unlikely to encounter, for instance, an NSU club of ‘wrench-monkeys’ meeting up with an ‘elitist’ Horch club, but it was common for different NSU clubs to meet at a large annual NSU gathering. The Audi-related aficionado scene was thus heterogeneous. What made these groups into an influential stakeholder group in the corporate past was their total member size and their high level of activity in ‘working’ the past – they conducted hundreds of club meetings and events each year (l. 261). Many of these organized aficionados were also customers of the current Audi product portfolio, and therefore the company had a genuine business interest in keeping them content. Automobile clubs were driven by an intricate net of interests. First and foremost, they longed for a community of like-minded people with whom they could share their hobby. Regular communication and collective experiences helped to cement ties, and practices like ‘talking shop’ and road trips driven in convoy formation were key parts of the groups. Second, they looked for a collective resource of technological expertise – e. g. the ability to provide repair services to keep their vehicles on the road. Clubs also constituted an insider marketplace for spare parts and product-related memorabilia. And third, clubs were fruitful grounds for the exchange of expert knowledge about product and technology-related history. Knowledge rendered in facts, such as exact production numbers, internal model codes, and trim specifications, served as social commodities, on the basis of which club members could earn respect within the club scene. The community was the place where they would be considered experts, and quarterly club magazines were a common form of remembrance used to disseminate that expertise (see e. g. AUVC, 2010, October). Several of these classic car clubs harbored hobby historians. The majority of these were private auto aficionados who did not have any ties to academia, let alone the systematic study of history (e. g., Walton, 2007). Others were professional automobile journalists who earned additional income in this way (e. g., Andorka, 2010; Lewandowski, 2007; Setright, 2004). They conducted research on Audi’s (and other brands’) past and created product-and technology-centered model histories that were primarily written by fans for fans. Among hobby his-

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torians, one could distinguish between those who carried out these activities out of pure fandom and those who had a calculated economic interest.

6.3.4 Academic scholars The last stakeholder group discussed in this book is comprised of scholars employed in academia who fostered a particular interest in the past of AUDI AG. As in any academic field, different elements were of interest to different parties. This, in turn, determined what types of histories were constructed. On the one hand, there were a handful of automobile historians who focused on the sociocultural impact of the motor car on modern societies. They followed a product- and technology-centered approach, because their primary object of inquiry was the motor vehicle in its historical context. Automobile historians who had proven themselves (e. g., Boch, 2011; Kirchberg, 1964, 2005) were sometimes hired as consultants for AUDI AG (e. g., Kirchberg & Pönisch, 2006; Kirchberg, 2008), because their perspective was similar to that embraced by the corporate history department. On the other hand, there were a limited number of academic historians in Germany who held an interest in the business-related past of AUDI AG – a field that was more concerned with business activities, organizational developments, and the political and socioeconomic ramifications of the company’s actions. While various micro-studies dealt with the more recent past (e. g., Kolb, 2011), most business historians had a particular interest in AUDI AG’s predecessor company, Auto Union AG (e. g., Blaich, 1976). The company’s operations during the Third Reich period were scrutinized especially intensely. Like many other companies, the corporation had collaborated with the Nazi regime, and, in addition to using motorsports as an instrument for fascist propaganda, the company and its subsidiaries had employed thousands of forced laborers in its production facilities (Kukowski, 2003). Various scholars accused contemporary AUDI AG of fashioning itself as a victim of World War II and a company with a clean record, rather than a collaborator who had a share in the atrocities of the Third Reich. Historians such as Bormann and Tiedtke (2010), Spoerer (2010), and Hockert (2012) demanded that AUDI AG conduct a critical reappraisal similar to that which IG Farben (Hayes, 1987), Daimler-Benz AG (Barth, 1988; Hopmann, 1994), Volkswagen AG (Mommsen & Grieger, 1996), and the BMW Group (Werner, 2006) had already conducted long ago. Coming to terms with that period was considered an act of “accounting for the dark side of corporate history” (Booth et. al, 2007, p. 625) – an issue that is further discussed in chapter 6.4.4. The preferred cultural forms of remembrance in this academic context were jour-

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nal articles, monographs, and presentations at conferences which reconstructed elements of the corporate past in historiographically sound ways.⁴¹ In a way, academia stood in contrast to the majority of stakeholders in the corporate past. While individual business historians also conducted critical studies when hired as contractors by the corporation (e. g., Kukowski, 2000), the motivation driving the group remained scientific curiosity. Instead of capitalizing on the corporate past in emotionalizing terms, the overall idea was to create scholarly, distanced accounts. The rules of the discourse followed the criteria and regulations of academia. Scholarly independence enabled the assumption of critical standpoints that would otherwise be muted by corporate interests. The goal was to remain truthful to historical sources, fill research gaps, open up new fields for micro-studies, initiate public debates, provide historical evidence when a company needed to account for former misconducts, and do justice to victims (see e. g., WiWo, 2010, September 27). Academic scholars had the ability to use their public voice to pressure AUDI AG to deal with otherwise silenced elements of the past that had been deemed unsuitable for the official ‘cultivation of tradition.’ External scholars thus functioned, in a way, as the ‘conscience’ of the company. In addition to the external stakeholder groups discussed above, there were also other agents who had an interest in the corporate past. For instance, there were people with compensation claims concerning the forced labor during the Third Reich. Independent suppliers of spare parts for historic cars had an interest in the product/technology dimension. Potential employees looked at the glory days of the Audi brand in order to assess employer attractiveness. Competitors, as well, needed to know about products and technologies in order to be able to make claims for the uniqueness of their own brand. The multiplicity of external stakeholders illustrates that many voices were involved simultaneously in the discourses about the corporate past. Therefore, it makes sense to make some terminological distinctions. In a nutshell, not every act of retrospection was ‘organizational’ per se. It could be termed an act of organizational remembrance only when a corporate actor remembered the past related to its company. That includes all internal stakeholders and semi-internal stakeholders who had a place within the business organization. In contrast, whenever external stakeholders carried out retrospective activities, they were solely remembering the corporate past. Stakeholders  Public critique by academics urged AUDI AG to launch a comprehensive study in 2010 (Ethno. 26, l. 97), which was eventually published in 2014 (see Kukowski & Boch, 2014). Details about the organization-internal negotiations that preceded the launch cannot be discussed in this book, however, due to the legal agreement signed with AUDI AG.

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in all three spheres, however, were ‘working’ the corporate past, if they aimed to achieve specific purposes with their forms of recollection. In this respect, only the corporate history department could conduct official ‘tradition work,’ because it was the designated carrier of organizational remembrance. Now that these terminological distinctions have been made, this book looks at the network of relationships connecting stakeholders of the corporate past.

6.4 Network of Remembrance, Collaboration, and Conflict The stakeholder groups mentioned above did not necessarily recollect the corporate past in isolation – they also interacted with each other. This section discusses the interplay between internal, semi-internal, and external stakeholder groups, which occurred in a structure this study identifies as a network of remembrance. Stakeholders collaborated with one another in order to fulfill distinct purposes that would have otherwise been impossible to realize. They also used one another’s cultural forms of remembrance, which were repurposed in the process of this appropriation. At the same time, some groups negotiated conflicts of interest with the others, which resulted from diverging perspectives on the past. As this sub-chapter will show, interplay of stakeholders was affected by the dominance of certain players in the network, the availability of resources, and a number of other factors, which rendered the remembrance of AUDI AG’s past a highly contested affair.

6.4.1 Cultural forms of remembrance as multi-purpose resources Stakeholder groups did not merely adhere to those cultural forms of remembrance they had created themselves; they also usurped the forms used by others and employed them for their own purposes. Certain kinds of media in particular, such as corporate history books and films, were predestined for re-utilization, as they were openly available on the market and affordable to obtain. Likewise, the Audi museum mobile was used by customers, tourists, aficionados, the HR department, the workforce, and other corporate actors, who each pursued their own agenda with and within it – whether that was for entertainment, marketing, or employee socialization. Cultural forms which could be used as material by other stakeholders sometimes even transcended their originally intended purpose, which made them multi-purpose resources. Stakeholders who offered cultural forms of higher quantity and quality to a broader audience also saw them utilized more often. Official corporate history

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publications and merchandise, for example, were ubiquitous among all stakeholder groups alike. Transfer was not unidirectional from the company to other stakeholders, however. Classic car clubs occasionally saw their cultural forms used and repurposed by corporate actors, as well – e. g. when an Audi dealer borrowed a truckload of classic cars from a private club to exhibit them at a corporate marketing event, or when the historians at Audi Tradition used internal club publications as additional material for their own research efforts. It was a utility-driven process of mutual exchange and adaption. Of course, stakeholders did not just silently use the resources originating from the others; they interacted with one another, and this is which enabled certain cultural forms to travel in the first place.

6.4.2 A network of remembrance All stakeholder groups discussed above participated in the discourses surrounding the corporate past of AUDI AG. The majority of them were aware of the existence of other groups. Some, yet not all, stakeholders had even gained a deep understanding of the similarities and differences in underlying interests, based on which they had identified mutual goals, as well as areas of conflict. Relationships had been formed over time, crossing organizational boundaries. Taken as a whole, they were a complex network of remembrance, featuring contact points, central hubs, a center, and a periphery. Network participation varied according to intensity of involvement. Highly engaged stakeholders, such as Audi Tradition, the marketing unit, and specific media channels that actively produced and distributed retrospective contents, held a dominant position in the corporate past’s discursive realm. Content-creating stakeholders were the ones who stood at the center of the network. They possessed the necessary resources and communicative means to distribute their representations to a wider audience. External stakeholders, such as fans and the public, on the other hand, mostly consumed content in passive ways. They stood at the periphery of the network of remembrance. Due to the asymmetry in power and resources held, voices contributing to the discourse about the corporate past were indeed polyphonic, yet also weighted differently. The majority of links within the network were built on business-oriented relationships. Internal stakeholders, such as Audi Tradition, professionally catered to the interests of other stakeholder groups based on a corporate agenda. Likewise, the fact that journalists catered to the interests of their readers had a largely economic motivation. Representations of the corporate past were a commodity that could be traded in direct exchange for money, but also for publicity. Thus,

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reliable contacts within the network of remembrance were highly valuable because they could also open up business opportunities. Not every participant had a full overview of the entirety of the network of remembrance, though, because not every stakeholder stood in direct contact with all of the others. External stakeholders, such as customers, fans, or academics, had restricted access to the majority of internal stakeholders, whereas the corporate history department had established extensive connections to internal, semi-internal, and external stakeholders alike. Within the network, Audi Tradition thus occupied the prominent position of a central hub, which was concerned with the management of heterogeneous stakeholder interests. As a provider of retrospective content and services, the department had to fulfill a range of different, partly contradictory expectations. The ‘constraints of the practice’ in doing so were manifold. According to a corporate historian, they were dependent on “what the company demands, what the public wants to know, and what you have to retain” (Int. 28, l. 214). At the same time, the department also functioned as a relay station, for instance, when journalists wanted to be brought together with classic car aficionados, or when academics needed connections to members of the regular workforce. Occupying the role of a relay station also gave the corporate history department the opportunity to act as a gatekeeper who had the power to establish and break relationships. Boundaries between stakeholder groups were often semi-permeable in practice. A handful of informants encountered in the field simultaneously belonged to more than one stakeholder group – e. g. a group of corporate historians who were also active members of a classic car club (Ethno. 17, l. 22), or an employee of Audi Tradition who was also a member of the semi-external Audi Sport interest group (Ethno. 63, l. 34). Different stakeholder interests were also sometimes negotiated by one and the same person. During their job, ‘tradition workers’ thus acted in their formal roles as employees of AUDI AG, but in their private lives they also assumed informal roles in ‘working’ the past. In other cases, stakeholders were observed to change sides completely – e. g. an automotive journalist who became a communications manager of Audi (Ethno. 48, l. 223), a classic car club member who assumed the position of a corporate historian (Ethno. 96, l. 157), an academic scholar who became a corporate archivist (Ethno. 18, l. 84), and a former communications manager who founded a PR agency that conducted work for AUDI AG (Ethno. 60, l. 53). The existence of these semi-permeable boundaries meant also that those who had experienced different stakeholder perspectives from the inside were more suited to professionally cater to the needs and interests of others. Moreover, exchange between different stakeholder groups made it possible to ‘import’ personal contact networks. Business relationships often relied on well-maintained

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personal relationships and trust, which is why the network of remembrance was of importance.

6.4.3 Collaboration between stakeholder groups Collaboration could be observed between multiple types of stakeholder groups. They occurred among internal stakeholder groups, internal and external groups, internal and semi-internal groups, semi-internal and external groups, as well as external and external groups. Collaborations were entered into because they enabled two stakeholder groups to fulfill specific goals they could not reach by themselves. As in any business organization that follows the principle of division of labor, the most common type of collaboration took place between the departments and business units at AUDI AG. As a member of Audi Tradition pointed out, “In addition to public relations, the colleagues from marketing and sales clearly benefit from our work without a doubt” (Int. 31, l. 146). The corporate history department supported them in marketing and PR activities by co-shaping the Audi brand identity and by generating customer loyalty. Moreover, ‘tradition workers’ functioned as the proofreaders and editors of historical content that had been produced in other departments. They provided advice to legal services, helped to socialize new Audi employees, and took care of retired workers in collaboration with HR. In exchange, the department received additional resources, materials for the archive, a good reputation within the organization, and a stronger voice in corporate decision-making. At the same time, internal stakeholders other than the official carrier of organizational remembrance were found to collaborate. A case mentioned above, in which corporate communications and HR collaborated in the commemoration of a long-term employee, has demonstrated that. From an academic perspective, the most interesting type of collaboration took place between internal and external stakeholders. As mentioned before, journalists constituted one of the most influential stakeholder groups in the corporate past. They provided access to organization-external channels that communicated favorable representations of AUDI AG’s past to a broad public audience – an audience AUDI AG could never reach on its own. Through collaboration, the corporate history department attracted media coverage for the ‘tradition topic,’ while journalists simultaneously received interesting content for their print publications, which provided them both with their income and satisfied their readership.

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One way of initiating exchange was the practice of inviting select motor journalists to classic car driving events (Ethno. 12, l. 67). The aforementioned Horch ‘memory ride’ from Zwickau to Ingolstadt already provided a taste of such collaboration (see DK, 1999, May 17). But the preferred occasions were glamorous rallies in foreign countries, such as the Gran Premio Nuvolari and the Mille Miglia in Italy – “the mother of all classic car rallies” (Welt Online, 2012, May 31, para. 1). During these events, journalists were commonly embedded in Audi Tradition’s corporate rally team, physically joining the rally in a company-owned classic car. After the event, they were expected to write and publish an account of their experiences that represented Audi and its endeavors of ‘cultivating tradition’ – preferably in a positive light. The goal was to have an external voice authenticate the idea that Audi was a long-established company with an extensive history. Most premium automobile manufacturers who participated in these rallies tried to trump one another by any means available to them. In order to make ‘tradition events’ more attractive for journalists, the corporate history department invited celebrities to their racing team, such as well-known actors, sports stars, and musicians (Ethno. 29, l. 28). According to one ‘tradition worker,’ it did not make any sense to bring along twenty classic cars if journalists did not report about them or if press photographers did not take any pictures. With a single “good VIP, however, you’re up-staging everybody else” (l. 28). A published photograph of a famous celebrity in a rare vintage Horch car was considered a golden opportunity that ensured publicity. The overarching idea of the rally was ‘to see and be seen.’ Many of these rallies, as an informant criticized, could thus be considered glamorous road shows about “rich people in vintage automobiles, rather than sportive competitions” (Ethno. 12, l. 67). Because the journalistic ethos was meant to be upheld on a formal level, the corporate history department could not control what embedded journalists would publish after the event (Ethno. 44, l. 192). Journalists were mostly interested in writing articles that were appealing to their readership, which did not necessarily want to read a text that resembled an ‘advertorial’ (Ethno. 32, l. 30). From a corporate perspective, the unforeseeable outcomes of these collaborations made embedded journalists something of a gamble (Ethno. 44, l. 192). In order to reduce the overall risk, the automobile industry had established effective mechanisms that served as a ‘gentle nudge’ in the desired direction. While motor journalists did not get paid directly by the manufacturer (Ethno. 34, l. 60), they were presented a host of perks. For example, their expenses on the job were fully covered by the automobile company, including travel, room and board, the exorbitant entry fees for the event, and usually free merchandise of some form (Ethno. 44, l. 192). More importantly, journalists were shown a good

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time. Automobile manufacturers tried to trump one another in this regard by booking the best hotels in exotic locations, serving dinner in luxurious restaurants, and offering exclusive services – all in exchange for positive news coverage. Catering to journalists and wooing their affection was a “big money business” (Ethno. 6, l. 250), the questionable practice of which was not even a secret anymore (see e. g. ARD, 1997, November 20; 2011, September 22). On the one hand, most journalists did not want to feel exploited or bribed. However, they were economically dependent on acquiring similar assignments in the future. The “tacit agreement” was that the German automobile industry expected them to write (more or less) favorable articles if they wanted to keep enjoying these sponsored events (Ethno. 44, l. 192). According to an informant, most motor journalists knew “if they leaned out of the window too much, the machine would not work anymore” (l. 192). For instance, someone who constantly criticized a car brand, despite being invited by the respective company, could not expect to receive similar assignments in the near future (Ethno. 78, l. 80). Some of these motor journalists were also motivated by private interest to maintain amicable relationships with the automobile industry; the support of large corporations enabled them to travel to exotic places, dine at the best restaurants, stay in luxurious hotels, and drive some of the most exclusive cars (cf. MEEDIA, 2012, June 14). The industry, in other words, offered a glimpse at a delightful lifestyle of worldly pleasures (cf. ARD, 1997, November 20). Because the majority of motor journalists were not at the top of the salary pyramid (cf. SPON, 2012, June 15), they were able to enjoy extraordinary experiences that, as a PR person pointed out, they basically “could not pay for out of their own pockets” (Ethno. 44, l. 192). Regarding this, a former PR manager of AUDI AG, who had also worked for a motor publication before, reported that his friends always used to joke, “You’re a good writer, you’re bribable; why don’t you stay with the motor press?!” (Ethno. 63, l. 309). In a nutshell, motor journalists were pampered by the industry in exchange for some friendly and authentic- sounding words promoting specific automobile manufacturers (cf. Kartheuser, 2013). In consequence, it came to no surprise that German brands always received better journalistic media coverage than the foreign competition. As indicated, close collaborations between the corporate history department and journalists were quid pro quo. Commercial magazines were “thankful” for ‘new and hot stories’ (Ethno. 102, l. 142). Magazines were offered free content opportunities on a silver platter, which involved comparatively little work on their side. They required minimal research effort, as the logistics and materials were handled by the automobile company, and the production costs were fully covered. Journalists appointed for the write-up merely needed to attend the opportunity, pick from the repertoire of contents presented to them, and enjoy the

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perks of the assignment (Ethno. 195, l. 268). More importantly, these contents were appreciated by external audiences. Magazine sales ensured the subsistence of the publishing business, which, again, provided a constant stream of work for individual journalists. ‘Tradition’ contents were thus part of an economy of information. External audiences who consumed the result of these collaborations did not necessarily know about the extent of the relationships between these two stakeholder groups (Ethno. 112, l. 29), unaware of the underlying terms of agreement and the actual production process. Of course, both the corporate history department and the media had an interest in keeping their mutually beneficial arrangements a secret. In any case, collaboration only became an issue when audiences expected independent and critical journalism, but received instead advertorials that merely praised the experience and the company (cf. SPON, 2013, December 19). This, in turn, could damage both stakeholder groups, which is why the details of collaborations had to be carefully negotiated by both sides. Collaboration also occurred without the involvement of a corporate actor. External and semi-internal stakeholders collaborated independently in situations in which elements of the past were remembered that were under-represented by AUDI AG. In the case of the ‘interest group Audi Sport’ mentioned above, for example, former motorsports employees collaborated with external rally fans and journalistic media at the reunion event. One of the event organizers was a young aficionado of 1980s Audi quattro rally racing. Neither a member of the motorsports department nor of AUDI AG, the aficionado had forged a contact with a former Audi Sport team member, who, in turn, was impressed by the fan’s deep knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, the rally racing scene in ‘the olden days.’ They decided to “maintain the history of the rally period” together (Ethno. 63, l. 67), and the private aficionado took on an administrative function in the interest group. Moreover, at the same reunion event, a small group of young quattro rally fans mingled with members of the old motorsports team (Ethno. 63, l. 142). Dressed in Audi-branded racing jackets reminiscent of those worn in the 1980s, the fans had brought along a privately owned replica rally car. Equipped with autograph cards, corporate history books, posters and old photos to be signed, they expressed their admiration for these ‘old hands’ and exchanged rally-bound expert knowledge with them that only insiders could know. Commemorative group photos with fans, former pilots, engineers, and managers were taken in front of the replica rally car. Meanwhile, a freelance journalist from the Donaukurier, who was writing an article about the reunion, conducted interviews, documented the scene, and directed the photography session (Ethno. 63, l. 144).

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Their main motivation for collaboration was the simultaneous fulfillment of different purposes of remembrance that AUDI AG had not catered to: Former colleagues were able to see one another again to relive the glories of their shared past, fans were given the opportunity to meet their heroes in person, and journalists were furnished with a story to publish. A former rally pilot pointed to the role of different stakeholders as important carriers of remembrance by saying, “It’s in the hearts of all participants and these [fans]. […] This is the memory. […] It’s the people. You can’t reduce it to institutions; it’s the people” (Int. 2, l. 445). Collaboration between different stakeholder groups even changed the meaning of specific cultural forms of remembrance. In the case above, the fans’ ‘worshipping’ turned a meeting of seasoned coworkers into a congregation of legends who were praised for their achievements in motorsports. Through affirmative reactions from the outside, these ‘old hands’ could be proud of their collective efforts, which, in turn, helped to create their own mnemonic community. Collaboration was not always uncomplicated, however. Sometimes, diverging interests clashed.

6.4.4 Conflicts of interest and power struggles between stakeholder groups Interactions between stakeholder groups did sometimes result in conflicts of interest. These emerged from either a difference in perspective, competing voices, quarrels about the main purpose of remembrance, and/or disagreements about how to represent certain elements of the corporate past. The most noticeable conflicts typically occurred between corporate actors of AUDI AG and external stakeholders. Most of the time, both sides had legitimate arguments that justified their particular way of representing the past. A specific case encountered during fieldwork bears elaboration. In the autumn of 2010, a handful of German academics publicly accused AUDI AG of neglecting the process of coming to terms with its Third Reich past. In an article in Wirtschaftwoche (WiWo, 2010, September 27), they called upon the company to finally conduct an elaborate and critical reappraisal of its ‘darkest chapter’ – by which was meant the use of forced laborers by Auto Union AG during World War II. The historians Bormann and Tiedtke (2010) and Spoerer (2010) argued that the company had not yet done enough in this regard. AUDI AG was reproached for having dodged this particular topic over the last decades. While a study by Kukowski (2003) had already peripherally addressed the historical circumstances, other historians had found evidence that the official number of forced laborers had been much higher than proclaimed (Welt Online, 2010, September 29). An independently-conducted historical

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study, which would give clarity, was still missing. Moreover, critics maintained that, in its efforts at conducting ‘tradition work,’ AUDI AG was styling itself as a victim of World War II and washing its hands of the affair, rather than a Nazi collaborator who had benefited economically in the early phase of the Third Reich. The perspective held by academics was clear-cut. Since the late 20th century, older German corporations have been expected to account for their conduct during the Third Reich (Booth, Clark, Delahaye, Procter, & Rowlinson, 2007; Eley, 2000). According to the business historian Schröter (2003), “an increase in political pressure on firms whose behavior was questioned during the Nazi period” (p. 170) led to companies being required to come to terms with the “dark side of corporate history” (Booth et al., 2007, p. 625). In order to maintain their social license to operate, it was demanded that they disclose and account for any misconduct that had once been committed.⁴² From what was experienced during fieldwork, at first, dominant parties within AUDI AG were not in favor of this kind of historical disclosure. In their opinion, the company had refrained from publicly unrolling the ‘dark past’ for a number of good reasons. First and foremost, they saw their commercial interests as being at stake. While this book is not allowed to disclose the most sensitive company-internal data, a few things can be said to provide a basic understanding of this stance. Rather than just coping with questions of moral debt, it was very much a legal and financial issue. After the fall of the iron curtain, numerous victim groups of former forced laborers went to court demanding financial compensation from their former exploiters (Eley, 2000). In consequence, a range of accused companies needed to gain retrospective clarity about the exact depth of complicity and the validity of compensation claims. Meant to disclose the nature of corporate involvement during the 1930s and 1940s, renowned historians were entrusted with conducting elaborate historical studies after decades of corporate dormancy (e. g., Hayes,

 Several authors, such as Turner (1972), have shown that the majority of the German industrial elite had benefited from extensive collaborations with the Nazi regime. Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Degussa and numerous other business organizations alike sat in the same boat as the Fascists. Elements of the “dark side of corporate history” (Booth et al., 2007, p. 625) included the utilization of forced laborers, the appropriation of compulsorily expropriated assets, and active contributions to war efforts. In the late 20th century, various stakeholders – first and foremost academics, journalists, and victim associations – started to demand that these German companies critically reappraised their former conduct in order to be allowed to maintain today’s social license to operate.

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2004; Hopmann, 1994; Mommsen & Grieger, 1996; Werner, 2006).⁴³ The German government and industry representatives eventually founded a joint compensation fund for former victims of Nazi forced labor. Historical studies about individual business organizations served as the main evidence and basis of legal assessment for helping to negotiate how much each successor should contribute financially (Schröter, 2003). Assuming accountability through organizational remembrance meant that a corporation officially paid the debt accrued in history, thereby accepting the legal and financial responsibilities emerging from the wrongdoings of its predecessor. In this respect, AUDI AG had “dodged a bullet so far” (Ethno. 25, l. 32), as a critical informant asserted. On the official level, corporate representatives were of another opinion. In response to an inquiry made by Welt Online (2010, September 29), a leading corporate historian of Volkswagen AG proclaimed, Volkswagen AG, as much as AUDI AG, have sufficiently come to terms with their role during World War 2 in elaborate, academically sound ways to the best of their knowledge; several documentations have been made accessible to the public. (para. 16; see e. g. Kohl & Bessel, 2003)

Simultaneously, an internal study was quietly launched by the corporate history department of AUDI AG, which was intended to produce further insights (Ethno. 8, l. 78). The study was meant to complete what a previous research project – an unfinished dissertation commissioned by Audi – had started several years ago but never delivered. Until publication (see Kukowski & Boch, 2014), dominant parties at the corporation waited and attempted to sit out the issue. Leading managers hoped that the debate would disappear by itself when public interest began to wane (Ethno. 26, l. 123). This is precisely what happened. While morally questionable, denying allegations and passively sitting them out becomes comprehensible when the underlying business concerns are taken into consideration. According to a key informant, decision-makers in Ingolstadt feared that a public debate could be ignited on an international level. In their opinion, the corporation ran the risk of being assigned blame, paying hefty  According to Eley (2000), interest in the active role of contemporary German business organizations in making profit from supporting the Nazi regime, arification, autarchy, and the expansion of German soil rose tremendously after the collapse of the Soviet system. Documents that had lingered in Eastern European archives suddenly became available, and victims living in former socialist states were allowed a voice in the “moral-political discourses of accountability” (p. 140). As Eley writes, “beleaguered by publicly disastrous suits, companies are scrambling through their archives to forefend against such litigation, increasingly by hiring leading historians to investigate their record under the Third Reich” (p. 142).

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fees due to newly emerging compensation claims, dealing with negative news coverage, taking damage to its brand image, and possibly losing customers abroad who would be appalled by associations of the Audi brand with the Nazi past (Ethno. 42, l. 146). These concerns were not far-fetched; they were based on previous incidents with which the corporation had dealt. Negative publicity had also hit the company after a New York Post article (2007, January 23) announced the auction of a 1939 Auto Union Grand Prix vehicle with the questionable headline, “Hitler’s $15M race car” (para. 1). It generated a wave of image issues for Audi (Ethno. 42, l. 146). This approach of ‘waiting things out’ was also based on the long observation that large parts of the public were virtually unaware of any association between AUDI AG’s predecessors and the national socialist regime. In contrast to Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, it “was widely unknown to the public” (Ethno. 26, l. 145), as a ‘tradition worker’ pointed out. Even among the local workforce in Ingolstadt, the established version was, as an employee proclaimed, “that Audi was unencumbered in regard to this type of burden from that corner [of history]” (l. 145). This widespread conviction built upon a “whitewashing excuse” the corporation had perpetuated in the aftermath of World War II (Ethno. 25, l. 32; cf. Kukowski, 2003).⁴⁴ Because of the lack of public awareness and insufficient pressure from external stakeholders, Audi officials thus let sleeping dogs lie. The conflict between AUDI AG and academia about the ‘right way’ of coming to terms with the company’s ‘dark past’ was a complex issue. Opinions about how to deal with Auto Union in the Third Reich were not homogenous inside the business organization, either. Several members of Audi Tradition possessed a critically minded historical consciousness. Arguing in their informal roles, they wanted the company to properly come to terms with its ‘dark past,’ and better sooner than later, “to end this issue once and for all” (Ethno. 25, l. 32). This brings us to a discussion of another type of conflict. Discrepancies regarding organizational remembrance also occurred between different units and departments within the company. One particular conflict was in fact being worked out during the time of fieldwork, namely a clash between the marketing and PR units, and corporate historians. It surrounded the fact that in the process of making brand identity claims, history was sometimes

 According to a critical historian, the corporation had claimed for years that NSU AG had already dealt with the “issue” some time ago through reparations (Ethno. 25, l. 32). When AUDI AG had officially succeeded NSU as a publicly traded company (cf. Amtsgericht Ingolstadt, 2007), they claimed NSU’s act of paying reparations. On top of that, during the reconstruction period in Ingolstadt, Auto Union GmbH had fashioned itself mostly as a victim of the Third Reich “which had lost everything as a result of the war” (Ethno. 25, l. 32).

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transfigured to better push new products. This sort of tactic was sometimes criticized by “the real keepers of truth” (Int. 29, l. 574), as a handful of ‘tradition workers’ described themselves. A corporate historian explained: AT: Of course we’re always torn between two souls. The authentic portrayal of history is what interests us as researchers and historians, and we don’t want to twist that. But now and then, it collides with the objectives the colleagues in marketing and public relations have, who first and foremost want to represent the company to the public in an appropriate way. And [*laughs*] once in a while, there’s the occasional conflict about the how. (Int. 28, l. 44)

Just because the ‘tradition topic’ was a legitimate instrument in other business units did not mean that corporate historians uncritically accepted every representation of the past crafted by their colleagues. Some constructions of the past implied by marketing and PR were deemed simply too far off from any plausible history. ‘Tradition workers,’ however, generally understood the company’s need to ‘adjust’ certain representations in order to make them fit with contemporary claims, which, in turn, would help to sell cars. A PR-oriented member of Audi Tradition expressed it as finding a “middle way […] between selling cars versus authentically working history by maintaining academic standards” (Ethno. 11, l. 143). However, there was a limit to what was deemed acceptable. Certain representations of the past clashed with what was deeply held to be true, which also meant that the conflict was fought about the extent to which history was spun rather than merely the existence of the spinning to begin with. For example, “in the early phase,” most notably the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was recalled that marketing and PR “wanted to glorify everything, until they finally realized that this was absurd” (Int. 28, l. 290). A number of overt instances of ‘bending’ history occurred at this time. In various campaigns, the brand’s founder August Horch had been elevated to the status of Audi’s luxury-oriented ancestor, as already explained in a prior case. Vintage Horch cars of the 1930s were placed next to modern Audi models, and the idea was perpetuated that August Horch had been the driving force behind contemporary efforts. From the perspective of corporate historians, however, these claims could be seen largely as fictions driven by present brand identity building interests (Ethno. 26, l. 163). The overall critique from the corporate historians was that marketing-oriented representations of the past did not permit a vision of history that was sufficiently multifaceted. Conflicts between August Horch and his business partners were glossed over, as were the economic hardships. Representations of August Horch produced by and for marketing were perceived to have little in common with the rather tragic and unsuccessful historical figure. One historian consid-

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ered this kind of embellishment absurd because “life and collaboration between people includes the ups and downs, the pleasant and bad sides, as much as the fact that people like each other and don’t like each other” (Int. 28, l. 294). Instead, history – as merely a tool – had to be catchy, easily graspable, and complexity-reducing in a way that served the present. This is why various informants called a number of history marketing and PR campaigns “highly superficial” (Ethno. 31, l. 23). A major concern fueling the conflict was the possibility that negative repercussions could emerge from other stakeholders who might debunk blatant historical inaccuracies in marketing slogans.⁴⁵ External audiences normally did not learn what content had been created by which party inside the organization, and therefore anything history-related was automatically attributed to Audi Tradition. The corporate history department, for its part, did not want to be made accountable for the imprudent mistakes of others that could have easily been avoided. Their disapproval of the history spinning techniques practiced by other corporate agents thus also served as a form of departmental self-protection. Judging from the data, members of Audi Tradition seemed to have had more issues with marketing/PR than the other way around. The conflict turned out to be rather one-sided due to an inequality in power distribution. If marketing or PR decided to represent the corporate past in a way that stretched the perspective held by corporate historians, the historians had little choice in the matter. They could merely voice their concerns, give advice for improvement, and warn about possible repercussions. Apart from that, the lack of regulation rendered it oftentimes not even strictly necessary that statements about AUDI AG’s past pass their desks.

 While generally agreeing with that position, a corporate historian mitigated the immediate dangers of inaccuracy with the statement that this was common practice at other automobile companies, too. He claimed if people found out that Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz had never actually met they would be surprised as well. Besides, it was “not a question whether or not [Horch] had actually worked on all [cars] in person” (Ethno. 26, l. 161). Instead, it was a matter of what attributes one ascribed to the person August Horch. In the historian’s opinion, one should emphasize the idea “that [Horch] had certain visions” such as the virtue of “working meticulously” or that customers could drive long distances without having to repair their cars “which essentially means user-friendliness” (l. 161). In this regard, a seasoned corporate historian generally supported the latter position of his colleague. He expressed that Audi could indeed claim legitimate membership of the “ancient nobility” of German automobile manufacturing “since [August] Horch makes us on a par with [Carl] Benz” (l. 161). However, he stated that “we should avoid a slip of the tongue” since there were too many experts out there who not only knew better but, in fact, who would reproach him personally (l. 161).

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This lack of regulation, however, was not just owing to an absence of formal procedure. It was also criticized that certain parties inside the organization tended to ridicule and dismiss “efforts of authenticity” on an informal level (Ethno. 32, l. 83). A common argument made by the more utilitarian marketing people reportedly was, “[Historical authenticity] is all well and good, but we need to sell cars and we have to spruce up the image of Audi; and in this respect authenticity is not always conducive” (Int. 28, l. 46). This attitude caused some ‘tradition workers’ to feel that their expertise was neither appreciated nor respected. Judging from the emotional reactions observed in the office, it caused frustration that strained inter-departmental relationships. Organization-internal conflicts were of course not visible to external stakeholders in the corporate past. The participants in these conflicts did not make the details being debated a public issue in order to protect the image of the company. To those who did not get a chance to experience the workings of the organization from an internal perspective, AUDI AG thus appeared to be a unified actor with a unified position on organizational remembrance. However, aspects of heterogeneity, semi-permeability, collaboration, and conflict in a widespread network structure mean that it is not enough to speak of organizational cultures of remembrance in terms of multiplicities. Mnemonic communities did not possess clearly distinguishable systems of retrospection that simply existed side by side with those held by other communities. Instead, these systems overlapped and often resembled one another in some aspects. A handful of stakeholder groups forming a mnemonic community could be decidedly different from others in some regards, yet they would not necessarily possess a unique set of memories, nor a corresponding set of unique cultural forms of remembrance. If one wishes to speak of a culture of remembrance as a collectivity’s mnemonic system, one has to account for the empirical fact that retrospective content, mnemonic practices, and media often overlap with those of other stakeholder groups. Hence, the concept of organizational cultures of remembrance is best seen as a complexity-reducing model which attempts to grasp the empirical phenomenon of organizational remembrance holistically. The concept, at least, foregrounds the idea that various groups of people inside and outside a business organization recollect and ‘work’ parts of a company’s past for a number of different reasons, by using a wealth of retrospective activities and tools in an interactive fashion.

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6.5 Short Summary As demonstrated in this chapter, remembrance of the corporate past also occurred beyond the departmental boundaries of the official carrier of organizational remembrance. A range of internal, semi-internal, and external actor groups could be identified, all possessing different interests. These so-called stakeholders of the corporate past employed a number of cultural forms of remembrance for their own group-specific purposes. Depending upon their perspective, they also focused on different elements of the corporate past, which led to the formation of their own mnemonic communities. However, boundaries between stakeholder groups were semi-permeable, which meant that there were no clear-cut cultures of remembrance. More importantly, all stakeholders interacted with each other in a network of remembrance. They collaborated across organizational boundaries and used one another’s cultural forms as resources, but their diverging perspectives also led to conflicts. In this way, the discourses about the corporate past of AUDI AG were shaped by a colorful range of different voices. The strength of voice, the power held by actors, and the availability of resources decided who assumed dominant positions. It rendered the arena of organizational remembrance a highly contested site. Organizational remembrance at AUDI AG was not an ahistorical set of practices that had always existed in the form experienced during fieldwork in 2010 and 2011. It was, rather, a process that had become more complex over time, and this is precisely what will be discussed next.

7 Organizational Remembrance as a Historical Process of Evolution and Differentiation There was a general consensus among the majority of respondents that, for most of its existence, AUDI AG had disregarded its past. Employees, workers, managers, journalists, and aficionados alike remarked that the company with the ‘Four Rings’ had long been exclusively oriented toward the future, while ‘history’ and ‘tradition’ had not been focal points at all. The “development of a culture of remembrance” was thus informally described as “a tough fight” and “not an uncontested matter of course” (Ethno. 6, l. 102). ‘Tradition work’ was commonly depicted as a recent development taking place over the last decade, which became more significant with the institutionalization of the corporate history department in 1998, the erection of the Audi museum mobile in 2000, and the celebration of the 100-year Audi brand anniversary in 2009. My investigations found that the wide variety of purposes and cultural forms of organizational remembrance observed had not existed for most of AUDI AG’s past. Likewise, in the early years of the company, the majority of groups discussed in the previous chapter had not yet become stakeholders in the corporate past – at least not to the extent encountered during fieldwork. The complex network of remembrance presented in the previous chapter was, in fact, the outcome of a several decade-long, ongoing process of evolution and differentiation. This chapter takes a historical look at this process and aims to reconstruct it in order to examine what it took for the company to commence with and continue to remember its past. This inquiry begins with a discussion of the central finding that organizational forgetting was the default mode which AUDI AG had assumed for most of its organizational life. Next, the historical development process of organizational remembrance is reconstructed in its four-phase unfolding over a period of several decades, each phase of which was marked by important events and catalysts that encouraged the company to advance the ‘tradition cause.’ Of interest here is how different stakeholders successively emerged, and developed their own interest in the corporate past, cultural forms, and purposes of remembrance, which gradually diversified the network over time. Several cases will also demonstrate that the diachronic developmental process featured occasional moments of stagnation and decline, as well. To account for this finding, the idea of an economic cycle of organizational remembrance is brought to the table. The last portion of this chapter, finally, discusses a range of factors that facilitated the development process.

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7.1 The Default Mode of Organizational Forgetting For many business organizations, the development of a complex ‘culture of remembrance’ remains the exception rather than the rule. In order to understand why a company begins professionally remembering its past, one thus has to make sense of the mode a business organization assumes prior to ascribing any significance to its past. I argue that organizational forgetting – a term used by de Holan and Phillips (2004, p. 1603) – is the default mode in which the majority of future-oriented companies remain for most of their existence. While scholars of organizational forgetting have concentrated on the deterioration and unlearning of practical knowledge and working practices (Rowlinson et al., 2010), there is little empirical evidence regarding how organizations actually forget their past. In this respect, I found that organizational forgetting is more than the mere absence of remembrance. The following cases not only outline what AUDI AG failed to remember, but also address what the organization did in order to ‘get rid’ of its past.

7.1.1 Losing business records in the aftermath of World War II At the company with the ‘Four Rings,’ the origin of organizational forgetting lay in the post-war transformation period of the late 1940s. According to the narrative presented to me by various corporate historians, Auto Union AG in Saxony had been dissolved and “expropriated without compensation” by Soviet forces (Ethno. 26, l. 159). After the company had been “liquidated from the Chemnitz trade register” (Ethno. 90, l. 122), “burnt out, and expulsed” (Ethno. 23, l. 158), it was “re-founded from scratch” as Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt (Ethno. 32, l. 89). During the relocation process, the vast majority of documents, blueprints, trademark certificates, files, and records had remained in the corporation’s central registry in the Soviet zone (Ethno. 8, l. 80). Managers of Auto Union, who had fled to Southern Germany, had only managed to take along a few records (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2005). The remaining documents had been seized by the Soviets and dispersed in archives across Eastern Germany and the Soviet Union (Ethno. 42, l. 82). The contents of the former central registry, for example, were incorporated into a state-owned archive in Dresden, which were later transferred to the Saxon Public Records Office in Chemnitz. Only East German academics had been allowed access to these files (Int. 28, l. 34). In consequence, AUDI AG thus had not been in physical possession of the records documenting the operations of its Saxon predecessors until the fall of the Iron Curtain in the

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late 1980s. This blind spot in the historical source material reportedly meant that the pre-war past remained largely mysterious.

7.1.2 Contemporary business concerns trumped the past The re-founded company in Ingolstadt did not engage in documentation efforts to compensate for the loss of records. A retired production manager, who had been with AUDI AG for more than fifty years, recalled, “During the period [from] 1949 to […] 1970, there was virtually nothing that was documented from the past, not to mention that there hadn’t been any kind of physical representation; there was nothing, indeed” (Int. 22, l. 441). Practices of retaining, reconstructing, and representing elements of the corporate past, if they occurred at all, were not a pronounced goal. A plausible explanation was suggested by an Audi dealer, who also happened to be a classic car aficionado: AA: AUDI AG is an old company and, yet, a very young firm. It was reborn in the 1970s. […] It’s quite logical that a young man doesn’t care about his retirement. First of all, he cares about his education, and his progress, and his position in life. It was the same with Audi at the time, because it was a young company – not a company like Mercedes or BMW that had produced the same product, under the same name, at the same site, for decades. (Int. 6, l. 124)

Spatial fragmentation, organizational restructuring, changes in brand names, and economic instability had created an atmosphere in which the corporate past was not of primary concern. It was deemed more important to secure the company’s subsistence.

7.1.3 Purging the archives The period between 1973 and 1976 was characterized by what was referred to as the ‘purge of the archives.’ After Auto Union GmbH became part of Volkswagen AG in the mid-1960s, the corporate parent ordered its subsidiary to dispose of its legacy of documents and artifacts. An archivist recounted, “When Volkswagen took over the sales and marketing division of Audi around 197[3], they ordered that ‘everything old’ had to be thrown away. […] Well, they didn’t want to inherit any old stock” (Int. 29, ll. 96 – 100). This elimination concerned all documents, reports, memos, pictures, and material artifacts that transcended the ten-year statutory period in which business records were expected to be retained (Ethno. 61, l. 195). It also pertained to material stored in so-called “grey archives”

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(Ethno. 89, l. 57), i. e. de-centralized collections some departments had established independently. In reaction to the purge, individual voices inside Audi NSU Auto Union AG tried to warn their colleagues of the potentially devastating effects of such a policy. For example, a retired manager in the technological development unit recalled, furious, the mid-1970s purge of his grey archive with the words: TE: And I said, ‘But you are crazy; you simply cannot destroy all these test reports!’ That’s what they did. They destroyed all test reports that were older than 10 years. It means that all the knowledge, which would otherwise be available for the next generation to come, […] was destroyed. If you destroy test reports the result is that you hire young engineers who conduct a trial project for the third and fourth time because they couldn’t find the results of previous [tests]. (Int. 21, l. 322)

According to this informant’s account, the ‘purge of the archives’ did not just impede the reconstruction of the past in terms of corporate history; it also had negative repercussions for the efficiency of the company’s operations. Despite these individual protests, the company scrapped the majority of archival material during the period, “sweeping the company halls with the iron broom” (Ethno. 112, l. 22). While some material was saved via informal rescue efforts, which will be discussed later, a great amount of records ranging from 1945 to the late 1960s was reportedly lost forever. Traces of the past were therefore actively destroyed. A ‘tradition worker’ remarked on this period, “During the transfer to Volkswagen, the company first and foremost threw their identity overboard” (Ethno. 25, l.46).

7.1.4 The orientation toward the future and the blatant disdain for the past The fourth stage of organizational forgetting at the company consisted of a major shift in the attitude promoted by top management during the 1980s, according to which the past was seen as decidedly irrelevant. As various respondents reported, AUDI AG decided to pursue a future-oriented strategy under the leadership of Ferdinand Piëch, who was chairman of the board of management from 1988 to 1992 (Ethno. 23, l. 185). Piëch implemented a ten-year strategy which was driven by “the conviction that the Audi brand needed to be renewed” (Int. 31, l. 24). Management sought to construct a brand identity that was exclusively based on the idea of technological innovation (Int. 10, l. 326). The “strategy clearly stated that one has to look forward under Piëch […] but don’t look back” (Int. 31, l. 24) because the past was deemed “uninteresting” (Int. 1, l. 153). Encouraged by this technophile orientation towards the future, AUDI AG sought to make a clean break with ‘bygone matters.’ In consequence, the post-war roots in Auto Union

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were suppressed, as they were thought to represent everything the brand was no longer supposed to stand for. Likewise, the pre-war past was also of no concern, and thus “nobody was interested; nobody recollected that Audi had a history” (Int. 12, l. 621). In this period, top management legitimized a general attitude of organizational forgetting within the company. Altogether, it is fair to conclude that AUDI AG had experienced multiple waves of organizational forgetting in the latter half of the 20th century. Some of the root causes can be traced to external forces, while others had clearly originated with corporate actors inside the (greater) organization. Because of this, I argue, the corporate past could not become a valid topic in company discourses for a long time. Further investigation showed, however, that the default mode of organizational forgetting had not merely been a total state of “corporate amnesia” (Kransdorff, 1998, p. 1), void of any kind of retrospection. As the next section will demonstrate, sporadic acts of organizational remembrance had actually always existed throughout the company’s existence, long before the formation of a corporate history department. These acts, however, had often been overshadowed by more aggressive forms of forgetting. Nevertheless, they can be interpreted as tentative efforts at ‘working’ the past.

7.2 Phase One: Remembering a Little and Forgetting a Lot Long before institutionalizing an official carrier of organizational remembrance, the company had occasionally incorporated history-related topics into their public relations and advertising activities. Audi Tradition’s historical archive revealed old press releases, campaign descriptions, and photographs that documented the company’s early efforts to selectively exploit the past (Ethno. 86, l. 175). These could be traced back as early as the late 1940s and 1950s.

7.2.1 Sporadic acts of organizational remembrance in post-war times Archival investigation revealed that the company had selectively ‘worked’ its past on multiple occasions after the war. For example, a photo album from 1951 was discovered which documented the opening ceremony of an Auto Union dealership in Munich (Ethno. 51, l. 196). According to the photographs, a Horch automobile from 1903 and the chassis of an Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ race car from the 1930s had been displayed during the event. Moreover, a convoy of ‘tradition-branded’ pre-war cars had parked on the street in front of the deal-

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ership. These classic cars were obviously meant to demonstrate the long tradition in which the newly re-founded Auto Union GmbH supposedly stood. This relationship between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Auto Union had also been cemented through the early circulation of a particular ‘(re)founding myth.’ Numerous Donaukurier articles recounted how Auto Union in Ingolstadt had been founded by a select group of eager Auto Union AG managers who had fled Saxony after World War II (e. g., DK, 1946, January 18; 1946, November 22; 1952, May 7). According to the myth, they had been followed by hundreds of Saxon workers, who, in a communal effort, had “erected [the new plant] from nothing” (DK, 1961, June 24/25, p. X). During the post-war period, these occasional efforts at organizational remembrance thus helped Auto Union GmbH fashion itself as the legitimate successor of Auto Union AG, largely through claims that the predecessor company’s brand-, product-, and company-related heritage continued in contemporary Auto Union GmbH’s operations. External media channels, like the Donaukurier, played an important role in cementing this relationship. Further analysis of the “Donaukurier newspaper archive: Audi history since 1945” (DK, 2009) indicated that the company had sporadically ‘worked’ its past on other occasions, as well, including on product anniversaries, birthdays, tenure anniversaries, and deaths of renowned leader figures. A 1952 newspaper article, for example, commemorated the “birth of the Auto Union [Silver Arrow] race car” in the form of a 20th anniversary (DK, 1952, November 17, p. 9). When August Horch passed away, Auto Union commissioned an obituary in honor of its “highly esteemed member of the advisory board” (DK, 1951, February 6, p. 8). On a different occasion, DKW founder Jörgen Skafte Rasmussen received an honorary article on his 80th birthday (DK, 1958, August 29). When the Audi brand was reintroduced to the automobile market in 1965, the company launched the now-famous ‘Audi name’ story explaining the origins of the brand name (DK, 1965, December 31). In 1968, the 100th birthday of August Horch was commemorated with a written homage to him (DK, 1968, October 25). And after Audi and NSU merged in 1969, the company launched a special newspaper supplement containing one of the first historical narratives published for a broader audience (DK, 1971, November 24). Judging from the type of text, the historical details, and the rhetoric, these articles had either been commissioned by the company itself, or had been based on press releases. When confronted with these early examples, a corporate archivist proclaimed, “As a matter of fact, back then we already had a culture of remembrance. […] We haven’t just started utilizing history for advertising purposes in contemporary times, but even back then they were proud of the past” (Ethno. 51, l. 196). Another archivist clarified, “[T]his had always been done by someone on

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the side lines, just not by someone who was properly trained for that” (Ethno. 86, l. 171). In comparison with the multifacetedness of contemporary cultural forms of organizational remembrance, as well as the extent of professionalization and sheer quantity of present-day ‘tradition work,’ however, it appeared as if the company had truly neglected remembrance in the past.

7.2.2 Celebrating a centennial company anniversary after a merger A specific event was recalled to have introduced the more systematic practice of retrospection in the company – the “100 years of NSU” centennial anniversary celebrations in 1973 (Ethno. 8, l. 92). According to several informants, it was allegedly the first official retrospective occasion that involved looking back in more elaborate terms (Ethno. 61, l. 141). Placed in its historical context, it was evident that the purpose of the anniversary was not just to generate publicity, but also to fulfill an HR function by demonstrating corporate unity. Only four years earlier, Auto Union GmbH and NSU AG had merged at Volkswagen’s behest. The corporation, which now incorporated multiple sites and brands, formally adopted NSU’s legal status as a public company, which also entailed the adoption of NSU’s founding date (Int. 30, l. 34). At least from the perspective of those in Ingolstadt, the merger rendered the corporation officially twenty-six years older than it had been before, which also explains why it could suddenly celebrate a centennial. Unfortunately, the merger had caused a major upheaval among the Neckarsulm workforce. Dismissed as a “hostile acquisition,” they feared a loss of independence under new ownership (Ethno. 74, l. 253). Various shareholders of NSU publicly expressed their discontent with the merger because they feared that Volkswagen would become more dominant (Int. 18, l. 228) – a conflict which received prominent coverage in the German mass media (e. g., SPIEGEL, 1969, April 21; 1970, April 13; 1971, March 8). The anniversary thus constituted an unparalleled opportunity to demonstrate corporate unity, both to the workforce and the public. Ceremonial celebrations mainly took place in Neckarsulm, but the Ingolstadt site hosted its share. For example, a small historical exhibition was installed outside the company premises at a department store in the old town (Ethno. 13, l. 20). The exhibition displayed what the company considered the joint history of Audi NSU Auto Union AG. It contained an arrangement of contemporary Audi and vintage NSU engines, a classic NSU automobile, and various texts presenting a historical narrative of the corporation’s genesis (DK, 1973, October 3). Allegedly,

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it was the first time the company publicly showcased select elements of its past to an Ingolstadt audience (Ethno. 61, l. 141).

7.2.3 The beginning of (re)constructing corporate history The anniversary also provided a major opportunity for introducing new forms of organizational remembrance. More importantly, it motivated the company to allocate additional resources for ‘working’ the past. An archivist at Audi Tradition stated: AT: In companies, a major anniversary generally constitutes a reason for restructuration, the employment of personnel, and an occasion for an increase in demand for history-related contents. They normally produce an elaborate centennial publication for which they require [historical] material. In consequence, the archive and the collection [of historical artifacts] increase in importance. (Ethno. 8, l. 92)

In case of the 1973 centennial, a historical archive and a vehicle collection were not yet in existence. However, the anniversary constituted a genuine occasion for writing the first official corporate history publication that was also distributed to an external audience. Entitled “100 Jahre Rad der Zeit” [100 year wheel of time] (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1973), the small brochure, already mentioned in chapter 5.3.2, was intended to accompany the centennial festivities and the exhibition (Ethno. 13, l. 20). Interestingly, the first edition of “Rad der Zeit” did not embrace August Horch as the founder of the corporation, but began the historical narrative with the much older NSU. In fact, the publication dedicated only less than a third of its content to pre-war Auto Union AG and its predecessors, with the majority of the account concentrating on the products and developments of NSU. The reason for this is fourfold: First of all, the headquarters of Audi NSU Auto Union AG were relocated to Neckarsulm during the early 1970s, which is why the focus on NSU can be interpreted as a corporate-political statement. Second, the Neckarsulm public relations unit had been commissioned to work the corporate past of the local plant because the centenary essentially celebrated the foundation of NSU in 1873. Third, the corporate archive in Neckarsulm was considerably better provisioned than the one in Ingolstadt, resulting in more source material that could be used for the construction of a historical narrative. And fourth, the idea to include a short history of Auto Union was more of an additional concession to the merger (Ethno. 86, l. 171). Corporate history was, quite frankly, a product of its time, and influenced by contemporary company agendas.

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Inspired by the popularity of the NSU-centric centennial, the Audi division in Ingolstadt decided to follow suit and show the public “what its [distant] past had to offer” (Ethno. 61, l. 141). A few years later, they published a product-oriented corporate history brochure entitled “Von Horch zu Audi” [From Horch to Audi] (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1977). Simultaneously, an exhibition was installed at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. It displayed a small selection of historical motor vehicles and engines (DK, 1977, July 1; 1977, July 2/3). However, the corporation did not yet possess its own collection of historical motor vehicles. According to an informant, “Auto Union used to have a small collection of historical motor vehicles in the 1950s, but it was eventually taken over by Volkswagen and transported to Wolfsburg” (Ethno. 6, l. 94). To furnish the exhibition, the Deutsches Museum was asked to contribute a selection of exhibits from their own motor vehicle collection, which they had once obtained from Auto Union AG in the 1930s (Ethno. 51, l. 198; cf. Deutsches Museum, 2012). The exhibition led to the first discussions of erecting a local automobile museum in Ingolstadt (DK, 1977, September 28). The city council expressed interest in such a project, wishing in this way to boost regional tourism, which also made them stakeholders in the corporate past. However, sources of funding remained unclear, and the company finally assessed that they did “not intend to build a corporate museum” (DK, 1978, February 8, p. 11; cf. 1978, October 17). The mid1970s was also the time when the ‘sweeping of the archives,’ mentioned above, occurred. This particular wave of organizational forgetting was a major set-back in the company’s burgeoning interest in its past.

7.2.4 Organizational remembrance as an ethical obligation and a feature of public relations The next attempt by Audi NSU Auto Union AG to ‘work’ its past commenced under the leadership of Wolfgang Habbel. As elected chairman of the board of management from 1979 to 1987 (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2001), he was recalled to have been the first CEO who exhibited an “understanding of the importance of the past for Audi” (Ethno. 43, l. 93). Habbel was credited as having “established a culture of remembrance in a prototypical sense” (l. 93). According to a corporate historian: AT: Habbel was very history savvy […]. There had been some on-again-off-again attempts to do a bit more with history before, […] but nobody had truly dared to touch it. And the right point in time had arrived with Habbel. (Int. 28, l. 16)

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In this context, Habbel reportedly expressed the opinion that “it is a disgrace to see how Audi mistreats its past” (Ethno. 43, l. 93), desiring instead that the company retain and pass on the work experiences of older generations. Habbel, for instance, arranged meetings between old and young managers (Ethno. 43, l. 59). Labeled as socially responsible “care for the elderly” (Int. 28, l. 164), these meetings provided an institutionalized setting for the inter-generational exchange of ideas. The period under Habbel also saw an increase in public relations efforts to employ history-related content. A new chief press officer had been hired who aimed to generate more publicity through “classical public relations [topics], such as motorsports and history” (Int. 1, l. 51). The PR division created an item in their budget called “tradition,” for which they “allocated a considerable amount of money” (Int. 29, l. 346). Individual ‘tradition projects,’ however, were still “scarce” (Int. 29, l. 346). In 1979, for example, the body of a pre-war Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ Grand Prix race car, which had been donated to the Deutsches Museum, was rebuilt. The restoration process was financed and executed by Audi, as it provided “a good ‘peg’ for publicity-related actions [during the upcoming] anniversary celebrations of the Deutsches Museum [in 1980]” (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1979, October 12, p. 1; cf. DK, 1979, November 26). In an attempt to eventify history, “the resurrected ‘Silver Arrow’ performed a lap of honor at the Nürburgring” (DK, 1980, August 21, p. 5). The case of Wolfgang Habbel points both to the fact that official organizational remembrance strongly depended on the sympathy and support of the contemporary CEO, and that managers in a business unit saw a legitimate purpose in ‘working’ the past.

7.2.5 Reaching out to external stakeholders of the corporate past In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a lively classic car enthusiast scene began demanding more support from the company. Several clubs complained that Audi NSU Auto Union AG was neglecting its product-related heritage (Ethno. 32, l. 89). Fans of post-war two-stroke DKW models, in particular, did not feel represented by the scattered acts of official organizational remembrance. According to a long-time aficionado, clubbers accused the company of trying to “hush up and suppress the meager DKW past,” because corporate efforts predominantly embraced the upscale Horch brand and Auto Union ‘Silver Arrow’ race cars (l. 89), if they embraced any aspect of the past at all. These accusations generated negative publicity. As a strategy of appeasement, Habbel instructed that “special conditions were arranged” (Ethno. 54, l. 69). According to a ‘tradition worker’:

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AT: [Audi’s] public relations division brought the DKW Veterans Club on board. They said ‘We’ll give you [XX] Deutschmark, […] and you cultivate our tradition; but you have to rename yourself Auto Union Veterans Club, and you have to incorporate all brands.’ (Int. 29, l. 48)

Based on a collaborative agreement, the club was commissioned to represent the company in its efforts to ‘cultivate tradition.’ Renaming the club meant that the club now had formal obligation to represent all ‘tradition brands.’ ‘Tradition work’ was thus outsourced to an external stakeholder group which had a genuine passion for the topic. Clubbers had already developed a level of expertise possessed by no one else in the company, which, in turn, could be used fruitfully as an organization-external resource. One of the first AUVC events sponsored by Audi was a “summer tour” in the Ingolstadt region, where more than 300 “highly interesting automobiles produced by the old Auto Union” could be observed by the public (DK, 1982, September 16, p. 18). Coopted for public relations, the large congregation of privately-owned, pre- and post-war motor vehicles was staged as the product heritage of Audi NSU Auto Union AG. While these corporate efforts were a first step towards satisfying the demands of external stakeholders, the downside of outsourcing was that the company had little control over how money was actually spent (Int. 29, l. 52). Supposedly, “the club did not always do what they were supposed to do” (l. 52). In consequence, the PR division realized that they would have to become more active themselves.

7.2.6 The provisional formation of a historical archive in public relations The PR department first and foremost required historical material that could be exploited, but they were only in possession of an uncatalogued, highly fragmented collection. According to an informant, AT: There used to be a small reference archive [in PR] with random material, not sorted, not systematic; more like a few photographs, some old catalogues, some old customer magazines, which they used for covering the tradition topic in a rough-and-ready manner when it was opportune. (Int. 28, l. 24)

To increase the stock of historical material, the PR manager delegated a special side task to an employee who happened to be personally interested in history. An archivist recalled:

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AT: [Mr. X] used to be with the public relations department for ages, and some time […] before 1985 he received a special task from […] the former chief officer of the public relations division: ‘Collect everything you can find on the premises that proves our history. […] Why don’t you keep looking around the plant and find out what historical sources still exist physically.’ (Int. 29, ll. 90 – 94)

Given the unique task of conducting “archeology at the plant” (Ethno. 8, l. 90), a single employee began gathering documents, brochures, and photographs. Precious little had been left, so rescue efforts resembled “fire brigade work” (l. 96). Nevertheless, it was possible to gather a small collection. On paper, the collection received the formal designation of the “corporate historical archive” in 1983 (AUDI AG, 1993, p.1). Its objective was to “store existing and yet to be acquired materials that serve the documentation of the company’s corporate history, including its predecessor firms” (Audi NSU Auto Union AG, 1983, May 9, p. 1). Archival activities were explicitly restricted to “working within the field of public relations” (AUDI AG, 1993, p. 1), which indicates that the source of funding determined the framework within which the past was ‘worked.’ In its first years, the historical archive encountered some massive hiccups. For instance, most materials “date[d] back no further than approximately 1970” (AUDI AG, 1993, p. 1), which was a result of the wave of organizational forgetting that had swept over the corporation a decade before. Moreover, the majority of employees did not consider keeping their records for a time period beyond that which was legally required (Ethno. 6, l. 98), and there was no formal order that would have allowed the archive to automatically collect relevant documents. Therefore, the acquisition of historical materials had to be performed primarily informally (Ethno. 61, l. 195), relying heavily on chance, good luck, and personal relations with other employees who would retrieve and donate material out of a “personal motivation” (Ethno. 23, l. 196). Additional materials were also purchased from “external suppliers” on the private memorabilia market (Int. 29, l. 390). Concrete selection criteria were non-existent and/or driven by the personal preferences of the PR employee responsible for the archive. Despite this range of shortcomings, the first historical archive was a significant first step in countering the established practices of organizational forgetting.

7.3 Phase Two: Gathering and Protecting A second major step occurred in 1985. Independent of the founding of the small historical archive, the two ‘tradition companies,’ AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH, were founded in order to more effectively protect trademark rights. Rele-

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vant historical details about the renaming of Audi NSU Auto Union AG to AUDI AG have already been discussed in chapter 5.2, which is why the following sections address the creation of a formalized organizational structure for ‘cultivating tradition.’

7.3.1 The foundation of two ‘tradition companies’ Both tradition companies were placed under the control of the legal services unit, because the past was defined to concern contractual issues and intellectual property claims (Int. 29, l. 38). Legal services, as it happened, was directly subordinate to the CEO, Wolfgang Habbel, who made organizational remembrance into a matter of concern for top management (Ethno. 43, l. 93). In his opinion, there was no good argument against ‘working’ the past for legal protective reasons. As a corporate historian recounted: AT: It was the right time under Habbel; and the argument to [cultivate tradition] for legal reasons was unbeatable, of course, because nobody, not even Volkswagen or any other party, could criticize this. Quite frankly, it was a great protective factor in order to […] protect that delicate ‘tradition’ plant. (Int. 28, l. 16)

At first, however, these ‘tradition companies’ were not represented by any staff with dedicated job positions, office space, or a budget (Int. 28, l. 16). In order to transcend the status of shell companies, they “required a business purpose” (l. 16), and the official “cultivation of tradition” was considered a “self-evident” one (l. 24). What ‘cultivating one’s tradition’ actually meant in practice was not so clear, though, because there reportedly was no plan for what to do on an operational level (Ethno. 90, l. 122). This is the point at which cooperation with the historical archive was sought (cf. AUDI AG, 1985, May 3). As the part-time archivist also wanted to conduct activities that were not just PR-oriented, it was decided that the historical archive would be incorporated by the legal services division (AUDI AG, 1993). The transfer promised a range of benefits, providing the resources with which “archival activities could be intensified” (p. 4). For instance, internal documents of historical relevance could be seized and retained more easily now for ‘legal reasons.’ Under the protection of legal services, however, the historical archive did not just perform acts of organizational remembrance. According to two informants, an informal premise, which had been motivated by a range of contemporary product liability cases, used to be, “What we don’t have we don’t know, and what we don’t keep, we cannot be made accountable for” (Ethno. 26, l. 127). In consequence, various critical re-

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cords, which could have been used against the legal interests of the company at some point, were reportedly discarded after they exceeded the statutory period of ten years. On a smaller scale, selective organizational forgetting was thus still performed to protect the legal interests of AUDI AG. It was not just archival activities that commenced in the mid 1980s. After the ‘tradition companies’ were installed, AUDI AG bought its “first classic cars” in 1984 (AUDI AG, 1993, p. 3). From an expert’s perspective, some of these vehicles were later assessed to be “junk” (Int. 29, l. 376), but during that time, the majority of motor vehicles were selected with the same criteria as that used to acquire most of the archival material – the goal was simply to gather anything that was left in order to establish a basic stock of artifacts which would allow the company to ‘physically prove’ its past (Ethno. 61, l. 208). It was also the time when in-house restoration emerged as a cultural form of organizational remembrance (Ethno. 30, l. 117). ‘Tradition-cultivating’ activities increased as well and became more diversified at AUTO UNION GmbH. For instance, the tradition company arranged visits by personalities from Audi’s predecessor companies, such as Ove Rasmussen of DKW and Otto Winklhofer of Wanderer legacy. Contact with external historical archives was established (AUDI AG, 1993), oral history talks with former Auto Union AG employees took place (Int. 29, l. 40), the miniature model car collection was enlarged, additional motor vehicles were purchased, and a “nostalgia calendar 1986” was published (AUDI AG, 1993, p. 4). This increase in activities was accompanied by the first ‘tradition workers’ realizing that the official ‘cultivation of tradition’ could no longer be carried out as a side activity – i. e. by employees who were still conducting their regular jobs in the legal services and PR divisions. Change was necessary, for which the following incident proved a helpful catalyst.

7.3.2 Formalizing the ‘cultivation of tradition’ In the summer of 1985, a heated media debate about the non-existence of an automobile museum emerged for the second time (DK, 1985, August 8). As already discussed in another case above, local voices, once again, accused AUDI AG of neglecting its past. Citizens of Ingolstadt proclaimed that the company did not possess a historical consciousness and that the few acts of ‘working’ the past were insufficient (DK, 1985, August 20a; August 20b; 1985, August 21). As a response to the threat to the organizational image, AUDI AG decided to publicly celebrate the ‘75 years of Audi’ brand anniversary in 1985, already discussed in chapter 5.4.3. Moreover, the director of the ‘tradition company’ publicly an-

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nounced that his aim was to “primarily cultivate the long tradition of the plant,” for which a “10 point plan” had been created (DK, 1985, August 24/25, p. 23). The statement signaled that the company was serious about ‘working’ its past. To approach the ‘tradition topic’ more professionally, an industry-wide study was secretly commissioned by AUTO UNION GmbH, which was meant to produce a comparative analysis of how competitors were managing their own histories, and what kind of infrastructure was required in order to do so (Ethno. 83, l. 598). Based on the results, a master concept was formulated (see AUTO UNION GmbH, 1985). The internal document outlined ten ‘work areas’ to be covered by the ‘tradition company:’ 1) the legal preservation of the company emblem and trademarks of AUTO UNION; 2) the historical archive; 3) a collection of classic motor vehicles; 4) the purchase and restoration of pre-war motor vehicles; 5) the retention of new motor vehicles; 6) PR activities employing the tradition topic; 7) club support; 8) support of individual aficionados; 9) rudimentary spare parts support; and 10) the “planning and preparation of founding an automobile museum in Ingolstadt” (p. 6). Moreover, it was proposed that the ‘tradition company’ should receive its own budget, work space, and three dedicated, full-time employees. The document was then proposed to, and approved by, the board of management (Ethno. 83, l. 598). The official establishment of a unit working on ‘tradition,’ however, had been far from an uncontested matter. Extensive lobbying efforts, which had been executed by supporters of the ‘tradition cause’ inside and outside the company, had urged management to make a positive decision. Interestingly, the core argument had been an ethical one, which is demonstrated by the following extract. In the preface to the internal master concept, the director of the ‘tradition company’ wrote: Where does AUDI AG stand with its cultivation of tradition? […] Taking a review of the situation, it is surprising to see that a consciousness of tradition is emerging at AUDI only slowly, despite the fact that AUDI may be the automobile company in the world that is the richest in tradition. […] In light of such richness in tradition, one must wonder why the consciousness of tradition at AUDI is relatively weak. It is carried by a few, predominantly older employees but also, surprisingly, by a continuously growing number of very young employees. The latter point gives us a reason to hope. Overall, however, the cultivation of tradition is being neglected, and one could receive the impression that AUDI is well on its way to create an irreversible blemish in its history. […] Meanwhile, other automobile companies that are considerably less rich in tradition, such as VW, BMW, Daimler Benz, and Porsche, cultivate their tradition with far more commitment, displaying their more or less elaborate tradition in a far more effective way. […] AUDI is publicly accused of showing ‘blatant disdain’ for consciousness of tradition. It ‘conjures up disappointment and irritation on a widespread level to such a degree that Dr. Richard Bruhn and Dr. Carl Hahn […] would turn over in their graves if they realized how such negligence led their lifetime

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achievement slide into oblivion’ […]. The cultivation of tradition as a ‘side job,’ as currently conducted by AUDI (for whatever reason), damages the image of our company. Therefore, one should either completely abandon the cultivation of tradition (justifying it to the public), or one should take the cultivation of tradition serious by launching a concept that is well-conceived at least in the medium run. (AUTO UNION GmbH, 1985, pp. 1– 3)

This lengthy extract demonstrates that the issue of official organizational remembrance transcended purely business-oriented rationales. ‘Richness in tradition’ was fashioned as an asset that the company possessed but did not take proper care of because of their lack of ‘historical consciousness.’ By framing this discrepancy as an ethical deficiency, the need to ‘work’ the past was framed as a moral obligation toward previous generations whose achievements must be honored and not forgotten. This line of argumentation appealed to the basic human desire for retrospection and diachronic cohesion (McDonald & Méthot, 2006), and was only rendered more convincing by alluding to potential business threats organizational forgetting could pose, such as competitive disadvantage with regard to other automobile firms and the danger of risking severe damage to one’s organizational image. After the ‘cultivation of tradition’ became formally legitimated, the range and amount of ‘tradition work’ expanded. Various employees of AUDI AG, who had secretly stored documents during the ‘purge of the archives,’ eventually came forward and decided to contribute material (Ethno. 61, l. 199). Two ‘tradition workers’ recalled: AT: There were a couple of people with foresight here who hid stuff from [Volkswagen]. They relocated it someplace else, only to preserve it. One of those people was [the head] of the central archive. He also didn’t throw away everything according to the rules, but put it aside. […] Material that was supposed to get scrapped didn’t go into the wastepaper bin this way. […] Unofficially, he [gathered] quite a lot, because he lamented, ‘Hey, so many photographs that have to be [thrown away].’ […] He probably didn’t have the heart to do so. It didn’t really concern any page-long files and protocols, so it was more about photographs, brochures, and what not. He collected all of that. (Int. 29, ll. 440 – 464)

Thus various members of the organization, whose job was not necessarily to ‘work’ the past, nevertheless did just that, because their informal membership roles did include a kind of historical consciousness – a moral obligation. This kind of personal commitment was instrumental in accumulating initial material for the historical archive. Besides the collection of historical documents, another main goal was to prepare a motor vehicle collection “that was representative for a museum” (Int. 29, l. 480). Investment requests granted by the CEO made it possible to venture into the pricier territory of pre-war motor vehicles.

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7.3.3 The emergence of historical accountability In the mid- to late 1980s, supporters of the ‘tradition cause’ developed a growing interest in the historical reconstruction of the company’s past. They wanted to understand the deeper story behind the ‘tradition brands,’ the vehicles one owned or might acquire, and the predecessor companies that had produced them. However, the source material available for examination at the historical archive was still fragmentary and barely systematized at this point in time. Furthermore, the majority of pre-war business records were still located in various archives in the Eastern block. To reconstruct the past, AUDI AG arranged a deal with select East German universities (Ethno. 83, l. 602). In exchange for ‘hard currency,’ several studies about the pre-war past of Auto Union AG were commissioned and assigned to a group of East German scholars who had exclusive access rights to the archives in Saxony. Scholars from the University of Transportation ‘Friedrich List’ in Dresden, for instance, “suddenly came forward with photographs and numbers from the pre-war period that had not been known before” (Int. 29, l. 408; cf. DK, 1990, November 16). Through contract work, academics thus became external stakeholders in the corporate past. The emergence of new source material led to the realization that previous, and even recent, historical accounts published by the company were insufficient and factually wrong in parts (Ethno. 61, l. 143). For example, the 1989 edition of Das Rad der Zeit (AUDI AG, 1989) was completely revised in order to account for the newly acquired knowledge. Authentic historical accountability was a purpose of organizational remembrance that became more and more important, and this resulted directly in the commissioning of the two-volume publication mentioned previously, entitled Im Zeichen der Vier Ringe (AUDI AG, Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, 1992, 1995). As a next step towards becoming more accountable for its past, German reunification played a crucial role for AUDI AG. The opening of borders within Germany and the abolishment of trade restrictions around 1990 “finally gave us access to our history” (Int. 1, l. 113), as a PR employee recalled. Historical sources suddenly became available, and it was no longer necessary to go through a highly restrictive third party. A corporate historian remarked, “Now that we had the documents, we also had the facts” (Ethno. 61, l. 124). Documentation efforts increased tremendously, and several “research assignments” were commissioned by Audi and assigned to independent academic scholars (Int. 28, l. 134). For instance, an elaborate inventory [Findbuch] of Auto Union, Horch, Audi, and DKW records stored in the Saxon archives was created by Kukowski (2000). The new tool made archival content retrievable for further research activities. As demonstrated here, organizational remembrance was not only dependent on a compa-

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ny’s willingness to ‘work’ its past, but also on the current state of historical source material, and the expertise of the people involved in the process of historical reconstruction.

7.3.4 Tentatively functionalizing the past for public relations Until the early 1990s, the few members of the ‘tradition company’ predominantly saw themselves as “collectors and preservers” (Int. 29, l. 324), as a long-term ‘tradition worker’ recalled. In this original understanding, a “functional partition” between those who did ‘tradition work’ and those who exploited the past for PR and marketing purposes was desired (Int. 29, l. 574). In practice, however, this divide was not particularly strict; in fact, this divide was not even intended by the company, as the master concept document mentioned above illustrates (AUTO UNION GmbH, 1985). The same informant also reported that the ‘tradition company’ had already organized a handful of PR events, but “everything was [conducted] on a small scale with a small budget” (l. 56). For instance, there was the 1986 Mille Miglia vintage car rally in Italy (Int. 29, l. 56), and in 1989 there was a temporary public exhibition entitled “Zeitprofile: 40 Jahre Audi in Ingolstadt” [Time profiles: 40 years of Audi in Ingolstadt] (Int. 29, l. 280). Installed at an old fortification structure in the local old town, the exhibition celebrated the company’s 40-year plant anniversary at the Ingolstadt site by displaying motor vehicles and “archival treasures” the ‘tradition company’ had collected over the last five years (Int. 29, l. 618). The public reception was positive (cf. DK, 1989, September 29), and the director of AUDI AG’s PR division was thrilled by the overall success. A long-term marketing manager recalled, VM: [It] was super successful, an extremely beautiful exhibition. It fueled the whole discussion about the museum again, so [PR] said, ‘OK, we have […] an incredible history, indeed; we also have to show it somewhere.’ (Int. 18, l. 258)

A discussion about an automobile museum in Ingolstadt re-emerged for the third time. However, the idea lacked support by the new top management that had replaced Wolfgang Habbel and his entourage. The late 1980s and early 1990s were a time in which the new CEO, Ferdinand Piëch, had set a decidedly future-oriented course. Another wave of organizational forgetting swept over the corporation. Various informants maintained that the corporate past was a topic that neither found internal support nor overwhelming external promotion under Piëch. While the ‘tradition company’ was still able to carry on with its activities, a long-term member recalled that there had been anxieties about being “made redundant”

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(Int. 29, l. 282). This demonstrates that official organizational remembrance did not follow a course of constant progress. As with any economy, it displayed upturns, downturns, and idle periods. Official organizational remembrance could stagnate or nearly disappear altogether if factors were not present to support and advance ‘tradition work.’ As mentioned before, support from top management, or, in this case, lack thereof, had a strong influence on organizational remembrance.

7.3.5 Rudimentary ventures into ‘tradition marketing’ The next major event providing impetus for ‘tradition work’ coincided with the re-installment of the marketing and sales unit in Ingolstadt, which took place in the early 1990s after Piëch’s transfer to Volkswagen (Int. 29, l. 270). This time was said to have been characterized by “a sudden leap in all [tradition] activities – inquiries to the archive, requests for the release of exhibits [i. e. vintage automobiles], and so on” (l. 270). The newly founded marketing and sales unit decided to tentatively exploit the corporate past for their own purposes, for which they relied on the ‘tradition company.’ New marketing staff, who had been enticed away from established premium brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz, brought in new ideas regarding how to further the Audi brand. A “brand concept” was developed that was formulated as follows: “Where does Audi actually come from, where do we want to go, how do we see ourselves in comparison with the competition, and what strategy do we want to pursue concerning the future?” (Int. 31, l. 14). To advance the brand, marketing also experimented with specific elements of the distant past. The Horch brand, for example, was identified as a potentially viable ‘vehicle’ for supporting contemporary efforts at marketing premium automobiles (Ethno. 90, l. 122). In 1992, AUDI AG inaugurated its first “delivery center” at the Ingolstadt plant – a prototypical ‘brand world’ where customers could pick up their new vehicles (Int. 23, l. 138). It was the same year that the ‘tradition company’ opened its first exhibition hall on the company premises (Int. 29, l. 476). Dubbed the “historical collection” (AUDI AG, 1993, p. 6), the exhibition hall presented a selection of thirty to forty vintage motor vehicles (Int. 29, l. 476). Customers were offered a guided tour, which was given by retired employee volunteers who led visitors through the assortment of vehicles, model cars, historic pictures, posters, and memorabilia (AUDI AG, 1993). Once a week, the exhibition hall was also open to the workforce and external parties. Among the workforce, the existence of a collection of vintage vehicles that was permanent and open for visitation was

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said to have led to a gradual “rise in internal awareness” about corporate history (Int. 28, l. 476). Simultaneously, a single member of the marketing unit (as the account goes) became more and more interested in finding ways of “marketing the cultivation of tradition” in more strategic terms (Int. 31, l. 18). The long-term goal was to communicate, advertise, and sell corporate history to an external audience in a way that would support contemporary brand identity claims. Viable forms of organizational remembrance were identified as history merchandise, such as model toy cars, and ‘tradition’ events. This idea was eventually picked up in 1993 by the public relations division, the director of which also secured financial support – despite the fact that marketing did not technically fall within the scope of his division. Now armed with a dedicated budget, the PR division gradually developed a small but relatively consistent program of ‘tradition’ events. For example, in 1993, a festive event entitled “125 years August Horch” celebrated the birthday of the late August Horch. Moreover, an Audi Motorsports exhibition began, displaying seventy historical posters from pre- and post-war times which had been collected by the historical archive (AUDI AG, 1993). Participation in various vintage car rallies followed (Int. 31, l. 18). The public relations division thus assumed the role of an internal stakeholder of the corporate past, as it conducted official acts of organizational remembrance. In 1995, internal talks emerged in the highest ranks about the erection of a corporate history museum – for the fourth time. They were initiated by the new chairman of the board of management, Herbert Demel (Int. 31, l. 26). If built at all, a museum was intended to support the contemporary brand identity construction of Audi via the ‘corporate history track.’ The location of the building, however, was up for discussion. Members of the marketing and sales unit argued that Ingolstadt was not a valid option (Int. 28, l. 56), because the city’s provincial image was deemed an obstacle to the reinvention of the brand as ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘sophisticated.’ Marketing and sales wished to use the museum to woo new customers in foreign markets who were undecided about their purchasing decision and less acquainted with the Audi brand. Metropolises such as Berlin, Munich, New York, and Tokyo were assessed as viable locations with a significantly greater impact on sales than Ingolstadt (Int. 29, l. 282). This attitude reportedly “caused us a sore throat at first” (Int. 28, l. 54), as a long-time ‘tradition worker’ recalled. In contrast to some proponents in marketing and sales, the members of the ‘tradition company’ saw the museum not only as a place in which corporate history could be exhibited to the public, but also as a site of remembrance for the local workforce. Fortunately for the ‘tradition cause,’ the museum issue led to a major cultural clash inside AUDI AG that transcended the concerns of the staff of the tradition company. This marketing stunt,

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as well as others which had attempted to mitigate the ‘Ingolstadt factor’ for brand identity building purposes, caused “a major outcry among the local workforce” (Ethno. 53, l. 22). Workers reproached the marketing unit for “lacking pride in the region” (l. 22). Their organizational identity construction as “hemdsärmelige Bayern” [pragmatic Bavarians] who had manufactured motor vehicles bearing the ‘Four Rings’ emblem for five decades, was inextricably bound up with the local production site (Int. 18, l. 102). Inside the organization, the discussion about the corporate museum rendered a normally subliminal cultural conflict between non-local newcomers and established locals in the workforce all too apparent.

7.4 Phase Three: Going Public on a Grand Scale By the late 1990s, AUDI AG had completely revamped its product portfolio. While the ‘Four Rings’ gradually became accepted among customers as an “up-andcoming brand” (Int. 10, l. 92), the new image lacked the ‘special something’ that would allow them to “compete with other brands on the same level” (Int. 31, l. 32). A PR employee recalled: PR: In the golden 1990s and 2000s, Audi stood for technology, high-tech engineering, and [our brand strategists] realized that this was very frigid, and that one would have to bring in a bit more emotion. And one could say ‘Where do we come from?’ (Int. 1, l. 161)

The general public had perceived Audi as an “extremely young premium brand,” which did not really possess an extensive history (Int. 23, l. 250; cf. FAZ, 2003, May, 26). At best, Audi was recalled to have descended from “those smelly two-stroke DKWs” (Int. 10, l. 326), while the pre-war past was largely unknown. This also had to do with the fact that the efforts of the ‘tradition company’ were barely visible to an external audience (Int. 31, l. 18). This, however, was to change substantially with the serious introduction of tactics focusing on brand emotionalization on the ‘history track.’

7.4.1 History as a personal preference of a CEO In 1997, Franz-Josef Paefgen took over the lead as the new CEO (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2001). Paefgen reportedly proclaimed, “It is not acceptable that a manufacturer that wants to be premium is treating its history like this” (Ethno. 8, l. 84). According to various informants, the ‘tradition topic,’ which had been ne-

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glected by the previous two CEOs, eventually “became established with, and because of, Paefgen” (Int. 29, l. 288). As “a very history-savvy” (Ethno. 12, l. 80), “classic-car-minded” (Int. 1, l. 153) “promoter of the history cause” (Int. 29, l. 292), Paefgen initiated an “era” of organizational remembrance (Ethno. 61, l. 181). Under his lead, the focus shifted to marketing the ‘tradition topic.’ Paefgen ordered the creation of a new master concept for professionally ‘working’ the corporate past (Int. 31, l. 18). He argued that a range of upcoming anniversaries in 1999 posed opportune occasions for increasing externally directed activities (l. 18), for which sufficient organizational structures and staff were required. Based on the new master concept, two “explicit objectives of the CEO” were launched (Int. 28, l. 52): Firstly, a new corporate history department, called Audi Tradition, was created. Existing under the directive of the communications unit, the department was awarded the role of an institutionalized carrier of organizational remembrance. Paefgen was cited as saying, “It is our concern to demonstrate to the public and to our employees that the proverbial ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ did not just start with the Audi quattro or turbocharged direct injection [TDI]” (Ethno. 27, l. 90). History marketing efforts were meant to demonstrate that contemporary AUDI AG was part of a long tradition of building technologically innovative motor vehicles. And secondly, it was decided that the company would finally erect a corporate museum in Ingolstadt (cf. DK, 1997, December 4) – a monumental site of remembrance where corporate history would be staged primarily for marketing purposes (Int. 31, l. 214). The new corporate history department was to prepare the content for the permanent exhibition, select and provide the motor vehicles, and arrange for their complete restoration in time for the grand opening in 2000 (Int. 31, l. 18). There was an explicit reason why the museum was to be built on site. It was, in fact, part of a larger project called “corporate identity at the Ingolstadt site” (Int. 30, l. 16). Initiated in 1997, the project had included the planning of the Audi Forum ‘brand world,’ in the context of which the museum was to represent ‘the corporate past.’ In addition to fulfilling a customer-oriented marketing purpose, the decision to build a museum in Ingolstadt was also interpreted as a sign of self-confidence that triggered a wave of pride extending across the organization. Paefgen was credited as the CEO, as a ‘tradition worker’ pointed out, who “understood that it is way more important to demonstrate this kind self-determination at the core plant – Here we are, here we present our history, here we live, here we work” (Int. 28, l. 54). The museum confirmed that the ‘Ingolstadt factor’ was a genuine part of the Audi brand identity.

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7.4.2 The foundation of Audi Tradition The new corporate history department was formally founded in 1998. Simultaneously, the purpose of the two ‘tradition companies,’ AUTO UNION GmbH and NSU GmbH, was re-evaluated. According to a corporate historian, they “didn’t have any real meaning anymore, had outgrown this narrow cocoon of [legally protecting trademark rights], and needed new fields of activity now” (l. 60). Both tradition companies were thus integrated into Audi Tradition (Ethno. 48, l. 219), and the new director of Audi Tradition also became the managing director of the two tradition companies. The idea behind the transfer was that existing assets, such as the collection of classic motor vehicles and the historical archive, could be used to provide additional services (Ethno. 61, l. 208). In the course of the transfer, the corporate history department was assigned the formal organizational structure which was also encountered during fieldwork. Existing ‘tradition workers’ were integrated into the new staff roster, which had also substantially increased in size (Int. 1, l. 109). Their professional knowledge, experience, skills, and connections with other stakeholder groups were considered valuable capital. Of course, they still identified with their previous jobs at Auto Union GmbH, which is why they commonly recalled the foundation of Audi Tradition to have also included an “inheriting” of the “groundwork” the two ‘tradition companies’ had initially laid (Ethno. 61, l. 208). What mattered to them, though, was that Paefgen’s new course promised “an upturn” for the ‘tradition topic’ in terms of job stability for the employees and financial support for operations (Int. 29, l. 336). It was also decided that new premises would be erected in order to bring together the historical archive, office space, and the car collection under one roof, and the new infrastructure substantially improved logistics. The fact that the department was granted its own building was also a sign that ‘working’ the past was now considered important.

7.4.3 A new corporate history department striving for recognition The first years of the corporate history department were marked by the occasional hurdle. Tensions inside the company had emerged because established structures had been rearranged when a handful of departments transferred select responsibilities to Audi Tradition (Ethno. 6, l. 92). For instance, the legal services unit reportedly took issue with the fact that they had to turn over files and records stored in the historical archive to a department in the public relations division (l. 92). From their perspective, they were giving away sensitive ‘internal

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material’ to an entity that was primarily concerned with external communication. Similarly, the motorsports unit had their own hesitations when Audi Tradition announced that they wanted to collect and drive racecars for show. External stakeholders, too, were reported to have had mixed feelings about Audi’s efforts at ‘working’ the past. The corporate history department had been “laughed at” in public at first (Int. 1, l. 137), as a respondent remembered, because competitors such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz had well-established history departments with both more employees and considerably more resources available. Audi Tradition thus had to earn its reputation and strive for recognition before it would be acknowledged as a legitimate carrier of organizational remembrance. Two events reportedly paved the way: The 1999 centennial anniversary celebrations of the Horch brand and the 2000 opening of the Audi museum mobile. Both events attracted internal and external stakeholders’ attention to the ‘tradition topic.’ A manager from human resources recalled, “As of 1999, they realized that the company had a bigger history than those smelly [DKW] two-stroke engines” (Int. 10, l. 326). He added, “I believe that the [currently valid] construction of history was set up in 1999 […] with that anniversary” (l. 330). It marked a point when “tradition workers, marketing people, and speechwriters” decided to construct and promote a brand-identity oriented version of the corporate past that managed to establish a “coherent lineage” from the ancient Horch vehicles to present-day Audi (l. 322). This was the very same version that was presented in the museum.

7.4.4 Inaugurating the corporate museum The Audi museum mobile was inaugurated in 2000. Primarily designed as a marketing tool, it advanced a venerating, product-centric version of the corporate past. Because of its visibility, the museum was interpreted as the embodiment of a new ‘historical consciousness’ inside the company. It was a place that managed to put the complexity of the corporate past into perspective. The feedback from journalistic media could not have been more positive. The Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ, 2000, December 15) published an article entitled, “Car history to touch – the ‘museum mobile’ displays one hundred years of Audi tradition in completely new […] form” (p. V2/1). While the museum was also called out as “a monument Audi created for itself” (SZ, 2000, December 16, p. V3/25) and a “marketing instrument” that was “staging […] brand history” (SPON, 2003, December 12, para. 6), the museum was generally acknowledged as an attraction that was long overdue. An article by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ, 2000, December 19), for instance, was entitled, “Audi discovers its own au-

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tomobile history rather late” (para. 1; cf. DK, 2000, December 16/17). The public interpreted the building as a sign that the company had finally come to acknowledge its historical roots. The positive media coverage, in turn, drew more and more people to the museum, leading them to develop an interest in Audi’s history, and thus, too, became stakeholders in the corporate past.

7.5 Phase Four: Hitting the Apex In the 2000s, the “tradition topic flourished tremendously under Paefgen” (Ethno. 32, l. 206). Much of it had to do with the fact that marketing strategists increasingly used “history as a driver of prestige” (Int. 18, l. 206) and “an instrument within marketing” (l. 256), as a high-ranking manager of the unit recalled. Thanks to a new brand identity building strategy, ‘tradition’ was eventually acknowledged as an important aspect, well deserving of the resources allocated to it. It encouraged other stakeholders inside the organization to consider ‘working’ the past, as well.

7.5.1 Diversification and professionalization of ‘tradition work’ At Audi Tradition, the eventification of history became increasingly important, and along with it the cultural forms of organizational remembrance that enabled this, such as classic car rallies and other types of publicly visible driving events. Moreover, there was also a substantial increase in collaboration with external media outlets. External events were sponsored, and articles with ‘tradition content’ were planted in journalistic publications. Additionally, there was an increase in historical publications aimed at customers and aficionados. Focusing on the product- and technology-related past, the corporate history department compiled and released various books. With the name serving as a “quality seal” meant to guarantee “that everything we write in there is 99.5 % true” (Ethno. 28, l. 208), Audi Tradition wished to be acknowledged as a serious player in the classic car scene. Activities increased in all formally defined areas of ‘tradition work.’ New areas and new staff were added after top management was convinced that additional stakeholder groups should to be catered to, as well. While an increase in, and diversification of, official organizational remembrance were born from a rise in demand, it was up to the ‘tradition workers’ to claim new responsibilities and allocate sufficient resources. Evolution was not simply matter of course, but de-

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pended on proposals and negotiations with the head of the communications unit and top management.

7.5.2 Celebrating a brand centennial There was a single event the majority of respondents univocally identified as the “apex” of organizational remembrance (Int. 1, l. 145) – the ‘100 years of Audi’ brand anniversary celebrated in 2009. Despite the historical inaccuracy involved in conducting it one year too early,⁴⁶ the event was reported to have raised tremendous “awareness” among the workforce and the general public that Audi had “quite a proper history” (Int. 8, l. 46). The event was accompanied by a noticeable increase in ‘tradition work,’ which was enabled by the additional resources top management had granted. The corporate history department also collaborated intensively with product communications, marketing, human resources, journalists, car clubs, and other stakeholders. The year-long event was elaborately covered by numerous internal and external media outlets (e. g., Automobilwoche Edition, 2009, July; Die Zeit, 2009, July 17; FAZ, 2009, January 31; SPON, 2009, February 2; Stern, 2009, July 16). Furthermore, the 2009 centennial put brand history on an international map. Foreign audiences, who had rarely been exposed to representations of the Audi-related past before, could now learn about it (e. g., Automovil, 2009, August; L’Automobile, 2009, June; The Telegraph, 2009, June 2). Audi Tradition and the affiliated communications departments abroad had made sure to publicize the topic on a grand scale. In light of these efforts, members of the corporate history department concluded that the overall development of their institution had been “amazing” (Ethno. 65, l. 137), and they were proud of it. Similarly, a marketing manager, who had been with AUDI AG since the mid-1980s, evaluated the development of ‘tradition work’:  While AUDI AG had celebrated ‘75 years of Audi’ in 1985 (cf. DK, 1985, November 28), the brand centennial was not celebrated in 2010, as simple mathematics would imply, but one year earlier. The year of celebration was historically inaccurate, however. The Audi brand had only been registered in 1910 (cf. AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2005). One year before, August Horch had merely founded his second company, August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH, which was later renamed into Audi Automobilwerke m.b.H after the new brand name had been registered (cf. AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009). A handful of employees thus pointed out the “constructedness of the so-called 100-year brand anniversary” (Ethno. 74, l. 296). An informant dismissed the stunt as “a fuzziness of one year” that had occurred because the corporation did not want to come too close to Daimler AG’s “125 years of the automobile” anniversary, which was celebrated in 2011 (l. 296).

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VM: Audi Tradition first and foremost is a success story in my opinion. […] When I started [at AUDI AG], historical consciousness was rather rudimentary. It was truly just a few individual people who cared for the [tradition topic] with a very personal dedication. And this successive shift towards tradition […] is not a matter taken for granted. […] The fact that [the company] pays attention to [tradition] has developed gradually, or that it also utilizes [tradition] to […] advance the brand. In this respect, Audi Tradition has come quite a long way – a very successful way, as a matter of fact. (Int. 18, ll. 288 – 292)

‘Tradition workers’ were praised by other units as having shown an exceptional degree of personal dedication, which in turn convinced the company to pay more attention to, and instrumentalize, its past. Statements like this give the impression that official organizational remembrance must have only increased in quality and quantity. However, various ‘tradition workers’ also expressed the unsettling feeling that the 2009 brand centennial had constituted an unmatched “peak” which the subsequent efforts “could not live up to” (Ethno. 25, l. 26). Based on the observation that some parties were showing traces of fatigue concerning the ‘tradition topic,’ they hypothesized that their field of work could lose relevance in the near future. These concerns were amplified by contemporary events that will be discussed next.

7.5.3 Fears of ebbing interest in the corporate past During the time of fieldwork, AUDI AG did exceptionally well in terms of sales and finances. Its brand image as an innovator, however, began to crumble. Numerous journalists reported that they no longer observed innovation and technological progressiveness in the company (e. g., Die Zeit, 2009, July 17; FOCUS, 2009, December 1; SPIEGEL, 2011, January 22; Autoblog.com, 2011, June 3). They criticized that the brand with the ‘Four Rings’ was currently not offering technologies that were cutting-edge in the same way that the quattro system, TDI engines, and the aluminum space frame construction had been in the old days. Recalling the milestones of yesteryear no longer sufficed to justify the Vorsprung durch Technik slogan. Instead, journalists demanded ‘genuine innovations,’ if they were still to believe in the brand slogan (e. g., SPON, 2013, June 4; SZ, 2013, April 20). In reaction to this criticism, the voices inside AUDI AG demanding a more future-oriented course became more audible. Young marketing and PR employees, in particular, made statements such as, “Actually, we would like to look way more into the future rather than doing all this history stuff. The future is simply more important than the past” (Ethno. 88, l. 30). From the perspective of Audi Tradition, these voices served as a warning signal that the company

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could potentially decrease its support of the ‘tradition cause.’ The issue reminded long-time ‘tradition workers’ of the attitude of disdain toward the past which had once been promoted by Ferdinand Piëch. The fear of decline was amplified by the sober realization that ‘cultivating tradition’ was a “luxury [the company] could afford for the time being” (Int. 30, l. 248), as a member of the museum pointed out. As mentioned in a previous chapter, ‘tradition workers’ carried out a ‘unique’ activity that was perceived as more or less ‘non-essential’ to the standard operations of an automobile business. In the case of a severe economic rupture, they expected to be the first ones released of their duty. Recent cases of severe decline in the automobile industry illustrated what was possible. For instance, General Motors auctioned off 100 classic cars as a result of the recession “to cut storage costs at its heritage centre” (Guardian, 2009, April 6, para. 2).

7.6 The Economic Cycle of Organizational Remembrance and Beneficial Factors Advancing the ‘Tradition Cause’ The changes in the way in which organizational remembrance was regarded by the company were symptomatic of a historical process that had been going on for decades. I identify this process as an economic cycle of organizational remembrance. All four phases discussed above contained moments in which official ‘tradition work’ increased, decreased, and stagnated. Boom periods led to evolution and differentiation in the purposes of remembrance and their respective cultural forms. ‘Mnemonic recessions,’ on the other hand, led to a decline in organizational remembrance and a corresponding rise in organizational forgetting. At first glance, factors that influenced the movement of the cycle are graspable in economic terms as a fluctuating relationship between supply and demand: The higher the demand for representations of the corporate past among external and internal stakeholders, the more the carriers of organizational remembrance were expected to ‘work’ the past, for which they received additional resources. The more ‘tradition offers’ were put on the market, the more people became exposed to, and interested in, the history topic. When demands for retrospection ebbed for various reasons, however, fewer resources were made available for the pursuit of ‘tradition work’ and acts of official organizational remembrance declined. Among other aspects relevant to PR, the changing relationship between supply and demand for ‘tradition offers’ was monitored via a communications controlling system (Ethno. 9, l. 40; cf. Lindberg & Ostermann, 2009, June). AUDI AG used the system to log, for instance, the number of internal and external inqui-

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ries into the historical archive, hours spent on historical research, articles pitched to journalists, retrospective content successfully placed in magazines, corporate history books produced and sold, the outreach of PR initiatives, as well as other aspects related to ‘working’ the past that could be measured and accounted for. In this way, the communications arm hoped to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations (cf. Zerfaß & Buchele, 2008). More importantly, the system provided a systematic insight into shifts in the popularity of the ‘tradition cause’ and the varying amount of resources allocated for official organizational remembrance. At second glance, however, the economic cycle of organizational remembrance could not be grasped entirely in purely economic terms. While the availability of sufficient resources for ‘tradition work’ was a key factor in the overall development of the infrastructure required to carry it out, the previous chapters indicated that ups and downs also depended on a range of other aspects. Thus, nine economic and non-economic factors identified as the most salient during the time of fieldwork will be discussed next. While they were not the only factors with a positive impact on the evolution of the ‘tradition cause,’ they constituted the ones that propelled organizational remembrance and countered forgetting. Although derived from case-specific fieldwork at AUDI AG, they may also be more generally applicable to other corporate settings.

7.6.1 The existence of occasions for initiating remembrance The historical development process showed that the company first and foremost required an initial occasion to commence with the process of remembering. Various examples presented in the previous sections demonstrated that these occasions could be induced by external pressure (e. g. the need to justify one’s ‘dark past,’ public expectations to stop neglecting one’s history), legal necessity (e. g. to protect trademark rights), or a basic human desire for retrospection. Occasions catering to the latter category consisted of round company anniversaries, such as a centennial. Like an “impulse that bids a people to honour its past” (McDonald & Méthot, 2006, p. 307), the celebration of these anniversaries was socially accepted – even expected – in a corporate setting. Inquiries about historical details emerged from inside and outside the organization, which demanded that the company provide meaningful information. The nonexistence of a historical archive and the fact that relevant materials were not sufficiently available led to the realization that proper infrastructure was required to fulfill these needs. It provided the opportunity to create organizational structures and activities that had the potential to overcome the default mode of organizational forgetting.

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7.6.2 Support from top management Before anything could be done practically on a corporate level, decision-makers, such as the CEO and other members of top management, needed to be convinced of the viability of organizational remembrance. They had the power to decide the greater course of the organization, and they promoted the topics that would receive special attention. Since AUDI AG was a hierarchical business organization with seemingly autocratic structures, CEOs also had the power to ensure that special attention was paid to topics for which they had a personal preference. Various cases demonstrated than an increase in organizational remembrance was possible because of the personal support of ‘history-savvy’ chairmen. History-averse CEOs, on the other hand, tended to promote organizational forgetting.

7.6.3 Pursuing business-relevant purposes The advancement of the ‘tradition cause’ depended on whether it fulfilled a relevant business purpose. As several cases have demonstrated, ‘working’ the past could not happen merely for its own sake, but needed to serve as an instrument that helped to secure the future of the company – whether for purposes of public relations, marketing, or legal affairs. ‘Working’ the past had to at least convey the impression that it helped the company financially, that it was an investment with long-term benefits, and that it could serve as a driver of success by improving brand image and increasing employee identification.

7.6.4 Formalized organizational structures and institutionalization Another factor that was found to have contributed to an increase in organizational remembrance was the creation of sustainable means for remembering that were structurally embedded in the company. Departmental structures, distinct work areas, and dedicated job positions enabled corporate actors to manage history professionally. More importantly, the establishment of an entity fully dedicated to ‘working’ the past signaled that the company ascribed importance to its corporate history. Institutionalization occurred by presenting this dedicated entity as ‘something unique.’ The cultural meaning ascribed to Audi Tradition – e. g. that it constituted the ‘memory of the company’ – testified to the fact that organizational remembrance transcended a strictly business-oriented rationale.

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7.6.5 Sufficient resources and infrastructure For ‘tradition workers’ to carry out their job as intended, they required resources such as manpower, a budget, and a sufficiently advanced infrastructure for ‘working’ the past. The acquisition of sufficient resources, however, proved to be one of the most difficult tasks, mainly because the majority of activities involved in ‘working’ the past professionally were costly, but only generated minimal profit. The impression that ‘tradition work’ constituted a ‘luxury’ was amplified by the fact that its value could not necessarily be expressed in monetary terms. Other than short-lived marketing campaigns that directly boosted product sales, it was impossible to assign numbers to the economic output of the longterm ‘cultivation of tradition.’ Its value could be expressed in symbolic capital, and at best be translated into hard numbers via proxies. Calculating an improvement in brand image, for instance, was difficult, mainly because the quantitative value of a brand could be assessed only by approximation. This is typically done through a highly constructed set of proxies that are claimed to be representative (see e. g. Trommsdorff, 2004). Decision-makers who allocated resources simply had to believe that ‘working’ the past was an investment in the future that justified its costs. In a business environment dominated by obsessive quantification and controlling, the decision to finance official organizational remembrance thus has to be seen as a concession to the non-economic sphere, a manifestation of culturally rooted convictions, and an expression of the blind faith that ‘doing it is better than refraining from it.’

7.6.6 Individual activism and personal dedication An often overlooked driver of official organizational remembrance was a dedicated team of ‘tradition workers’ who embraced the history topic whole-heartedly. People who were personally convinced of the importance of the corporate past tended to do a better job at ‘working it’ than those who merely fulfilled the job requirements. At Audi Tradition, the staff went far beyond what was formally expected of them, which they demonstrated, for instance, by ‘working’ the corporate past in their private lives, as well. Some ‘tradition workers’ had managed to turn their hobby into a profession, and therefore their formal and informal membership roles often overlapped. On those occasions when formal support from the company ebbed, it was precisely their personal conviction which kept up practices of remembrance. Moreover, the personally motivated aficionados of the ‘tradition cause’ possessed a good network in the classic car scene,

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which meant that external resources could more easily be put to service for the company. Dedication to the ‘tradition topic’ as a driver of evolution, however, was not restricted to those who were professionally concerned with ‘working’ the corporate past. Numerous examples showed that employees of various business units unrelated to the corporate history department had informally supported the ‘tradition cause’ out of an obligation felt towards previous generations. I argue that these people acted within their informal roles as time-conscious members of the organization, which eventually assisted the company in overcoming of its cycles of organizational forgetting.

7.6.7 Gaining support from other stakeholder groups through lobbying Support from other stakeholder groups was necessary if the history topic was to become relevant to greater organizational life and the public sphere. Collaboration between Audi Tradition and other stakeholders made it possible to reach various types of audiences, and give them access to resources that would have been unavailable otherwise. Before collaboration could commence, however, a relationship first needed to be established. A network of remembrance had not existed from the start; it had to be formed through repeated interactions. Lobbying activities that promoted the ‘tradition topic’ proved helpful in this regard, and eliciting personal enthusiasm was a viable tactic for gaining support in professional matters. For example, a product marketing manager who had been invited to join a vintage car rally for fun was more likely to support the aims of the corporate history department than someone who had never had first-hand contact with the topic.

7.6.8 Competition My investigation found that a significant increase in official organizational remembrance occurred when corporate agents realized that competitors were miles ahead in ‘working’ their own pasts. Competitive fear of falling behind ignited corporate activism; successful ways of carrying out ‘tradition work’ were copied, adjusted, and exploited for one’s own purposes. The underlying rationale was that whatever worked for one company could also work for another. In consequence, the array of cultural forms of organizational remembrance encountered in the automobile industry was similar across manufacturers.

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Competition between stakeholder groups also proved beneficial when it only concerned the discourses about Audi’s past. Interpretative dominance over the past basically belonged to those who ‘worked’ it the most. The existence of counter-voices, who released representations of the corporate past that might diverge from official accounts, thus forced corporate agents to increase their level of activity. The absence of a monopoly and the existence of external stakeholders, who also fulfilled a monitoring function, encouraged internal stakeholders to hold their own ‘tradition offers’ to a high standard, which to some extent prevented the overt coopting and warping of history. This is the reason why, for instance, Audi Tradition released its own line of approved corporate history publications.

7.6.9 Continual reaffirmation Lastly, official organizational remembrance was not a matter of course. Strategies changed the way the company went about its business, which was demonstrated by the alternating cycles of remembrance and forgetting. Fears emerged that a new generation of employees might again disregard the importance of the corporate past. The fact that profits were not generated directly from the work meant that the field of ‘tradition work’ was prone to cutbacks in times of economic pressure. Carriers of organizational remembrance thus needed their work reaffirmed on a regular basis, in order to be assured that it was still relevant for the company. Systematic assessment of the actual impact specific cultural forms of remembrance had on various audiences helped the corporate history department to persuade others of the importance of their professional activities. It conveyed to decision makers in top management that official organizational remembrance did, in fact, make a positive difference for the company, and that it should not be abandoned.

7.7 Short Summary In this chapter, I argued that the ‘organizational culture of remembrance’ investigated at AUDI AG was, in fact, the result of an ongoing historical process of evolution and differentiation. The array of stakeholders, purposes, and cultural forms of organizational remembrance was found to have emerged gradually over time. For the better half of its existence, the company was assessed to have been in a default mode of organizational forgetting, which had only been punctuated by the occasional act of remembrance. I then showed how a chain

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of historical circumstances and catalysts propelled a gradual increase in ‘tradition work,’ which was here divided into four distinct phases. Different stakeholders emerged successively, and began pursuing their own purposes of remembrance, as well as creating new cultural forms with which to do this. This process slowly overcame the practices involved in organizational forgetting. Moreover, it was highlighted that the process was not one of continually increasing remembrance, but also one of stagnation and sometimes decline; hence the notion of an economic cycle of organizational remembrance. Finally, a list of beneficial factors found to have contributed to a general increase in official organizational remembrance was outlined and elaborated. It is one thing for a company to reconstruct its past in terms of ‘history’ and ‘tradition,’ and instrumentalize it to fulfill various business-related purposes. It is another for the members of the company in question to take ownership of that past, and decide to utilize it for their own needs. The next three chapters discuss the cultural impact organizational remembrance had on the workforce of AUDI AG.

8 The Emergence of Historical Consciousness among the Workforce The historical development process of official organizational remembrance had a significant impact on the workforce of AUDI AG. According to various informants, specific cultural forms, such as anniversaries and the corporate museum, had “caused a big change in historical consciousness” (Ethno. 74, l. 291). Members not only developed a sense that the company had an extensive past, but also acquired knowledge of what such a past encompassed. They became capable of structuring and narrating organizational experiences in terms of ‘corporate history.’ This knowledge clearly transcended their autobiographical time frames and individual working experiences. Through this long-term perspective members not only acquired a sense of diachronic change and corporate progress, but also a sense of their own place in time. In consequence, the company was viewed as a dynamic social formation that had transformed itself over the course of its operations, rather than remaining a static entity. More importantly, fieldwork uncovered historical consciousness as a central mental competence with which members could construe organizational reality and construct organizational identities. This chapter begins by clarifying the phenomenon of historical consciousness in a corporate setting. A range of commonalities and patterns detected in the empirical data are then discussed: These concern where members located the foundational origins of the company, how they structured corporate history through common milestones and epochs, and how they perceived ruptures in their company’s history. Lastly, this chapter argues that each member possessed his or her own company-specific historical consciousness, informed by a range of individual and social factors.

8.1 Historical Consciousness as a Member’s Mental Competence Building on Straub (1998), Wineburg (1998), and Rüsen (2001), this study identifies historical consciousness as a mental competence which determines how a member structures and narrates a company’s past in terms of history. Socially crafted and intersubjectively–oriented, historical consciousness concerns a member’s ability to situate oneself, both in terms of time and place, within the greater business organization. In contrast to historical consciousness’s classical conception as “an understanding of […] what ‘happened before one was born’”

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(Wineburg, 1998, p. 298), the markers of a time horizon are, however, different in a corporate context. The average member is not born into a company but joins it at a point later in life (cf. Luhmann, 1964). Historical consciousness thus means that a member is aware and capable of structuring and narrating the organizational experiences of other members occurring prior to one’s entry, spanning the time from the company’s foundation to the contemporary organizational moment.

8.1.1 Possessing knowledge about organizational change over time The majority of AUDI AG’s staff consulted in this study demonstrated a strong awareness that their company had changed tremendously over the course of its existence. For instance, a young employee from the marketing unit proclaimed, “[I]n my opinion, a company is a […] vivid […] organism that is not static but constantly changes everything – the people, the buildings, the products, the market” (Int. 8, l. 568). This awareness of change resulted in the need to distinguish between the constitutive features of the company in the past, the present, and the future. Simultaneously, certain elements were perceived as stable across time, serving this way as continuities. Not every element of the past recollected by respondents, however, qualified as a manifestation of historical consciousness. A corporate historian, who had conducted numerous oral history interviews with members of the workforce, emphasized that there was a significant difference between those members who could merely recall “very personal anecdotes of playing a prank on someone, versus those who provided an account of the bigger context” (Int. 28, l. 192). Recollections that indicated a member’s company-specific historical consciousness had to transcend an individual, exclusively autobiographical horizon, and concern the company much more broadly – embracing, for instance, companywide changes, core products, supposedly important technologies, leader figures, brand developments, strategic alignments, sales victories, failures, union strikes, and economic crises. Members with a pronounced historical consciousness managed to link their autobiographical work experiences to superordinate developments, which helped them to obtain a sense of the organization as a historical entity in which they themselves also played a part. Their focus shifted from the individual to the collective level, situating AUDI AG as the main protagonist and the center of the narration.

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8.1.2 Lacking a binding canon of historical knowledge In order to construct such historical narratives, members depended on the availability of historical knowledge to paint a picture of the larger organizational reality. Vice versa, the lack of such knowledge hindered the ability to construct coherent historical narratives. As a young employee pointed out, “The difficult part is that I’m missing a lot of knowledge about what the circumstances were back then, or how they used to work here, or what products existed, or how the reputation of the company was in society” (Int. 8, l. 564). Historical knowledge was, fundamentally, the basis of a member’s historical consciousness. One might ask what knowledge about the corporate past qualified as ‘historical’ in a corporate setting. Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer that covers all of the varieties of knowledge found in the data. Depending on their age, tenure, and educational background, members of AUDI AG possessed widely diverging ideas of what counted as ‘history.’ Historical knowledge was not viewed as restricted to official dates and facts retrievable from corporate history books, but also included stories passed on orally and information about unitspecific developments that had not yet been written down and institutionalized by corporate agents. This ambiguity was a byproduct of the decentralized network of remembrance, which had created a variety of historical representations of the corporate past. In other words, there was no fixed canon or ‘collective memory’ to which the members of AUDI AG adhered. Despite this heterogeneity, it was possible to identify what was not considered part of corporate history. When asked about his personal place in the history of Audi, a young employee stated, “As a rule, most people [in the workforce] will not leave their mark in history, but everybody is a part of it, nevertheless” (Int. 8, l. 688). He posed the rhetorical question, “[W]ho would actually listen to my story [when I’m retired]?” (Int. 8, l. 688). Even those members who had been with the company for more than thirty years did not consider themselves as having left a prominent mark in company history worthy of recollection. While they considered their work-related biography as strongly “intertwined with the history of Audi,” they fashioned themselves as “hav[ing] only made a small contribution to the big picture” (Int. 4, l. 723). From the perspective of the general workforce, legitimate places in corporate history were generally reserved for leader figures, such as CEOs, top managers, influential engineers, car designers, successful racing drivers, and long-term union activists. Corporate history included those who were perceived to have made a significant contribution to the company – typically the people whose stories were not only heard and collected by corporate historians, journalists and academics, but whose names also appeared in corporate history books, newspa-

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per articles, and scholarly publications. In direct consequence, historical knowledge was not necessarily seen to include the mundane work experiences of the average employee. According to my empirical data, there was no homogenous historical consciousness shared by all members of AUDI AG. Historical consciousness among workers, employees, and managers was complex, dynamically changing, and heterogeneous in its content-orientation; it existed in multitudes. A range of social and individual factors, which will be discussed later, influenced the manner in which each person’s available body of historical knowledge was constituted. Hence, it only makes sense to speak of a historical consciousness of the workforce when referring to an abstract concept because it inevitably reduces empirical complexity. It makes more sense to speak of historical consciousnesses in the plural sense if aiming to more accurately represent phenomena encountered in the field. In the midst of this heterogeneity, it was possible, nevertheless, to identify a range of patterns in the content and orientation of these historical consciousnesses throughout the sample of respondents.

8.1.3 Different corporate origins indicating multiple time frames Just as with the knowledge of a U.S. American that the United States of America came into being as a sovereign state with the declaration of independence in 1776,⁴⁷ I assumed that the unambiguous identification of a company’s founding date would indicate the boundaries of a member’s company-specific time frame, as well as serve to outline when corporate history was thought to begin. For many respondents this proved to be rather difficult, however, as the unambiguous identification of a founding date did not turn out to be a standard competence. Because of the company’s multiple lines of descent (see chapter 3.2), the majority of members only had a vague idea of when, how, and where exactly their company had originally been founded. A member of the corporate museum staff estimated, “If you asked 30,000 employees, 20,000 wouldn’t actually know where the ‘Four Rings’ came from” (Ethno. 31, l. 32). Similarly, a production

 However, the assumption that every U.S. American knows this date is farfetched. It not only presupposes a certain degree of formal education, but also a willingness to remember this kind of historical knowledge despite bearing little relevance to everyday life. As is the case with many studies of collective memory – especially the ones written by Jan Assmann (1988, 2007, 2008; J. Assmann & Czaplicka, 1995) and Aleida Assmann (1999, 2006, 2008) – the dominant frame of reference seems to be that of a ‘highly cultured’ academic elite, and bears little resemblance to the reality of the average citizen.

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worker from the assembly line stated, “[T]he tradition… very few know about that… barely anybody” (Int. 27, l. 804). This claim was supported by several ‘tradition workers’ who were of the opinion that most employees in Ingolstadt “don’t have a clue about history” (Ethno. 90, l. 144). In fact, there were discrepancies in statements concerning corporate origins even among those members who could provide a clear answer. Regardless of historical accuracy, there appeared to be two dominant versions. The roots of contemporary AUDI AG were either traced back to the ‘distant past’ of Horch and Audi in Saxony around the turn of the last century, or they were thought to lie in the ‘near past’ of post-World War II Auto Union GmbH in Ingolstadt. Making matters more complicated, variation also existed within these two versions. The post-war Auto Union foundation in Ingolstadt was thought to have been marked by the 1945 erection of the Central Depot for Auto Union Spare Parts Ingolstadt GmbH, or the official establishment of Auto Union GmbH in 1949. Recollections of the version that placed the foundation of AUDI AG at the turn-of-the-century, did not agree on whether the establishment of August Horch & Cie in 1899 or the establishment of August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH in 1909 constituted the real beginning. The results from fieldwork suggest that the identification of a corporate origin essentially depended on which historical period members considered more formative for contemporary operations, as well as a member’s relationship to Ingolstadt, which brought region-based cultural identities into play. Those members who associated the genesis of the company with the turn-of-the-century foundation by August Horch tended to be non-Bavarians. They typically recalled the post-war period as a “new foundation” [Neugründung] (Int. 17, l. 538), “a sort of continuation in a different location” (Int. 21, l. 180), and a time of “reconstruction” [Wiederaufbau] (Int. 23, l. 250), which indicated their awareness that there had already been a company in existence long before business had commenced at the Ingolstadt site. This version also matched up with the dominant version of corporate history represented by AUDI AG. Those who considered the roots of AUDI AG to lie in post-war Auto Union, on the other hand, were mostly employees who had a strong local background in the Ingolstadt region. Depending on their age and generational family ties with the company, they had experienced second-hand the building of the local plant ‘from scratch,’ and many of them had witnessed the transformation from DKW into modern Audi. Many proponents of this group surely knew that there had already been a pre-war Audi company, yet they were only marginally aware of the exact time, place, and circumstances of the company prior to its further development in Ingolstadt. Personal ties to Eastern Germany were not common among this group, and were thus further distanced from the pre-war past.

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As an employee in quality control pointed out, detailed knowledge about the predecessor companies before World War II was either non-existent or explicitly deemed “irrelevant” (Int. 3, l. 543). Workers and employees in blue collar manufacturing jobs, in particular, made statements indicating they espoused the least interest in corporate history – mainly because “history [wa]sn’t particularly lived inside the company” (Int. 19, l. 378). From their perspective, corporate history was the province of ‘the museum’ (i. e. Audi Tradition) and ‘the marketing people’ (i. e. employees in the indirect sector). According to this group’s recollections, the history of the company went back no further than the late 1940s. When confronted with this observation, a foreman from the production unit explained, “[Horch] isn’t of any interest to anyone anymore” (Int. 27, l. 816). A manager in the human resources unit confirmed this, saying, “I think that the [blue collar workforce] doesn’t believe in the pre-war history, […] neither embrace, nor know it” (Int. 10, ll. 302– 310). Similarly, a secretary from the production unit expressed, “I’ve never had the feeling that there had been a single person who somehow invented [Audi], who’s buzzing around people’s heads” (Int. 19, l. 366). References to a distant pre-war past were perceived as PR and marketing-driven stunts that had only become prominent in recent decades. Long-time members could recall a time before the emergence of professional ‘tradition work.’ As the prewar past had not yet been discussed in their formative, early working years, these corporate claims seemed obviously constructed, and even pointed to the notion that the origins of the company were largely “invented” (Int. 24, l. 600; cf. Hobsbawm, 2010). How one approached the origin of the company also constituted a dividing line in the construction of organizational identity, which in turn determined how the workforce construed their company’s character. For instance, a handful of respondents mentioned that employees with an East German background occasionally emphasized that Audi was actually “a Saxon company” (Int. 7, l. 254). In direct opposition to this, members with Ingolstadt roots commonly proclaimed that the Bavarian “mentality” shaped how the firm operated (Int. 4, l. 7). A diplomatic third way was expressed by a member of HR, who acknowledged, “[T]here was a rift with the war and everything, and then the new beginning. […] We’ve never really been a truly Bavarian company […] we used to be Prussian [i. e. non-Bavarian] somehow, […] but we’re becoming Bavarian now” (Int. 13, ll. 439 – 443). This points to the key insight that World War II, and along with it the relocation from Saxony to Bavaria, had caused a major rift in the corporate past, which in turn became a prominent dividing line in the historical consciousnesses held by members. As an aficionado so aptly described the

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paradoxical organizational identity emerging from this rift, “In a way, AUDI AG is an old firm and a very young firm at the same” (Int. 6, l. 122). Making matters more complicated, none of the respondents discussed here that were asked about corporate origins actually identified a date (or line of descendent) coinciding with the legally registered origin of AUDI AG, which was marked by NSU’s 1884 registration with the Amtsgericht Ingolstadt (2007). A corporate historian explained that, from a strictly legal perspective, the rightful predecessor company of AUDI AG was actually NSU AG (Ethno. 60, l. 234).⁴⁸ When asked why this date was virtually ignored in public discourses surrounding corporate history, he argued that it was not always possible to communicate the exact chain of succession and mergers between predecessor companies in any level of detail, and one “did not want to confuse the public” (l. 234). According to a more outspoken member of the museum staff, however, what “would actually be right in legal terms” had plainly been assessed as “unsuitable” for ‘tradition’ marketing (Int. 30, l. 34). As already explained in chapter 5.5, top management had decided to promote the founding of Horch as AUDI AG’s genuine origin because it was deemed more suited to contemporary objectives. In consequence, the legal dealings with NSU were kept quiet, and this explains why they were virtually unknown to the majority of the local workforce. It is fair to say that the question of corporate origin as an indicator of a member’s historical consciousness was a complex matter, dependent on many factors. From the perspective of the general workforce, historical accuracy and legal details did not matter; indeed, questions of regional cultural identity came into play. In consequence, the time frames of historical consciousnesses varied dramatically. More importantly, this case has demonstrated how mergers, acquisitions, and major transformations render it impossible to speak of the formation of a shared historical consciousness among the workforce, as different member groups were left with multiple ‘origin stories’ that seemed all plausible from their respective perspectives. Of course, the identification of corporate origins does not say much about the extent and quality of a member’s historical consciousness, as it merely set the boundaries of the time frame taken into retrospective consideration. Therefore, the next pages discuss how members managed to narratively structure the corporate past.

 After its foundation in 1873, NSU had received the legal status of Aktiengesellschaft [AG] in 1884, and thus when Auto Union GmbH and NSU AG merged in 1969, the company adopted the legal status of the Neckarsulm arm.

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8.1.4 Structuring corporate history via markers, milestones, and epochs The workforce generally structured corporate history by recalling individual elements of the company’s past which they then linked with one another. It was rare that the past was recollected as a coherent narrative with a distinct beginning and an end that culminated neatly in the present. Corporate history was seen as a fragmented entity constituted by markers and ‘milestones,’ which fell into various categories, such as products, technologies, persons, motorsports, brands and their images, organizational developments and changes, business successes and failures, organizational life and culture, and singular key events. Blind spots emerged in those situations when members reflected on a distinct period but could not come up with a sufficient amount of meaningful markers and milestones to link to form a continuous structure. Especially when attempting to recall the 1970s, these blind spots were evident, and hindered respondents from explaining the corporate development from the 1960s to the 1980s. It was, in some cases, as if the company had not existed during that time. Some members also recollected supposedly important persons, brands, and products, of which they provided plausible interpretations, but they either misassigned them to certain periods or interpreted their contributions in ways with which historians would likely not be entirely comfortable. For instance, a young marketing trainee confidently proclaimed that he had a good grasp of Audi’s history. In the next sentence, however, he stated that Auto Union ‘Streamline’ Grand Prix race cars, such as “the 16-cylinder Type C […] were invented in the 1950s/ 1960s in order to bring excitement to the people” (Int. 20, l. 306). He missed the fact that these race cars had only been produced in the 1930s, furnishing the Nazi regime with the material for political propaganda (cf. Reuß, 2010, October 19). This case demonstrates that history, first and foremost, had to make sense from each member’s perspective; historical accuracy was of little importance. One common way of structuring history was sub-dividing into smaller entities called epochs. Epochs consisted of a clustered selection of elements from the past, which were then molded to fit a certain time frame. Epochs could vary from a decade to almost half a century, depending on the availability of historical knowledge. Members who did not possess historical expert knowledge tended to draw different epochs than corporate historians. The latter group divided up the company’s history by taking into account legal and organizational changes, while the former was more oriented towards more palpable elements like products and brands. For instance, the recollections of the 1980s as reported by nonhistorian members were commonly marked by the Audi quattro and the Audi 100

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C3, the quattro permanent all-wheel drive and aerodynamic body styling, Ferdinand Piëch and Walter Röhrl, rally racing successes, tentative changes in the Audi brand image from a square to a more ambitious brand, a working style shaped by flexibility and hands-on pragmatism, and the Audi 5000 unintended acceleration case on the U.S. market. As mentioned above, the workforce generally made a major division between the pre-war and the post-war past. The pre-war past was vaguely recalled as one distant blur. In the words of a young car designer, this epoch appeared as “something mystical somehow” (Int. 16, l. 144), which could only be elaborated upon by those who sported a genuine interest in corporate history. Select elements of the pre-war past did crop up, but remained isolated, as members lacked the links that would allow for the construction of a coherent narrative. Commonly recalled markers included August Horch and Bernd Rosemeyer, luxurious Horch cars, the foundation of Horch and Audi, the merger of four Saxon automobile companies into Auto Union AG, the Great Depression, and the Grand Prix racing successes of Auto Union ‘Silver Arrows.’ Given its prominence in academic discourses (e. g., Berghahn, 2005; Grieger, 2007; Hayes, 2004), it was particularly interesting to see how the workforce remembered the role of Auto Union AG during the Third Reich. In everyday organizational life, however, this topic was barely recalled outside the corporate history department. Only a handful of respondents from other units – all academics in managing positions – briefly acknowledged that the company had employed forced laborers, but it was thought to be a topic on which the company chose to “keep a lid” (Int. 23, l. 250). Other respondents proclaimed it was a time about which one barely knew anything and which one “does not speak of” (Int. 13, l. 319), which Sievers (2001) identifies as the “unthinkable known” (p. 199 – 201). In several cases, however, it happened that Auto Union AG was attributed the role of the ‘untainted company,’ which was believed not to have collaborated with the Nazi regime. For instance, during a group interview with two young automobile designers, one of the respondents emphasized that it had mostly been Mercedes-Benz cars that “were driven by certain persons of history [i. e. Adolf Hitler]” (Int. 16, l. 148). In his opinion, Auto Union had “not been right at the front, carrying the red-white-black flag with the strange symbol [i. e. the Swastika]” (l. 148). He did “not feel any real connection between Audi [and the Nazis],” which made him “a little bit proud […] if this is actually true” (l. 148). Collaborations between Auto Union AG and the Nazi regime were generally unknown to the vast majority of AUDI AG’s workforce. For most members, this period either seemed highly irrelevant, or they tended to comfort themselves with a false sense of security based on the supposed non-participation in NS

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atrocities – as in Welzer, Moller, & Tschuggnall’s (2005) famous book Grandpa was not a Nazi. As a study by Kukowski (2003) points out, ever since the refoundation period in Ingolstadt, Auto Union had fashioned itself as a victim of World War II. As a result of decades of suppression of this ‘dark past,’ incriminating information did not appear in present-day conversations with the regular workforce – for instance, that Auto Union’s Grand Prix racing efforts had been encouraged and financed by the Nazi propaganda machinery (Reuß, 2010, October 19), that Bernd Rosemeyer was a voluntary member of the Schutzstaffel [SS] and a “pop star of the Nazi period” (Welt Online, 2008, October 26, para. 9), and that Auto Union AG had economically profited from approximately 32,000 forced laborers (Hockert, 2012; Spoerer, 2010). While these aspects were well-known to the corporate history department (Ethno. 21, l. 53), they did not find a place in the discourses in which the general workforce typically participated. The fact that the corporate past was more complex, featuring shades of grey, did not matter to the majority of employees and workers who did not possess historical expert knowledge. Especially when it came to potentially ‘dark periods,’ recollection was not a matter of historical accuracy, but of generating a version that did not compromise one’s contemporary organizational identity. Hence, the formation of reductionist images of the past, which were clustered into meaningful entities, was essentially a mode of cognitive self-management, and thus a “psychological competence” (Straub, 1998, p. 93). When it came to breaking corporate history down into tangible pieces, respondents from certain professions used specific categories more than others. Automobile designers, for instance, tended to structure history according to greater changes in the company’s car design language, such as the Audi TT as a harbinger of a “new epoch” (Int. 16, l. 156). Long-term members of the production unit, on the other hand, emphasized changes in manufacturing technology, such as the introduction of fully automatic welding robots in the mid-1980s (Int. 24, l. 276). Elements that mattered to one group could be irrelevant to another if these elements did not resonate with their working lives. Among the workforce as a whole, however, a range of elements served as common anchoring points in almost every narration, and were ascribed more or less similar meanings. Collective anchoring points included, for instance, the establishment of the post-war Audi brand on the market with the introduction of the first Audi 100 in the late 1960s, and the introduction of the 1980 Audi quattro as a ‘game changer’ in brand image. Moreover, a selection of technologies were commonly recollected as ‘milestones,’ such as the quattro permanent all-wheel drive system, aluminum lightweight construction, the 5-cylinder petrol engine, and TDI turbo diesel injection. These anchoring points had, in fact, been established as ‘milestones’ by dominant stakeholders, such as Audi

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Tradition and the marketing unit. They received an elevated position in official discourses about corporate history, as they were prominently featured in publications and advertisements, exhibited at the corporate museum, and the default screensaver of all office computers featured photographs of these ‘core technologies.’ These anchoring points could thus be recalled like a mantra, because the representations of them were ubiquitous. Nevertheless, the existence of stable anchoring points did not compensate for the overarching feeling several members expressed: They did not consider their company’s history to be straightforward, linear, or coherent, but perceived it as decidedly different in structure from the histories of other companies.

8.1.5 Perceiving history as fragmented, complex, and characterized by ruptures Members who proclaimed a general interest in the corporate past often considered the historical development of AUDI AG as fragmented, complex, and characterized by ruptures. When a marketing manager talked about the difficulties associated with instrumentalizing the past, he stated: VM: It isn’t simple because we have, as you know yourself, a relatively fragmented and complex history, which, on the other hand, is extremely exciting. Int: Why fragmented? VM: Well, you know… […] we don’t have a 125-year old, continuous history like Mercedes, so to speak. We emerged from various brands. Then there were changes in ownership. Then there was a time in the last century when Audi was basically non-existent […]. But […] we also had forced laborers, but one is not allowed to talk about it in more elaborate terms. And then it was not until the reconstruction [period] that we existed again. Then we belonged to Daimler, then Volkswagen. Well, somehow we basically changed [owners] all the time like a pawn in a game. And it was actually not until the mid-1980s that we slowly progressed, coming into full bloom. And then from the mid-1990s onwards, an acceleration… within the last 10 years so to speak. Judging from the contemporary appearance, this is a damn young premium brand. (Int. 23, ll. 246– 250)

As this extract demonstrates, respondents identified fragmentation and ruptures in corporate history on multiple levels. This understanding was often established through comparison with the ‘other’ – most notably the competitor, Daimler AG. Whether historically accurate or not, the Stuttgart-based company was depicted as having developed more linearly and without dramatic reorganizations, and

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thus possessed a history that was easier to understand than Audi’s.⁴⁹ Another aspect of fragmentation was that contemporary AUDI AG could claim its origins in multiple predecessor companies and brands. While not all of them were considered equally valid, a lineage could either be drawn from Horch, Audi, DKW, Wanderer, or NSU. Individual employees even pinned ‘crib sheets’ of the genealogical tree (see chapter 3.2) to their office wall, which helped them make sense of this far-from-straightforward lineage (Ethno. 8, l. 71). Similarly, corporate history was perceived as fragmented because of the complexity of legal developments that had occurred over time. Numerous mergers, acquisitions, changes in ownership, liquidations, refoundations, organizational restructurations, and name changes muddied the waters of organizational history. Further ruptures were identified in the economic development of the company, as Audi and its predecessors were recalled to have suffered from multiple crises, which led them to “the brink of extinction several times” (Int. 10, l. 194). As mentioned above, World War II was perceived as the biggest rupture in corporate history. When an employee of the technological development unit was asked to recall elements from the pre-war past, he responded: TE: I barely know anything about this kind of pre-war history. For example, I wouldn’t necessarily connect Horch to [contemporary] Audi in a line. There’s simply too much distance… also some kind of rupture. […] There’s no consistency that you could string together things like a pearl necklace; instead there once was a rupture during the war. (Int. 7, l. 254)

This rupture prevented respondents from establishing a meaningful, direct line from old Horch to present-day Audi, because markers and milestones could not be easily assembled into a coherent picture. A young trainee even identified “a black spot on the time line, because barely anyone is aware of how old the company [really is], what kind of vehicles [it produced], and where do we come from” (Int. 20, l. 468). One way of circumventing this problem was through bridging narratives. For example, some members had heard of the ‘Horch-name-

 I doubt that the past of Daimler and BMW is less complex than that of Audi. Especially in the first half of the 20th century, both competitor companies also went through a series of major transformations, mergers, and acquisitions which substantially changed organizational structures and ownership (cf. Roth, 1987; Pierer, 2011). The main difference is that Mercedes-Benz and BMW are brand names that – unlike Audi – have been used in a more continuous, uninterrupted fashion. Moreover, both Daimler and BMW managed to forge a more streamlined historical narrative by the means of ‘tradition work’ at a significantly earlier point in time than Audi, which, of the three automobile companies, was the last one to start ‘working’ its past. In consequence, the workforce in Ingolstadt perceived their corporate past to be more fragmented and complex.

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to-Audi-translation’ story and the ‘exodus-from-Saxony-to-Ingolstadt’ myth. These bridging narratives helped them to establish links between periods about which was little known, which were otherwise entirely separate from one another. The impression of having a history characterized by rupture was amplified by the spatial fragmentation that had occurred. The existence of numerous sites where the company and its predecessors had once operated made it difficult for the workforce to pinpoint a concrete physical space to which one could link history. A young strategy employee explained, “[T]he company has already gone through so many different times… this is why I have difficulty attempting to locate corporate history in a single place – mainly because there simply is no consistency” (Int. 11, l. 492). Members in Ingolstadt who had not been to the August Horch Museum in Zwickau, located on the former Audi premises, had problems imagining where and how the company had operated before its relocation to Bavaria. The last aspect discussed here, contributing to the perception that AUDI AG’s history was not a simple one, was rooted in the fact that the company had long neglected ‘working’ its past. Members who could recall the waves of organizational forgetting mentioned before, in which the past had been rendered an irrelevant ‘non-topic,’ had a considerably harder time relating to contemporary constructions of corporate history that attempted to ‘smooth out bumps’ in the past. In this regard, various member groups featured different levels of reflexivity toward official representations of the past.

8.1.6 Deconstructing corporate efforts to smooth out history An important quality of historical consciousness was the ability to reflect on the authenticity and plausibility of representations of the corporate past. This, however, was not so much a question of the extent of available historical knowledge, but how one dealt with it in everyday practice – most notably during work. For instance, various respondents from the marketing and sales unit attempted to draw a straight line from Horch to present-day Audi. While they acknowledged that the company had suffered “the occasional bump” (Ethno. 44, l. 159), the claim to “a straight tradition” was generally more widespread among this group (l. 159). This was a result of their own marketing-specific practices of ‘working’ the past, discussed in chapter 6.1.2. If these members were encouraged to selectively functionalize only ‘highlights and gems,’ then their historical consciousnesses would form in similarly reductive ways over time, because any element irrelevant for work was more likely to remain unrecalled. Therefore, mar-

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keting managers who had made the initial selection of a functionalizable history were also among the ones who knew best how fragmented, multifaceted, and choppy it could really be. Only a handful of members encountered in the field explicitly distinguished between the company’s past and corporate history as a crafted representation of it. Those with an academic background in the humanities in particular were more reflective about the creative fabrication of history serving specific business purposes. For example, a manager from human resources explained: HR: Due to this great history we can claim ex post now – ‘We’ve always been in the game full throttle style!’ [*grins*] Int: [*laughs*] You’re smiling. What does this mean? HR: Well, look at the beginnings. We’re not the inventors of the automobile, not even Mr. Horch. Once in a while, it’s a bit artificial to emphasize how great these guys and [their] jalopies used to be. It’s great if you can tell legends – The Latin student who says, ‘Audi also means listen, horch, doesn’t it?’ These stories are important. […] They are the reason why you can refer to a long line of ancestors. It has always been important that you descend from the Roman emperors […], that you have a god in your family just like Perseus – if possible some kind of chief god. Well, it’s a highly important element to be able to transfigure your vita, I think. (Int. 10, ll. 302– 310)

As this excerpt shows, the respondent was highly aware of the constructedness and business purpose-driven character of corporate history. While the manager was critical toward historical claims that were merely glorifying, he also acknowledged their necessity for contemporary brand identity construction. Rooting oneself in a long line of ancestors elevated present-day Audi to the status of a ‘tradition brand,’ which enabled the company to claim it had always been part of the German automobile nobility. This quote also gestures towards the cultural function of history for organizational identity construction. Knowledge of stories, myths, and legends increased a collective feeling of organizational self-worth and a sense of belonging among the workforce. This tactic built upon the anthropologically universal practice of the skillful crafting of representations of the past within communities to produce and increase a sense of collective pride (cf. Boia, 2003). The fact that practices of transfiguring and spinning history were not necessarily condemned, despite members being aware of them, demonstrates that historical consciousness was a complex competence which could handle incongruity well. More reflective members managed to distinguish between corporate representation and what, from their perspective, had ‘really happened.’ There could be discrepancies between the two versions without causing issues. For that to happen, the level of incongruence had to pass a threshold.

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8.1.7 Expressing pride in one’s fragmented history The previous sections have painted a picture of the complexity and choppiness of corporate history as producing exclusively negative consequences for the historical consciousness of the workforce, and have implied that a solution was found in bending history in order to ‘smooth out the bumps.’ This was not necessarily the case, however. Various respondents transformed knowledge of historical breaks within the company and the aspect of fragmentation into a positive building block in their constructions of organizational identity. Much of this ability to recast history had to do with a “claim to uniqueness” (Martin, Feldman, Hatch, & Sitkin, 1983, p. 438) and the fact that these events distinguished Audi from competitors. The regular workforce did not express a desire to trade places with those companies that possessed more straightforward histories. Instead, Audi’s history was fashioned as a dramatic sequence of constant struggle. In light of this history filled with so many ruptures, contemporary business success was appreciated as an even greater accomplishment. Several members were even convinced that “these ruptures make [Audi] likeable” (Ethno. 12, l. 86). Unlike Mercedes-Benz, who was seen as the conceited “rich kid” for whom everything had come easy, Audi was attributed the role of the “underdog” (Int. 11, l. 74), who managed to go from rags to riches, despite adverse conditions. Overall, the historical consciousnesses of members were an important mental source of material for organizational identity construction. More detailed consequences will be presented in chapters nine and ten. Now that it has been clarified how members of AUDI AG in Ingolstadt structured and narrated the corporate past in terms of history, it is time to explain the factors that contributed to similarities and differences in the manner in which the past was reassembled.

8.2 Factors Influencing the Development of Historical Consciousness Several factors influenced the formation of the historical consciousnesses of members. Factors that will be discussed here include 1) age, length of tenure, and generational membership; 2) departmental membership, work tasks, and the degree of professional involvement with corporate history; 3) level of position and breadth of perspective on company operations; 4) formal/informal socialization in the workplace; 5) pre-entry socialization through relatives; 6) the utilization of ‘tradition offers’ and media consumption; 7) educational background; and 8) personal interest in the corporate past.

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Historical consciousness in a corporate context is a complex phenomenon predominantly shaped by social interactions in the workplace, which I consider ‘organizational factors.’ Additionally, a member’s private conduct outside the workplace was also found to have left its mark. These I term ‘individual factors.’ Factor combinations are more or less infinite, and for this reason a wide variety of historical consciousnesses were encountered in the field. The following pages explain the impact of each factor in detail. Before exploring these factors, however, how awareness of a company’s past differs from awareness of the history of a nation state bears explaining in order to establish a meaningful link to existing research on historical consciousness. Most of these differences have to do with the underlying conditions of historical knowledge acquisition.

8.2.1 Historical consciousness in the nation state versus the private sector From an early age, most people in the industrialized world learn about the history of their nation state within a highly bureaucratic educational system, because “the study of the past […] is considered an indicator of a mature citizen” (Wineburg, 1998, p. 298). Imparting and acquiring of historical knowledge occurs primarily within the confines of a dedicated school subject, which is usually based on a curriculum that defines which elements of the past are worth knowing. By teaching a version of history the state considers ‘true,’ formalized history education is meant to shape a young person’s historical consciousness in clearly defined, ideologically-informed ways (Rüsen, 2001). According to Loewen (1996), history, at least in primary and secondary education, is thus a highly political enterprise that constructs a specific image of society and its institutions, rendering clear what is ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ as well as what constitutes ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Following Waters (2005, 2012), the central aim of such a system is to mold young children into ideal citizens who comply with, and reproduce dominant values of, society. Schoolchildren are expected to study the history of ‘their’ nation state, and exams are meant to ensure knowledge internalization, because pupils are graded upon the retrievability of ‘right’ and ‘true’ historical knowledge (von Borries & Körber, 2001), which has consequences for their advancement within the educational system. In contrast, business organizations generally do not set up highly bureaucratic measures designed to elicit a binding historical consciousness among their workforce. Upon entry, a company may require their new employees to participate in an ideologically-infused lecture about the corporate past, as studies of the Disney Company have demonstrated (Boje, 1995; Peters & Waterman, 2004;

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Van Maanen, 1991). Frequent history sessions and regular testing of historical knowledge, however, do not generally occur. The reason for this is simple: In corporate socialization programs, the systematic facilitation of historical knowledge is generally not assigned the same relevance as, for instance, the explanation of contemporary organizational structures. A company would only take control of shaping the historical consciousnesses of its members in more programmatic ways if it promises to be a viable means for improving business operations. The corporate setting differs in another significant way from the nation state. In contrast to a system of formal education, where knowledge regarding the past is necessary to gain entrance to the higher education system, being in command of detailed historical pre-knowledge is not a formal precondition for being awarded membership status in most companies. Popular guide books, such as Job interviews for dummies (Kennedy, 2011), merely advise job candidates to conduct research on a company’s history in order to “[a]ssess how the company’s future may be influenced by the past” (p. 82). At best, the demonstration of detailed historical knowledge may assist candidates in showing HR that they are “very familiar with the firm” (Veruki, 1999, p. 35; cf. Guffey & Loewy, 2011). In consequence, it is safe to assert that, prior to organizational entry, the likelihood of a person developing a company-specific historical consciousness is considerably lower than the likelihood of a citizen developing a knowledge of the nation state through formal education. Because there was no elaborate program by which all members at AUDI AG were ‘given’ a homogenous historical consciousness, the emergence of it depended on a range of factors, which the next sections investigate in more detail.

8.2.2 Tenure, age, and generational membership A key factor in the formation of a member’s historical consciousness was the length of tenure. It marked the period of time from the point of organizational entry to the present-day and was also the period in which autobiographical work experiences at the company had occurred. In general, the longer members had been with the company, the more they could coherently recall of the corporate past, mainly because recollections could be structured and narrated according to one’s own work life. Any knowledge about the time prior to one’s own entry was, of necessity, acquired through someone else’s account. Time served at the company correlated with age to a certain degree, of course, but these factors were not necessarily co-dependent. By default, a 60year old employee could have spent more time in the company than a 20-year old; however, it was also possible to encounter a 50-year old manager who

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had only recently joined the company after a job change. An HR manager once explained that those, for instance, who celebrated their 25th anniversary as members of the company were thus “quite heterogeneous” in age (Int. 10, l. 46). In any case, the formation of generational cohorts was based on tenure rather than age. Members who had been with the company for the same time were more likely to have had similar, even shared, working experiences (cf. Mannheim, 1972). Communicative interaction in the informal sphere was particularly strong within a generational cohort. Two informants, for instance, expressed a special “feeling of ‘We’ among […] those who have known each other for years; those who share the same year [of entry]” (Int. 28, ll. 740 – 744). Especially in units that “employ a disproportionally large number of young people” (Int. 18, l. 276), such as marketing and sales, respondents pointed out that they had less contact to older (i. e. longer-tenured) members than to members of their own cohort (Int. 20, l. 58). This affected the inter-generational knowledge tradition; the fewer the number of such interactions that took place, the less likely it was that a member’s historical consciousness transcended his or her cohort-specific time horizon. It would be incorrect, however, to assume that longer-tenured members automatically had ‘more’ historical consciousness than their younger colleagues. The majority of older respondents were, in fact, as interested (or ignorant) toward what had happened before their point of entry as younger members. However, this fact was not as obvious because older respondents were in command of a greater reserve of autobiographical work experiences which they could recall to form historical narratives. A criterion for historical consciousness, therefore, was the extent to which a member managed to transcend his or her autobiographical frame – temporally and experientially. In this regard, some younger members with shorter tenure knew significantly more details about the company’s pre-war history than many of their older colleagues. Among other factors, their knowledge was indebted to ‘tradition work’ – another factor – which had increased tremendously over the last decade. For the youngest generation of employees, official organizational remembrance was a normal part of corporate life, as they had not experienced the waves of organizational forgetting. For example, a young employee in communications stated, “Whenever there’s a new […] development, Audi will always refer to its past. […] Why shouldn’t they? They’ve done it so far; why shouldn’t they do so in the future?” (Int. 14, l. 608). Longer-tenured members, on the other hand, often had to be re-educated in order to consider corporate history a worthy topic. Nevertheless, one should not overemphasize the factors of age, length of tenure, and generational membership in the formation of a member’s histor-

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ical consciousness. The following factors were considerably more important because they could override those discussed above.

8.2.3 Departmental membership, working tasks, and degree of professional involvement with corporate history Remarkable differences in historical consciousness could be detected along the lines of departmental membership. Due to their jobs, select member groups happened to be in command of more historical knowledge than others, because it was deemed more relevant for the fulfillment of certain working tasks. For instance, a young corporate strategist pointed out that he “professionally dealt a lot with [corporate history] in my first job at the trade show department” (Int. 11, l. 260). Corporate history was an important instrument of brand communication, and therefore his degree of professional involvement had been comparatively high. Similarly, a marketing employee was able to provide a coherent historical review of the ‘tradition brands’ because he had just prepared a PowerPoint presentation about the history of Audi for a class of apprentices (Ethno. 86, l. 39). In another case, a manager in the exterior design department explained that the creative design process demanded detailed and wide-ranging knowledge about automobile design history (Int. 15, l. 36). Historical knowledge thus was a resource that some member groups, more than others, were expected to functionalize for task-related purposes in their everyday work lives. Employees whose jobs did not explicitly demand a degree of historical knowledge, on the other hand, had developed pronounced historical consciousnesses if their unit had frequently exposed them to historical representations of the past. A sales employee stated, for instance, that corporate history “really doesn’t play any role in my active daily business” (Int. 8, l. 484); nevertheless, she remarked that she had been frequently exposed to history “on the side lines” (l. 484) – at orientation events for new members, in video trailers promoting the brand, and brand strategy-related speeches given by superiors (l. 336). The acquisition of historical knowledge was inevitable in her business unit. That some employees could not avoid brushing up against history was owed partially to the fact that the ‘tradition topic’ had been incorporated in the most recent “brand plan” (Ethno. 28, l. 117) – an internal publication distributed to members employed in the fields of marketing and communications (AUDI AG, Sales and Marketing, 2011). It defined the strategic route AUDI AG would pursue over the next years and defined relevant topics to which members were expected to cater (Ethno. 55, l. 332). It meant that, while a member’s individual job could have provided little opportunity for the direct incorporation of historical knowl-

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edge, one might still be exposed to the ‘tradition topic,’ simply because colleagues considered it important for their own work. In contrast, members whose units did not engage in the ‘tradition topic’ on a regular basis had historical consciousnesses that were less elaborated. As mentioned before, this applied especially to blue collar workers of the production unit. For example, an assembly line worker, who assumed the role of a ‘team speaker,’ maintained that his colleagues “who screw together the cars don’t really care about history” (Int. 27, l. 804). Their narrative accounts were often limited to anecdotes and/or collective experiences restricted to their respective sub-area of work, which barely transcended their autobiographical horizons. Overall, it is fair to say that the more a job could be described as knowledgebased and less dependent on manual labor, the higher the chances were that a member had acquired more extensive historical knowledge. The more creative freedom a job offered and the less streamlined it was, moreover, the more likely a member was to artfully incorporate elements of the corporate past into his or her day-to-day working practices.

8.2.4 Level of position and breadth of perspective on company operations It was possible to detect a correlation between a member’s level within company hierarchies and the complexity of his or her historical consciousness. Managers generally tended to be in command of more historical knowledge than non-managers. Recollections were more likely to transcend the frame of their autobiographical experiences; they knew ‘core stories’ made popular by official carriers of organizational remembrance; and the way they structured corporate history was typically more coherent than the narrations provided by the average employee. Of course, a member’s historical consciousness did not automatically become more pronounced with a sudden advancement in the hierarchy, but a range of sub-factors contributed to the acquisition of additional knowledge. In their formal roles, managers were expected to have a broader perspective on the company’s operations than the average employee, which widened the scope of experience from which they might later draw in the process of recollecting. Managers were also expected to know more about the past if its effects were still evident in the present. For instance, a marketing manager needed to know about the aforementioned ‘Audi 5000 unintended acceleration’ case, because it helped to explain why the company was selling fewer automobiles in the U.S. than their competitors. Historical knowledge thus helped to make sense of present conditions and aided decision-making (cf. Walsh & Ungson, 1991).

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Moreover, managers were granted more access to internal information than the average employee. They attended inter-departmental meetings, had direct contact to top managers, and could access restricted sections on the intranet, as well as special memos and knowledge databases. They also participated in symposiums where the future strategy of the company was decided upon. At AUDI AG, members were only granted access to internal knowledge on a needto-know basis, because the internal protection of industry secrets was of high value. Information was transported top-down in the form of a ‘knowledge cascade,’ creating an asymmetry in distribution across the workforce. A manager could thus acquire significantly more knowledge over the course of his work life, which enabled him to more effectively explain larger corporate developments retrospectively. More importantly, managers were offered exclusive ‘tradition offers’ that members in lower positions did not receive. Common cultural forms of organizational remembrance employed in this regard included expert history lectures and guided tours through the corporate museum. Managers also occasionally received tours through Audi Tradition’s non-public collection of vintage motor vehicles (Ethno. 84, l. 139); they were invited to participate in events such as vintage car rallies (Ethno. 44, l. 46); and they enjoyed rides in classic cars at internal management events (Ethno. 81, l. 263). Additional exposure to ‘tradition offers’ thus resulted in the acquisition of more knowledge about corporate history, which affected the formation of their historical consciousnesses. It was not only the level within the organizational hierarchy that had an impact on the breadth of perspective on the company. Members who fostered a broad network stretching across different departments managed to gain greater insight into a variety of corporate operations. The same applied to employees who had worked in different jobs at AUDI AG. Their repertoire of stories about company life and their command of background knowledge were significantly greater than of those whose social interactions were restricted to the same circle of immediate colleagues.

8.2.5 Formal and informal socialization in the workplace A member’s historical consciousness was heavily informed by the socialization process within the company (cf. Linde, 2009). Both on a formal and informal level, Audi attempted to mold new members according to certain ideals, and to this end representations of the corporate past were valuable resources. A key instrument was a mandatory two-day “introductory event” (Ethno. 6, l. 201), during which new members were introduced to the company, the brand,

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and its products. Among other components, the event included a ‘tradition’-focused portion. Representatives of the corporate history department first held a presentation, explaining why it was important for AUDI AG to ‘cultivate its tradition’. It was followed by a guided tour of the corporate museum in Ingolstadt, which presented an occasion for learning about the details of corporate history (Ethno. 27, l. 167). While it was claimed that “all new members have to participate” (Ethno. 27, l. 20), it was more or less voluntary in practice. Only a fraction of new members accepted the offer, and they were not tested on their newly acquired historical knowledge. However, these ‘tradition offers’ were only made available to new employees in white collar jobs. As an informant proclaimed, “People in the indirect sector […] generally receive more options to participate in in-house training and attend such events, whereas the guys working on the assembly line are more or less caught in their daily work lives” (Int. 8, l. 454). Blue collar workers were exposed to significantly fewer socialization measures featuring history-related content. Moreover, the quality of these measures was lower. For instance, during their vocational training, young apprentices in production and manufacturing jobs received a product-focused historical overview of the Audi brand (Ethno. 85, l. 31). It was presented by two employees from marketing and sales, who had been asked to create a “makeshift solution” that “covers the tradition topic at least a bit” (l. 187). Neither designed, nor checked by, the experts at Audi Tradition, the presentation included factual errors such as inaccurate founding dates and only provided a superficial account of corporate history (Ethno. 90, l. 379). When the member of the education department responsible for the training event was asked about the role of history in vocational training, he responded that there used to be a proper presentation by Audi Tradition, but after an internal reassessment of relevance conducted by HR, it had been discontinued (Int. 13, l. 269). In other words, academics in white collar professions were offered history-themed activities, presented by professional experts on the matter, while blue collar workers at best received watered down substitutes by non-experts. These differences in formal socialization explained why the historical consciousnesses of members from the indirect sector were more elaborated than of the direct sector. Confronted with this insight, a corporate historian admitted that “the internal culture of remembrance is, indeed, getting a bit neglected by Audi Tradition” (Ethno. 90, l. 395), mainly because the department’s work was primarily measured according to external communication criteria, such as the impact on customers and journalists. Members of the indirect sector, on the other hand, received these ‘tradition offers’ because they were more likely to themselves have involvement with external stakeholders.

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As indicated before, the time of the initial socialization mattered, as well. Members who had joined the company more recently were exposed to significantly more socialization measures that used the ‘tradition topic’ than those who had been socialized, for instance, during a wave of organizational forgetting. In direct consequence, younger members were more likely to have formed a historical consciousness that – structurally and content-wise – was more in line with what was promoted as official corporate history. These circumstances suggest that a company, which is following a coherent, long-term strategy of ‘working’ its past, is more likely to reduce incongruence in historical consciousness. Regardless of sector, formal socialization offers, and time of entry, an important factor in forming a new member’s historical consciousness were processes of informal socialization in the workplace. Members learned about elements of the corporate past, what had ‘really’ happened as well as what had not, by communicating with their colleagues and immediate superiors. Occasions for doing so emerged on the social side lines of daily organizational life. In departments that offered fewer occasions for socializing and a low degree of informal communication between team members, younger members had fewer chances to hear about the experiences of colleagues who had been at the company for longer periods. In contrast, in those departments where managers gave their employees the freedom to convene during working hours, data suggests that employees more often went into ‘narrative mode.’ By listening to their colleagues’ accounts, younger members learned how to navigate their own positions and background information about their respective working areas. Depending on the composition and mix of generations in a team, variations emerged in which historical knowledge was passed on. In general, the more heterogeneous the composition of a team, in terms of tenure and age, the more developed a member’s historical consciousness could become. For example, a younger member from a marketing and sales department which predominantly employed people in their twenties and thirties explained that, apart from her superiors, she barely had any contact to ‘Audianer’ who were “significantly older” than her (Int. 14, l. 424). She admitted that she only had a “vague idea” of how her unit must have operated forty years ago (l. 428), which indicated that she was unaware of the fact it had only been founded in the early 1990s.

8.2.6 Pre-entry socialization through relatives The finding that various respondents had already gained knowledge about AUDI AG’s history prior to their point of organizational entry pointed to another factor

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in the formation of historical consciousness. Some members had been familiarized with, and rendered sympathetic to, the company by their relatives. The family histories of some members were closely intertwined with the development of the company in Ingolstadt because their fathers and grandfathers had also worked there. They had an “Audi pedigree” (Int., 8, l. 666). However, the formation of a person’s company-specific historical consciousness did not happen automatically just because one grew up in such a family. It depended first on the degree of work-related communication among family members. For example, when asked what he had actually known about AUDI AG prior to his entry, a member from quality control responded: QS: Basically everything. […] I mean, you simply grew up with that. No matter how many secrecy agreements they have in here, the fathers always tell something at home. This doesn’t necessarily have to be anything secret but how things are going and stuff. (Int. 12, l. 53)

When members told their offspring about corporate life, they acted within their informal membership roles. The safety of the private sphere allowed them to construct an elaborate, uncensored image of their employer. Family members thus constituted readily tappable sources for children, and they provided lively accounts of company life. In this way, some local members had already formed the foundational base of their company-specific historical consciousness during their early childhood days. It was not only narrative accounts that contributed to a time-bound awareness of Audi’s historicity. The parental choice of automobile was also a factor that had influenced respondents at a young age. A member of the production unit explained, “We’ve always driven Audi and VW […]. But I think this is a generational thing from home. If you’ve always driven Audi and VW, then you keep on doing it as a son or daughter” (Int. 19, l. 302). Members whose parents had always owned cars manufactured by the corporation happened to be more aware of its product history, exactly because they could relate specific vehicles to certain periods in their lives. The formation of a historical consciousness was even more dramatic in those cases in which Audi was made a substantial part of a family’s collective identity. Certain members ‘hooked’ their children on the ‘Four Rings’ via merchandise and entertainment offers provided by the company. As an HR manager pointed out: HR: Two years ago you could purchase affordable [Audi] RC cars at [the local toy shop] for the first time. […] Because this is made for socialization. […] People make sure that they infect their offspring at an early age. It’s the same in my wife’s family. […] [They are] totally

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hard-wired to Audi. […] Audi simply means everything. And I think that there are many of these examples. (Int. 10, l. 178)

Audi toys, posters, books, apparel, and other merchandise were a popular means of impressing the Audi brand on young children. Members who had relationships with other ‘Audianer’ could purchase “Audi romper suits” for their offspring (Ethno. 106, l. 42). They could also obtain discounted family tickets to motorsports events at which the factory team competed; the company even erected an “employee tent” at the raceway where ‘Audianer’ and their families could eat, drink, and watch the race (Ethno. 53, l. 217). During “family days” (Int. 12, l. 55), members could bring along their spouse and children to the plant to give them an impression of how the company operated in practice. During plant anniversaries, the company hosted an “employee fest” on the local premises, where members and their families could celebrate collectively (Ethno. 65, l. 138). These events also produced inter-generational rapport. At one employee fest, for instance, Audi Tradition set up a collection of all Audi A4 models and its Audi 80 predecessors, which had been produced at the Ingolstadt plant since the 1970s. According to an attendee, “grandpa was standing by the cars with his grandson […], telling him what component of each car he had co-developed and/or manufactured” (Ethno. 62, l. 154). These events created social situations where bits of knowledge about the corporate past were passed on from generation to generation, contributing in turn to the formation of a young person’s company-specific historical consciousness even prior to organizational entry. Another respondent remarked that these “kids are born into an Audi world,” which was thought to make them “Audi children” (Ethno. 106, l. 42). Similar to Whyte’s (1967) classic study on the ‘organization man,’ AUDI AG was indeed a company in which the families of members were often very well integrated.

8.2.7 Utilization of tradition offers and media consumption One of the most important drivers of a member’s historical consciousness was the extent to which he or she used, and was exposed to, official ‘tradition offers.’ As shown in chapter 7, AUDI AG had developed a diverse range of cultural forms of organizational remembrance over the last decades, which also had an impact on the workforce. When members were asked how they had acquired their historical knowledge, specific cultural forms were commonly mentioned. For instance, a marketing manager explained:

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VM: You read, you look around, you’re going to the museum, you talk to colleagues – there still is some oral tradition. There used to be the Rad der Zeit […] which I read back then, or… basically all available sources […] ranging from literature, to film, to whatever. (Int. 18, l. 240)

Popular forms of remembrance included the corporate museum in Ingolstadt, corporate history books, and automobile magazines featuring articles with ‘tradition content.’ A direct link between specific historical knowledge and the exact source could not always be established, however, because multiple sources “blur[red] into one another” (Int. 12, l. 681). Moreover, what members knew in terms of history was a dynamic result of an ongoing process, which took place both on an intentional level through active learning and, on a more coincidental level, through passive exposure. Those who performed knowledge acquisition more actively also possessed a more pronounced historical consciousness. A handful of respondents were also in personal contact with the staff of Audi Tradition, whom they considered an important source of expert historical knowledge. For instance, an employee from the communication department responded, “Of course I was in contact with [tradition worker A] and [B]. This was really interesting when [A] told me things [about the history of Audi]” (Int. 1, l. 113). Similarly, an HR manager pointed out that these experts “could tell stories” about elements of the corporate past “that aren’t made public” (Int. 10, l. 400). Respondents even proclaimed that they appreciated how members of Audi Tradition were “sharing a lot of knowledge […] with great passion” (Int. 11, l. 276). Enthusiastic knowledge dissemination was a way of infecting people with the ‘tradition fever.’ Looking at the company at large, however, the face-to-face impact of any single ‘tradition worker’ was limited. Moreover, structural ties between Audi Tradition and departments in the indirect sector were more established than with the direct sector. The ‘tradition offer’ that left the biggest impact on the historical consciousness of the workforce was the Audi museum mobile. Employees could visit the museum free of admission and they could also sign up for guided tours. The museum was perceived as an offer where ‘right’ and ‘true’ historical knowledge could be acquired. More importantly, it broke the past down into an easily understandable format, and it provided access to periods that no active member of the workforce had experienced personally. A long-time supervisor of the production unit explained: PI: I’ve been with Audi since my vocational training, but even I didn’t really know all of that [history]. Int: How did you learn about what used to happen at Audi then? PI: Clearly because of our museum. […] I somehow knew that the ‘Four Rings’ were consti-

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tuted by those [four tradition brands] and that DKW once… but the fact that all of those different products are part of our history – that was widely unknown, I have to admit. (Int. 24, ll. 476 – 496)

The museum made distinct elements of the corporate past ‘knowable’ to the workforce, which would have otherwise been outside the scope of most informal accounts passed on between coworkers. Especially when it came to the pre-war past, a visit to the museum was an effective way of learning about what had supposedly happened long before one’s own tenure at the company. Because of its marketing focus, members who had visited the museum on a regular basis were also more likely to recall elements on display and their interpretations. The museum heightened the importance of specific elements and drew attention to them. For example, core stories about the genesis of the Audi brand name and the secret development of the Audi 100 were a consistent part of (almost) every guided tour (Ethno. 5, l. 24), as they had been written down in the tour manual (AUDI AG, Museum Mobile, 2010, January 13). Another ‘tradition offer’ that had made a big contribution to the emergence of historical consciousness was the ‘100 years of Audi’ brand anniversary celebrated in 2009. As mentioned before, the centennial raised “awareness” among the workforce that one actually had “quite a proper history” (Int. 8, l. 46). The centennial had promoted corporate history through various internal and external communication channels and reached a larger crowd than the museum. Even the most history-averse member could not ignore the fact that the company was commemorating itself. For instance, a sales employee reported that, during an internal management conference in 2009, a “white [Audi 225] Front Roadster [from the mid-1930s] was put on stage. This was quite a sign saying – This is our history, this is where we come from, and we’re proud of it” (Int. 14, l. 340). The anniversary also served to reduce the complexity and make sense of Audi’s history by simply announcing the brand’s age. Internally, the brand centennial was commonly mistaken for the company anniversary (Ethno. 86, l. 33), disregarding the fact that the founding of predecessor companies such as Horch, DKW, Wanderer, and NSU actually predated the celebrated year 1909. Hence, the anniversary both served as much to enable an expansion of historical consciousness as to limit it. Historical knowledge acquisition also occurred on a more individual basis. Corporate history books, such as the numerous editions of Rad der Zeit (e. g., AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2000), were one of the most commonly used ‘offers.’ While some members had a personal motivation for wanting to learn about corporate history (Int. 1, l. 113), others had picked up the book by chance (Ethno. 90, l. 204). And a third group used these publications as a reference work that assist-

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ed them in a professional context, such as composing marketing texts (Int. 8, l. 86). Depending on the perspective and underlying reason for use, select periods and elements of corporate history were considered more interesting than others, and therefore this history book was not necessarily read as a cohesive narrative with a beginning and an end. As with an encyclopedia, members might skip large parts and search for relevant elements. How different types of mnemonic media were consumed was highly situation-specific. There were also a range of new media that members took into account. While the Audi website and the intranet site contained dedicated history sections (Ethno. 10, l. 50), their existence alone did not automatically lead to their use among the workforce. A member of communications commented, “Well, I know that there’s a lot of stuff written on Mynet to which I could refer, but… hm [*laughs*] you don’t really notice that in the course of your daily work” (Int. 25, l. 290). Media usage depended on a range of factors, such as general access, content visibility, design, the user-friendliness of the platform, and the relevance of the content to the work being carried out. The digital offers provided by the company were not necessarily the default choice of members who wished to swiftly retrieve historical dates and productrelated background information. A way of investigating the corporate past often perceived as more convenient was looking at public websites (Ethno. 35, l. 133). The online encyclopedia Wikipedia, in particular, contained numerous Audi-specific entries, created by external aficionados. According to various informants, it served as a popular source of historical knowledge among the workforce (Int. 1, l. 311). While merely reading these external sources was informally accepted, the practice of using unverified media for professional purposes was a thornier issue. It reportedly became more and more popular among ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001), who were less willing to wait for the result of a formal inquiry to Audi Tradition or conduct research in the analog world (Int. 20, l. 358). Digital developments had thus left their traces on the formation of the historical consciousnesses of members because they affected the ways members expected to acquire and deal with historical information. Understandably, the internal use of Wikipedia caused distress among ‘tradition workers’ who preferred to see their offers used (Ethno. 28, l. 208). In addition to crowd-sourced online media, journalistic publications constituted an important source of historical knowledge. When an employee in quality control was asked for the source of a specific recollection, he responded, “I regularly read classic car publications, magazines and [stuff] on the internet” (Int. 12, l. 681). Individual informants even proclaimed that external print publications were, in fact, their oldest source of historical knowledge, because they had already been consumed prior to organizational entry (Int. 23, l. 26). As

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these publications were marketed to a broad audience across Germany, respondents generally assumed that the knowledge they had obtained from these sources was “basically known to everyone out there, too” (Int. 12, l. 379).

8.2.8 Educational background Members of AUDI AG who had obtained a university degree generally exhibited a greater awareness towards corporate history than their vocationally-trained colleagues. University graduates were able to recall elements of the corporate past on a more abstract, less autobiographical level. Moreover, their answers as to why it was important for the company to remember its past were more purpose-oriented and business-focused. Among certain groups, it appeared to be an indicator of ‘mature organizational membership’ to know a thing or two about corporate history (cf. Wineburg, 1998). In a handful of research situations, academics expressed embarrassment and apologized when they could not recall distinct elements which they assumed they should know. For example, after an interview, a young employee of the marketing and sales unit jokingly commented on her responses, “Damn, [I] failed. If a colleague had heard me, oh my god, they’d probably prescribe me a mammoth tour of the museum – seven hours or something like that” (Int. 14, l. 812). In contrast, members with a blue collar vocational background were more likely to recall memories that exclusively referred to their particular area of work. Recollections remained of an anecdotal nature that barely transcended individual perspectives and autobiographical time horizons. More importantly, history was considered something that was ‘simply there,’ but did not affect anyone personally. Members with an academic background in the humanities or the social sciences, in particular, were significantly more outspoken about why history mattered than colleagues whose highest formal degree was a ‘Certificate of Secondary Education.’ It appeared to be a matter of their general attitude and the value they attached to history, which was generally acquired during the more advanced stages of one’s education. This finding regarding educational difference was supported by a corporate historian who had had similar experiences in his interactions with the workforce (Int. 28, l. 192). He suggested that the difference could have something to do with the fact that members with no higher education were more likely to “consider history boring” (Ethno. 112, l. 61). The term alone, for some, was associated merely with studying dry facts, and thus whenever the ‘tradition topic’ came up at work, interest would shut down.

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8.2.9 Personal interest in the corporate past This leads into the last factor of historical consciousness addressed here – personal interest in the corporate past. Members who proclaimed a genuine interest in learning about, and dealing with, Audi’s rich past were typically the ones who demonstrated the highest degree of historical consciousness. This factor was the most important one because it trumped all other factors discussed previously. Genuine interest could manifest itself in different ways. An affinity for old motor vehicles was a good starting point, as it was considered “fertile ground” upon which the corporate history department could build and “sharpen the historical consciousness a bit” (Int. 29, l. 938). Nevertheless, it was a common misconception that one had to “have an inherent soft spot for classic cars” (Ethno. 83, l. 596). A range of respondents were encountered who were neither particularly interested in classic cars, nor in official ‘tradition work,’ yet they possessed extensive historical knowledge. For example, a young employee from marketing and sales declared that she was not so much interested in the technological product side but more in the human side of Audi’s history. She added, VM: History always happens on so many [levels]. […] [T]he classical history with some dates and facts and stuff is ok; that’s the frame around it; but it only gets really interesting to me [when I learn] what other people have done. (Int. 8, l. 696)

Members like her were interested in representations of the past that provided an idea of what corporate life had been in the ‘olden days,’ while model typologies and technical product specifications were deemed uninteresting. This thematic lens was more focused on the organization and the ‘human factor’ – a lens to which the corporate history department did not necessarily cater as much as some internal stakeholders wished. This case demonstrates that, just because some members could not relate to the offers provided by official carriers of organizational remembrance, it did not necessarily mean that they were not aware of the corporate past. A company-specific historical consciousness was much more than the ability to recall facts and figures published in official product-centered history books; it was a member’s broader competence in structuring and narrating the corporate past in terms of history.

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8.3 Short Summary This chapter discussed historical consciousness as a mental competence of the workforce which concerned how members structured and narrated their company’s past. Historical knowledge formed the basis of such a competence, the acquisition of which was influenced by a variety of organizational and individual factors. Due to the number of possible factor combinations, multiple historical consciousnesses existed among members. I argued, moreover, that there was no binding canon of collectively available historical knowledge among the workforce, precisely because of the multiplicity of historical consciousnesses. This multiplicity, among other indicators, manifested itself in the finding that the workforce could not identify an unambiguous historical origin of AUDI AG because various time frames were at work. While members structured history via distinct temporal markers and milestones, the majority could not form a singular, coherent narrative spanning from the corporate genesis to contemporary times. Instead, they held reductionist images of epochs, which they could only link loosely. Moreover, this chapter explained that common structural anchoring points did indeed exist in members’ historical narrations. Yet they generally perceived the history of Audi as characterized by rupture, fragmented, and complex, which made it almost impossible to draw a straight line from the distant past of the company to the present. Consequently, more reflective members often viewed efforts to ‘smooth down the bumps’ of history critically. On the other hand, members could handle a certain amount of incongruity between their notion of ‘historical truth’ and the corporate representations they viewed as highly selective. Furthermore, I argued that the perceived fragmentation of history was not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, members considered it a source of pride and a marker of organizational identity. In the second part, this chapter outlined a range of factors that influenced the manner in which historical knowledge was acquired and what was retained – in other words, that which shaped the development of a company-specific historical consciousness among the workforce. The factors discussed here included age, length of tenure and generational membership; departmental membership, work tasks, and the degree of professional involvement with corporate history; level of position, and breadth of perspective on the company’s operations at large; formal and informal socialization in the workplace; pre-entry socialization through relatives employed at the company; the utilization of ‘tradition offers,’ and media consumption; educational background; and, last but not least, personal interest in the corporate past. All of these factors coincided, overlapped, and/or were dependent on each other, which is why they had to be viewed in their totality. Due to the multiplicity of possible factor combinations, the work-

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force did not possess a common, collectively available set of knowledge about the corporate past which might be labeled ‘collective memory.’ The next two chapters finally examine how historical consciousness operated in everyday organizational life. These chapters will show that, for the workforce, recollecting the corporate past was a multifunctional means to an end, in which historical knowledge was a precondition for the apprehension of organizational reality and the construction of Audi-related collective identities.

9 Construing Organizational Reality through Retrospection The majority of respondents were well aware of the fact that the way AUDI AG operated had changed over the years of its existence. Knowledge about the corporate past not only enabled the workforce to craft representations of a time gone by; it also allowed them to make sense of the present (cf. Weick, 1995, 2006). The results of fieldwork indicated that a member’s historical consciousness determined his or her ability to seek meaningful explanations for how contingencies within the organization had played out. Historical consciousness was a precondition for understanding that the present was an outcome of past developments. This chapter discusses how members of AUDI AG recollected elements of the corporate past in order to comprehend organizational reality. Four themes are explored in more detail, all of which demonstrate that knowledge about the corporate past mattered for the workforce on a day-to-day level. First, I examine how members sought explanations for contemporary market conditions in their recollections of the past. This is followed by an investigation of the second theme – the manner in which members traced the roots of supposedly common working practices to distinct periods in the corporate past. Third, the issue of a conflict with the corporate parent, VW, is discussed in terms of rivalry that had evolved throughout history, passed on from one employee generation to another. The last section demonstrates how members of various backgrounds employed reductionist images of the corporate past as a foil, against which they assessed the overall quality of contemporary organizational life. Overall, I argue that historical consciousness shaped how members saw their company, conducted work, and interacted with one another, which is why it proved so relevant for daily business operations.

9.1 Explaining the Reasons for Contemporary Market Conditions To a great extent, the current economic state of the company influenced how members construed and constructed organizational reality. During the time of fieldwork, sales at AUDI AG were on an all-time-high, which stood in contrast to other players in the industry struck down by economic crisis (Welt Online, 2011, January 15a). ‘Audianer’ therefore commonly sought plausible explanations for why their company had managed to avoid the crisis, even topping its records,

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while many foreign automakers required government bailouts (cf. New York Times, 2008, November 11). While some respondents rationally attributed contemporary success to an attractive product lineup, expansion into Asian markets, and a tight budgeting strategy, others built their explanation upon distinct references to the corporate past.

9.1.1 ‘Krisenerfahrenheit’: Learning from the crises of the past It was generally known among the workforce that AUDI AG had endured several crises over the course of its existence. Bad business strategy, the great depression, a world war, technologically outdated products, the oil crisis, and various other downturns “had put the company […] at the brink of extinction several times” (Int. 10, l. 194). While detailed historical knowledge among the general workforce was lacking in this regard, a basic awareness about the extent and variety of ‘past economic suffering’ did indeed exist. This led some members to argue that the company was currently doing so well precisely because Audi had been forced to deal with more hardships than most other car manufacturers. Referred to as “Krisenerfahrenheit,” informants claimed that the company “has a lot of experience in overcoming crises” (Ethno. 7, l. 136). Contemporary success was attributed to a reliable workforce that, over generations, had learned to cope with cut-backs in order to “keep the company running” (Int. 13, l. 181). This belief did not emerge out of the blue. It had been inspired by individual corporate historians who had distributed materials to the CEO and select journalists, explaining Audi’s “remarkable survival of the crisis” with exactly the same reasoning (Ethno. 19, l. 28). Other stakeholders thus came to argue in speeches and articles that, throughout history, the company had managed to “come out of crises more established than before” (Int. 28, l. 74). In this way, the ability to survive was fashioned as a trait acquired and honed throughout history, which also helped the company to face contemporary business concerns. In consequence, this tumultuous, crisis-ridden history could be recast as something essential and even beneficial. While it remained unclear how generations of organizational members had managed, on a practical level, to collect and pass on experiences of handling crises in an organizational setting frequently struck by waves of forgetting, the notion that one had learned from crises was nevertheless there. It gave the workforce a (possibly dangerous) sense of assurance that the company was prepared to tackle whatever it might encounter in the future – a theme that will also be picked up once again in chapter 10.5.

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9.1.2 Low market share in the U.S. and the Audi 5000 case Concrete references to specific events in the corporate past also helped members to understand the origins of the differences in market share. On the U.S. market, for instance, Audi still had considerably lower sales than its core competitors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, although the three brands were more or less on a par in the European market. To make sense of this, employees from various units commonly recalled a single historical incident, already referred to in previous chapters, which was argued as having been the initial cause of low sales performance in the U.S. According to a young trainee in marketing and sales: VM: The Audi 5000 was also very important for the company. […] It was a U.S. version of the Audi 100, I believe, and misconduct by the customer led to a deadly accident… with his child. And then it was claimed that all Audis accelerated automatically, and this cost the company a whole lot of sales and its image, of all things, which we still suffer from today. (Int. 20, ll. 230 – 238)

Like other informants, the young trainee could easily recall the ‘Audi 5000 unintended acceleration’ case. Passed on inter-generationally, it served as a common explanation for the poor performance in the U.S. The reason why this historical explanation was so popular lay in the traumatic victim role Audi was assigned. An HR manager stated: HR: The U.S. is quite interesting. […] This [Audi 5000 incident] reduced the sales success to a fraction […], which is some kind of trauma in corporate history. And if we’re slowly catching up today, selling 100,000 cars in the U.S., then this is a real success story for the company, because many [employees] simply have [this case stuck] in the collective memory – ‘U.S.A., oh that was difficult; they really threw a spanner in the works, because it was never proven that the car was the actual culprit.’ (Int. 10, l. 158)

The Audi 5000 case was recalled as a traumatic incident because supposedly unfair circumstances, as discussed in a previous chapter, had produced a long-term economic disadvantage in the biggest car market in the world. An employee from the marketing and sales unit remarked, “Such an ancient story, but it still has an impact on our image today; we’re still trying to get back on our feet” (Int. 8, l. 370). It was not a coincidence, however, that the Audi 5000 unintended acceleration case was frequently recalled during the time of fieldwork. The reasons were twofold: In 2009, a similar case emerged in the U.S. market – this time, against Toyota. A Consumer Reports study made allegations against the Japanese car maker that a flaw in their products had caused a number of unintended acceleration accidents (New York Times, 2009, December 8). While the accusations were

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later dismissed (New York Times, 2011, February 8), Toyota suffered a tremendous decline in sales and a dent in its brand image (New York Times, 2010, June 17). Seeing striking similarities, several respondents at AUDI AG were reminded of the Audi 5000 case. A retired technological development manager recalled: TE: The Audi 5000 was a good car in the U.S. until that case emerged when people mistook the accelerator for the break. […] [T]hat’s the same issue Toyota has experienced recently. I’m convinced that if the Toyota people had known the circumstances right from the start, they would have dealt with it in a better way. (Int. 21, l 276)

Respondents, such as the one quoted above, were convinced that Toyota could have learned from the Audi case, but the Japanese company was thought to have made errors similar to those of the Bavarian manufacturer two decades before (Ethno. 12, l. 26). Moreover, it was very likely that members of AUDI AG had also picked up historical knowledge about this particular element through recent exposure to external media, because journalists had also picked up the analogous case. The news magazine FOCUS (2010, February 5), for instance, ran an article that reminded the public what could happen “if the Audi debacle of the 1980s repeated itself at Toyota” (para. 4), and was accompanied by a series of photographs of the Audi 5000. The Stern (2010, February 12) published a similar article, reconstructing the Audi case. Another reason for the retrospective prominence of the Audi 5000 case was that AUDI AG’s internal communications department happened to address the issue during the time of fieldwork. Accompanying a PR campaign that celebrated the company’s most recent “sales record” on the U.S. market (AUDI AG, Financial Communication / Financial Analysis, 2011, p. 86), internal communications ran a ‘U.S.A. special’ on various in-house media channels. A two-minute video shown on the intranet, for instance, explained why “Audi has always had a hard time in America” (Ethno. 107, l. 27). A narrator and an engineer, who was featured as a contemporary witness, recalled in the short film: PR: The Audi 5000 – the car that helped Audi sell up to 70,000 vehicles per year in the 1970s and 1980s. But the year 1986 introduced a dramatic change of direction – the incident that would later go down in history by the keyword ‘Audi 5000 unintended acceleration.’ TE: Customers were hitting the throttle, assuming they hit the brake pedal, and this is why the car accelerated. Due to a number of spectacular incidents, in which some people were even killed, Audi fell into disrepute. Elaborate studies followed and everybody concluded that there was no technological flaw but the customer’s fault. PR: Rock bottom was hit in 1991 – only 12,000 cars sold. One even considered a complete retreat from the U.S. market. (Ethno. 107, l. 27)

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In the Audi 5000 unintended acceleration case the video detected a cause for contemporary market conditions. To the workforce, the recollection of a tragic historical event provided a plausible explanation for why U.S. sales figures were not better and only a ‘record’ when compared with how abysmal they had at one time been. The video assured them that the company had not ‘really’ been at fault in the accidents, which made it possible to maintain an organizational identity as a manufacturer of technologically refined cars.

9.2 Tracing the Roots of Common Working Practices In addition to explaining contemporary market conditions, recollections of the corporate past came up regularly in situations when ‘Audianer’ attempted to explain how the company typically operated in everyday practice. Members established links between their autobiographical work experiences and distinct elements of the corporate past that had occurred long before their entry into the organization. These links gave them a sense of adhering to a tradition of specific working practices.

9.2.1 Rooting improvisational qualities in a transformational period A common conception was that the ‘improvisational working style,’ which several respondents proclaimed as typical of AUDI AG, had its origin in a transformational period during post-war times. The following vignette, which was a key experience during fieldwork, demonstrates how contemporary concerns influenced the content of recollection, and, vice versa, how recollections were purposefully used to make sense of the present: One afternoon, an employee, who had worked for ten years at an undisclosed department in the indirect sector, told me about the issues he was currently having with his job (Ethno. 7, l. 124). He complained that the specific software he was expected to use had been poorly designed, which made it impractical for completing his particular tasks. However, he had found a provisional “custom fix” (l. 124), which was effective, yet not compliant with company policies. On the other hand, he claimed, it was exactly these policies that prevented him from obtaining a suitable official solution, which, as he believed in turn, legitimized his informal conduct. Taking this issue as an example, the employee subsequently argued that “this is typical of this joint! Some units are barely organized, […] so people keep pottering about their business,” creating their own “provisional solutions” (Ethno. 7, l. 124). He proclaimed that, on an informal

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level, “people simply do many things themselves” in a pragmatic, yet amateurish way (l. 124), instead of adhering to formally accepted procedures that are deemed ineffective. The employee then asserted that the origin of these provisional fixes, improvising, and “simply doing it” was to be “found in corporate history” (Ethno. 7, l. 124), which he demonstrated by recalling three historical cases. First, he argued that the company had “started from scratch” several times, which “taught them to improvise and accomplish maximum results with minimum resources” (l. 128). When Auto Union resumed operations after World War II, for example, “they attached a tank chain to an engine, which served as the first assembly line” (l. 128). Second, the respondent recalled a core story in corporate history, namely the “secret development of the Audi 100” – the first genuinely new Audi automobile developed under ownership of Volkswagen in the late 1960s (Ethno. 7, l. 130). It was a story that was commonly told at the museum (Ethno. 5, l. 36; cf. AUDI AG, Museum Mobile, 2010, January 13, pp. 34– 35), and had been published in various corporate history books (see e. g. AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2009, pp. 218 – 223). The respondent recounted that Ludwig Kraus, the former chief engineer of Audi NSU Auto Union AG, once conducted covert research and developed the new car in secret, thereby undermining VW’s directives, which had explicitly prohibited those at the Ingolstadt site from doing as much. As the account goes, shortly before Kraus presented the final car to VW’s management, he told his wife that he might lose his job the next day, as he had blatantly disregarded orders. To everyone’s surprise, the car was so good that it was accepted by VW, and it eventually became a sales success. And third, the informant brought up the development story of the Audi quattro in the late 1970s, which was known by other respondents as well. He recounted, “They took the chassis from the Audi 80 and attached the all-wheel-drive system from the Iltis. The Iltis, however, was only able to go 80 km/h, so [an engineer] developed [a component] he simply bolted to the engine, and voilà, it became the quattro” (Ethno. 7, l. 130). According to his narrative, the quattro had been a result of tinkering. The informant then claimed that the company still operated in the same old ways – that his experiences on the job were similar to the historical cases he had invoked. He assessed that there was not always a well-planned strategy or formal procedure behind every action; yet it always seemed to work out in the end. He concluded, “Despite [today’s] great marketing, many employees are saying that this is still the same old joint it used to be back then” (Ethno. 7, l. 134). This vignette demonstrates something that could be observed throughout the time of fieldwork: When members talked about their autobiographical

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work experiences, they occasionally referenced distinct elements of the corporate past that preceded their time at the company. Analogies between ‘then’ and ‘now’ were meant to explain how the company supposedly ‘really’ operated. Historical knowledge thus influenced what was considered normal and typical behavior in the workplace. Moreover, this case demonstrates that the workforce legitimized informal working practices this way. By establishing commonalities between the past and the present and recounting historical cases, members could assure themselves that bending the rules could not be entirely wrong, because they were merely acting in a long ‘tradition of deviation’ that had, in fact, driven the success of the company.

9.2.2 The Audi 100 development story as a case against bureaucracy In light of the improvisational qualities mentioned above, certain employee groups within AUDI AG were of the opinion that formalized working practices had become far too bureaucratic over the years. Increasing constraints surrounding the practice of ‘tinkering’ were believed to make the organization less innovative. As a counter-measure, they wished to rekindle the more experimental ‘spirit of the past.’ For example, a pair of young automobile designers argued that the current Audi A7 had been created “without the existence of an [official] request” (Int. 16, l. 92).⁵⁰ They immediately referred to the “first Audi 100 [which] basically hadn’t been requested either” (l. 108) and related the ‘secret development’ story. Both of them considered their own circumventing of the formal rules an acceptable working practice because it had generated a great product. More importantly, they claimed that “this kind of disobedience is almost cultivated here” (l. 72), which made it appear as a genuine ‘tradition’ that set them apart from competitors. Similarly, an employee in quality control proclaimed that “this is a [practice] that is not common in other companies – that the head of development has the guts to say we’re simply doing it” (Int. 12, ll. 171– 175). In light of this ‘tradition,’ informants openly criticized an “increase in bureaucracy” (Ethno. 63, l. 153), a standardization of processes, and “an increasing involvement of more committees that make decisions [harder]” (Int. 16, l. 408). These organization-wide changes were argued to threaten the informal working practices referred to above, considered crucial to Audi’s innovativeness in the  Before a new car is developed, a product requirements document is normally created, which must be approved by top management. Based on in-depth market research, the document specifies the target market, potential customer groups, product properties, requirements, etc. to ensure the business viability of a new product.

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past. This case demonstrates that the workforce recollected elements of the corporate past not only to understand what ‘normal’ working practices consisted of, but also what was worth maintaining. In reaction to growing concerns among the workforce, an internal initiative called “21 gram: The soul of Audi” had already been launched by a progressive task force two years before fieldwork had commenced. Promoting the idea of “creative disobedience” (Int. 15, l. 168), members were encouraged to be ‘gutsier’ and ‘bend bureaucratic rules.’ This conduct was justified by paradigmatic examples from corporate history, such as the secret development of the Audi 100 (Ethno. 52, l. 301). The message to members, in the end, was essentially threefold: First of all, it was considered good practice to resist bureaucracy if one was convinced of the greater corporate benefit of a counter-measure. Second, one should show initiative and dare to take risks. And third, a ‘do first and show later’ attitude emphasized the importance of good results over the processes behind them. Of course, the spreading of such institutionalized counter-stories was ideologically motivated. They were instrumentalized to communicate desired traits in a member’s conduct at work, which a specific party inside the company believed beneficial from the perspective of nurturing technological innovation. Stakeholders in controlling and process planning, on the other hand, presumably did not like this initiative. The former party who had launched the initiative, on the other hand, aimed for what Jan Assmann (2007) labels “myth motoricity” [Mythomotorik] (p. 78). As a myth, the situation-specific function of the ‘Audi 100 secret development’ story was that an ostensibly better past was remembered in heroic terms in order to point to an “experience of deficienc[y] in the present” (p. 79). In this way, a contrast became apparent that “emphasize[d] what [was] missing, disappeared, lost, marginalized” (p. 79). The initiative did indeed have an impact on parts of the workforce. Rather than initiating changes in everyday conduct, however, it predominantly served as a way in which organizational reality could be construed. Common working practices were not only traced through elements of the past that had already been featured in cultural forms of official organizational remembrance. Employees also created their own myths and referred to accounts from co-workers that had not yet been institutionalized through the writings of corporate historians and journalists. For instance, the two designers quoted above both identified the Audi TT from the mid-1990s as a ‘product milestone’ that had defined the design unit’s practices of styling automobiles. The car had “planted the seed for premium craftsmanship” (Int. 16, l. 134); barely exposed to financial pressure, the original designers were recalled to have been given full reign to realize their wildest ideas. The first Audi TT was thus fash-

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ioned as the epitome of stylistic freedom, creativity, and success – how designers preferred to see themselves working at their best. This indicates that, independent of official carriers of organizational remembrance, regular members of the workforce constantly created new representations of the corporate past, and through the recollection of these constructed and interpreted organizational reality.

9.3 Justifying the Existence of Corporate Conflicts When members of AUDI AG talked about organizational life, they occasionally addressed conflicts inside the corporation. These conflicts became of interest to this study because their existence and genesis were sometimes explained and justified via distinct references to the corporate past. In fact, particular conflicts were fashioned as having historical roots; they appeared deeply ingrained in the nature of the company. A particularly salient case discovered during the time of fieldwork is worth discussing here.

9.3.1 An unequal subsidiary-parent relationship A common theme among the Ingolstadt workforce was the relationship between AUDI AG and Volkswagen AG, which was believed to be a tense one. The perceived power struggle between the entities was based on the idea that Audi was not fully respected as a sovereign entity – that the company was trapped in an unequal ‘subsidiary-parent relationship.’ For instance, a respondent proclaimed that there was a “constant quarrel” and “a lot of burnt earth between the [VW] Group and Audi” (Int. 8, l. 12). According to another employee, “the VW guys are an arrogant bunch. Audi is only the subsidiary […] and this is how the VW people see us. We’re not on equal grounds […] and the parent company rules from above” (Int. 4, l. 253). Several respondents were of the opinion that Audi was “building cars that are more beautiful [than VW’s]” (Int. 19, l. 600), and that the most innovative technologies inside the VW Group came from Ingolstadt (Ethno. 102, l. 91). In a nutshell, this conflict was largely based on conflicting brand pride, feelings of technological superiority, and group-internal competition, which in the end created a struggle between rivaling organizational identities.

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As a form of group-internal resistance, Audi was said to occasionally employ “anarcho” practices (Int. 11, l. l. 304).⁵¹ If a viable opportunity appeared, the company would purportedly go against the directives of the corporate parent, pursuing its own interests in rogue fashion. A recent example of that so-called “anarcho spirit” (Int. 13, l. 55) was Audi’s covert development of its own electric drive system, which did not comply with a joint strategy Volkswagen had mandated. According to a supervising member of HR, Audi wished to demonstrate “that we’re still innovative and that we show those VW guys the ropes – that we keep pace and that we’re good” (Int. 13, l. 67). This was a show of strength in a complicated subsidiary-parent relationship. Meanwhile, journalists had learned from internal sources about the issue, and various articles addressing Audi’s ‘anarchistic approach’ were published. A SPIEGEL Online article, for instance, called the independent development of the electric drive system “Audi’s ‘anarcho project’ [that was] exasperating VW’s top management” (SPON, 2011, January 3, para. 1). Similarly, a SPIEGEL article summed up the conflict between Audi and VW with the title, “Anarchos against the Southern Swedes” (2011, January 22, p. 65). The airing of the conflict in public, not surprisingly, reinforced it (Ethno. 102, l. 91). The fundamental point for this study, however, was not picked up by journalists. Inside AUDI AG, the conflict was not interpreted as a recent issue, but the workforce fashioned it as the continuation of a “rivalry developed over the course of history” (Ethno. 102, l. 121). The recent event was considered one episode in the “process of emancipation from VW” that had been going on for almost half a century (Int. 18, l. 236). Seen from a contemporary perspective, this conflict featured a distinct point of origin, followed by a string of incidents re-enforcing the initial conflict, which will be outlined in the next sections.

9.3.2 A conflict with a long-running history The initial point of origin was commonly thought to have been the takeover of Auto Union GmbH by Volkswagen AG in the mid-1960s. According to a retired production manager, DKW cars “had not been as evolved as, for instance, a [VW] Beetle back then, which is why VW immediately looked down at Audi”

 As a ‘tradition worker’ explained, members of Audi’s technological development unit used to call the people from VW in Wolfsburg “the Southern Swedes” and the Ingolstadt people, in turn, were called “the anarchos” (Ethno. 102, l. 91). The labeling communicated in shorthand the notion that the VW people were “dry, cold, boring, and bureaucratic,” while the ‘Audianer’ could be seen as anarchical inventors who “simply develop stuff” (l. 91).

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(Int. 22, l. 111). The production of DKW vehicles was subsequently stopped at the behest of Wolfsburg, the DKW brand killed, and a “foreign product” – the VW Beetle – put into production on the assembly lines in Ingolstadt (Ethno. 102, l. 92). In the minds of various respondents, Auto Union had been reduced to merely an “attachment of VW” (Int. 23, l. 84). In these accounts, the company in Ingolstadt had been ‘handled roughly’ and ‘mistreated’ by its ‘patriarchal father.’ According to an archivist, the legal basis of this unequal relationship had been a “contract of domination and profit transfer, […] and the name was the game” (Ethno. 112, l. 22). VW was recalled to have kept a tight rein on all operations. A long retired manager from the technological development unit, for instance, reported, “[VW] never let us develop anything that would have run against their own [products and technologies]. […] Those guys in Wolfsburg were such an arrogant bunch, […] but they made the rules” (Int. 21, l. 216). Since sovereign development right was considered a key quality that separated a genuine car company from a manufacturing plant, Audi was thus fashioned as a ‘child’ whose talents were suppressed. In addition to this fundamental power imbalance, a number of elements of the corporate past were sometimes recalled as concrete ‘embodiments’ of the conflict. The acronym ‘V.A.G.’ was frequently remembered as the epitome of suppression. Representing the joint sales organization “Volkswagen Audi Gesellschaft” from the 1970s to the 1990s (AUDI AG, Audi Tradition, 2005, p. 116), respondents took issue mainly with V.A.G. for usurping Audi’s marketing and sales responsibilities. According to a long-time marketing manager, “[Audi] developed the vehicles, built them, sold them to Wolfsburg, [and] Wolfsburg did the rest. This means we did not see our customers; this was reserved for the sales organization” (Int. 18, l. 48). The lack of these central business responsibilities was also interpreted as an essential loss of control. Sales numbers were said to have been low due to insufficient support from Wolfsburg. As a former PR manager explained, “If you went to the V.A.G. dealer and you wanted an Audi, it was very likely that the dealer didn’t have an Audi, or he tried to sell you a [VW] Passat; it was difficult” (Ethno. 63, l. 296). Moreover, the company with the ‘Four Rings’ was recalled to have had little control over the construction of its brand identity (Ethno. 28, l. 206), which is why Audi’s image was remembered as having been a bland, “juiced up version of Volkswagen” (l. 206). In this way, respondents from various generations retrospectively ascribed to V.A.G. the role of an inhibitor of progress and were glad that sales were no longer organized in this fashion. There were also a range of historical products that were frequently displayed as manifestations of the conflict between Audi and Volkswagen. Throughout history, the corporate parent had allegedly usurped technologies and products with-

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out giving sufficient credit to Ingolstadt. One of these products was reportedly the Audi 50 – a small hatchback from the mid-1970s. A member from HR recalled that, at first, one had to “fight” with VW to be allowed to develop a third model line (Int. 13, l. 219), but when the car was finally brought to market, “VW simply grabbed the Audi 50 after a few months and put a VW badge on it” (Ethno. 69, l. 160). The car was dubbed “the stolen Audi 50 […] that mutated into a [VW] Polo” (Int. 19, l. 58). Occasionally, this version of the past was also perpetuated by niche magazines. According to an Auto Bild Klassik article (2003, March 7) about the Audi 50 and the VW Polo, The VAG family used to adhere to rough moral standards: As early as 1974, the birth year of the Audi 50, VW boss Rudolf Leiding announced that he ‘occasionally wanted to reach up the skirt of the beautiful Audi daughter.’ (para 4; cf. Auto Bild, 2013, October 1)

Respondents also made similar claims about the VW Iltis off-roader, which had been developed by Audi (Int. 16, l. 528; cf. SPON, 2011, February 22), and the VW K70, which had originally been an NSU product (Int. 21, l. 86; cf. Welt Online, 2009, March 2). As testaments to V.A.G.’s ‘exploitative’ behavior, these elements were embraced as historical reasons for why the conflict with the corporate parent had grown more heated over the years. Whether these stories were accurate or not did not matter. In the words of Weick (1995), “[historical accuracy] is nice, but not necessary [in the sensemaking process]” (p. 56), because plausibility, from a contemporary perspective, is all that matters. Further investigation found that several of the recollections mentioned above were, in fact, triggered by contemporary circumstances. During the time of fieldwork, the Audi A1 was released and was the company’s first shot at the small car segment in more than three decades. Ironically, it was built on the same platform as the VW Polo, and thus the A1 conjured up memories of the ‘stolen Audi 50.’ A member of quality control declared, “Now we’ve got our Audi 50 back, guys” (Int. 12, l. 349). Moreover, VW published a consumer magazine and a website in the winter of 2010 which portrayed the VW Iltis and the VW K70 as innovative Volkswagen developments. Neither source gave credit to Audi or NSU. An employee of the plant in Ingolstadt commented on these publications with the words, “This is typical of VW – Audi develops something, VW seizes it, and claims full ownership” (Ethno. 90, l. 279). In his opinion, VW had not only usurped his company’s products, but also stolen the right to represent his collectivity’s past.

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9.3.3 Narratives countering Volkswagen’s patriarchal rule The workforce did not necessarily wallow in their self-ascribed status as victims. Catering to the need for the construction of “solid, favorable identities” (Cheney & Christensen, 2001, p. 241), a number of counter-narratives emerged that portrayed Audi as a challenger of Volkswagen. These narratives all featured committed ‘Audianer’ who acted in a rebellious fashion against the orders of Volkswagen. The most commonly recollected counter-narrative, in this respect, was the ‘Audi 100 secret development’ alluded to several times before. In all versions presented to me, respondents emphasized that it had been a bold move “against the will of the corporation” (Int. 11, l. 308) to release a “secret product the mother in Wolfsburg didn’t know about” (Int. 13, l. 231). This move was considered simultaneously the birth of an “anarcho spirit” (l. 67), an early statement of Audi’s own capabilities, and a “representation of the fight against VW” (Ethno. 86, l. 51). Another counter-narrative was the so-called “foundation myth” of Audi’s marketing and sales unit (Ethno. 86, l. 51). Referring to a phase in the early 1990s when Audi “cut the cord from the [VW] Group in an externally visible way” (Int. 11, l. 66), there was not yet an institutionalized version of this story, and so it floated around the office floors. According to the ‘foundation myth’ as recounted by a high-ranking marketing manager, Ferdinand Piëch had “this unconditional ambition to move into the premium segment” (Int. 18, l. 46). This vision, however, was inhibited by the fact that the Audi brand was attached to V.A.G., which deprived Audi of the sovereign brand identity required for competing in the upper market segment.⁵² AUDI AG therefore needed to pursue a strategy to “resist the continual dominance from Wolfsburg” and resume control of its marketing and sales responsibilities (Ethno. 63, l. 296). As already presented in another chapter, Audi managed to found its own marketing unit in 1991, which “started more or less from scratch,” as the disappointed corporate parent showed little to no support (Int. 18, l. 56). Due to the dissociation from VW, the “foundation time or self-discovery process” was a “lib-

 According to an undisclosed market-psychological study (Sinus Automobilmarktforschung GmbH, 1986), the average German motorist perceived AUDI AG as a manufacturer that had “aspirations to advance into the automobile luxury class” (p. 35). However, the brand with the ‘Four Rings’ supposedly suffered under the “usurpation” by VAG (p. 35). From the customer’s point of view, Audi was assumed to lack autonomy from its corporate parent – qualities “that are considered indispensable, however, for a manufacturer who wants to find acknowledgement in the exclusive segment” (p. 35). The study thus concluded that aspired target groups saw “VW as a ‘prestige kill’ for Audi” (p. 35).

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erating […] time of pioneering” (l. 64). New marketing staff hired from outside the group started to openly challenge the patriarchy, so “unrest […] emerged” (l. 62), which led to a “political situation inside the Group that was highly critical and highly dangerous” (l. 64). Interpreting these developments as an act of rebellion, the corporate parent watched Audi suspiciously with “Eagle eyes” (l. 62). In a second step, AUDI AG employed a trick to circumvent the fact that sales responsibilities were still with VW – they erected a local delivery center on the premises in Ingolstadt. The idea behind it was, “If we cannot go to our customers, we simply get our customers to us; that was the trick” (l. 48). In 1993, the final step took place with Piëch becoming CEO of Volkswagen AG. He arranged for the sales responsibilities to be transferred finally back to Ingolstadt (l. 48), which rendered the V.A.G. structure obsolete (l. 72). According to the myth, marketing and sales became the Audi brand vanguard, regaining for the company power over what the ‘Four Rings’ represented. The main function of the myth was to mark a point in time “when Audi managed to gain some kind of independence [from VW]” (Int. 8, l. 68), as a young sales employee stated. From her perspective, marketing and sales “had always been a fight” (l. 51), so the counter-narrative demonstrated that Ingolstadt could emerge as a winner by taking things into their own hands and challenging the ‘rule of the patriarch.’ At the same time, the founding myth crafted a unique identity for Audi, as it “demarcate[d] [Audi] from VW” (l. 51). It gave members a sense of organizational independence within the VW Group.

9.3.4 Variation in data and different perspectives on the issue of conflict There was no easy way to reconcile these views entirely with the data, however. Not every single respondent was critical towards VW (and outspoken about it). For instance, a long retired manager from the production unit attested to a “mutual appreciation” between Audi and VW (Int. 22, l. 119). He acknowledged that there had been conflicts in the past, indeed, but they supposedly no longer mattered, as there had been a significant “improvement in the relationship” (l. 119). Even the takeover period was sometimes subject to multiple and irreconcilable interpretations. As a member in quality control, whose grandfather had experienced this period, recalled, “And then VW came and they immediately built the beetle in Ingolstadt, and the people had a job again. […] Thank god that they came […] so that we could build cars again” (Int. 12, ll. 353 – 357). Similarly, another informant acknowledged, “If VW had not acquired Audi [sic] back then […], it probably would not exist today. […] From an economic standpoint this was the right decision” (Int. 8, l. 46).

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The question emerges as to why some members recollected examples from the past as proof of a conflict, while others downplayed the existence of any conflict altogether. Careful data analysis suggests that those members who personally had had negative experiences with colleagues from Volkswagen in recent times were also more likely to recall historical examples that emphasized the conflict. Moreover, numerous members did not necessarily adhere to an either/or position, but demonstrated a mixed attitude. For example, the sales employee quoted above, who did not seem very fond of VW, also stated, “Audi surely benefits a lot from shared platforms and developments and so on; but emotionally you simply feel different [from VW]” (Int. 8, l. 46). There were two dimensions to the conflict: From a rational perspective, the conflict was irrelevant because the group structure had brought financial stability and reduced development costs. From a cultural perspective, however, questions of identity, alterity, and power painted a different, emotionally-charged picture. In a large multi-brand group, the workforce in Ingolstadt wished to fashion themselves as different from the workforce in Wolfsburg. Recollections of historical conflict thus served to construct and reinforce this cultural difference. Differences, of course, not only existed between the corporate parent and its subsidiary, but also within AUDI AG. The next section discusses how images of the corporate past allowed the workforce to assess and criticize the quality of their working life inside the company.

9.4 Evaluating the Quality of Corporate Life In order to assess the ways AUDI AG operated in practice, and in order to judge them, members required a reference by which they could compare working conditions of the past to those in the present. This could either be found in the working environments at other companies, or in the experience of past conditions at AUDI AG. The latter option was of interest to this study. It was found that images of the corporate past served as a foil for the workforce, against which they could evaluate the quality of contemporary corporate life.

9.4.1 Assessing bureaucratization through comparison with the past Numerous respondents attested that contemporary modes of operation were significantly different from how the company had operated twenty years ago. Bureaucracy had reportedly increased. Members in administrative jobs who had joined the company between the 1980s and late 1990s, in particular, recalled

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the company to have been “unbureaucratic” and “more open” back then (Ethno. 63, l. 157). They possessed an image of employees “with their sleeves rolled up,” and a pragmatic ‘can-do’ attitude (Int. 8, l. 60). Teams were recalled to have been smaller (Int. 16, l. 438), hierarchies flatter (Int. 1, l. 39 – 43), the chain of command shorter (Int. 8, l. 250), and the degree of organization “less thorough” (Int. 10, l. 236). Informants proclaimed that they used to enjoy greater individual responsibility, and interpersonal communication used to be more personal (Int. 18, l. 102). Tasks were claimed to have been conducted “not so much according to fixed protocols” (Int. 8, l. 126) but through “informal channels” (Ethno. 61, l. 199). The amount of stress had reportedly been lower, which had contributed to “fewer careless mistakes” (Int. 8, l. 144). Taken as a whole, these qualities had supposedly enabled a “flexible,” less rigid style of operation “more typical of a medium-sized company” (Int. 10, l. 236). Respondents recollected these elements of the corporate past and reconstructed an image of a supposedly unbureaucratic organization precisely because they were discontent with a range of contemporary developments. In their opinion, contemporary AUDI AG was gradually becoming too riddled with bureaucracy. According to numerous critical accounts collected during fieldwork, the company had substantially increased its workforce in recent years, so it needed to “manage its complexity [and] size […] without breaking apart” (Int. 24, l. 700). New departments, bigger teams, and a diversification in job-related responsibilities had led to tighter hierarchies. A sales employee, for instance, criticized that there was an “[increase in] formalities – I’m not responsible for that; you’ve got to talk to my boss for that; I’m not allowed to do that anymore” (Int. 8, l. 148). New protocols regulated working practices in such a way that standardization and fixed processes prevented deviation from what business consultants had defined as the optimum. As an HR manager remarked, these bureaucratic components “have the tendency to make themselves independent, […] so quite often they cannot be managed by real humans anymore” (Int. 10, l. 106). Administrative methods, such as a general increase in “monitoring” and “constant assessment” (Int. 1, l. 343), were identified as “impairments” (l. 133) and “excessive controlling,” which not only generated stress (Ethno. 5, l. 22), but were also interpreted as a sign that the company “doesn’t trust its people” anymore (Ethno. 34, l. 34). The workforce was capable of criticizing these issues because they could recall a time when organizational life had supposedly been different. Images of the past thus served as a foil against which they pitted their construal of contemporary organizational reality. Recollections of the corporate past served as markers of criticism that pointed to current problems. Despite their criticism, however, most members managed to accommodate themselves to the changes which

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had produced contemporary conditions. Those who could not cope or refused to adapt, exhibited a different strategy, which is discussed next.

9.4.2 Nostalgia as a coping strategy The “good-old-days syndrome,” as Smith and Steadman (1981, p. 165) call nostalgia, emerges when people embrace an idealized, partly transfigured understanding of a past for which they yearn and long (cf. Gabriel, 2000). Certain members of AUDI AG possessed nostalgic attitudes towards the past. For instance, one particular informant from an undisclosed department, who had been with the company for several decades, regularly refused to comply with new procedures (Ethno. 34, l. 99). In his opinion, processes of standardization were depriving Audi of the creative, free-roaming spirit that had once differentiated it from other companies in the industry. This deprivation was personified by career-driven “youngsters in suits” (Ethno. 79, l. 145) and streamlined “yes-men” without a backbone (Ethno. 15, l. 29). In contrast, his accounts of organizational life in the late 1980s and early 1990s constructed an image of a company that had been “functioning without any bureaucracy” (Ethno. 74, l. 201) – the ‘good old days.’ The difference between this case and the ones presented in the previous section was that this particular respondent could not adapt to changes inside the organization. The employee realized that the working practices he used to embrace had been deemed outdated, but he refused to engage in the new practices, which made him doubt in his formal membership role. The nostalgic past he reconstructed in his own memory thus fulfilled an “ontological function” (Gabriel, 2000, p. 183) – i. e. “the need to see himself as someone of value” (p. 183) in times of change. Hence, one may see how nostalgic images serve as coping strategies or strategies of resistance to deal with contemporary circumstances that are radically different from those in the past.

9.4.3 Passing on images of the corporate past from generation to generation Memories of a time when AUDI AG had been less bureaucratic were not only recalled by those members who had experienced them autobiographically. Images of the past were also passed on to younger generations. For instance, a strategy employee stated:

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GU: Of course there are stories. […] [T]here are colleagues who have experienced that time, and, once in a while, they recall how it had been here in the past – […] that, back then, everything used to be more informal and flatter hierarchies, that the rules were not as fixed, not as established, many things were in flux […]. Those are aspects that always came through in narrations. (Int. 11, l. 284)

While the respondent had joined AUDI AG in the early 2000s, he was nevertheless in command of a pre-bureaucratic image of the corporate past, which he had picked up from the narrations of his colleagues who had been at the company for longer. This demonstrates that this notion of the past enabled younger generations to evaluate the quality of contemporary organizational life, as well, even if they lacked the autobiographical work experiences that would allow them to compare their own experiences in time. Members who had not been at the company as long were not in command of these images of the past, on the other hand, and did not seem to possess an awareness that the company had once operated differently. Of course, they were still able to make comparisons with their own assumptions, but their lack of a contrastive image of AUDI AG’s past limited their ability to evaluate the quality of contemporary organizational life there. In consequence, they were more likely to accept the status quo.

9.4.4 Variation in comparative tactics across the organization Images of the corporate past serving as foils against which to compare the present were not universal within AUDI AG; they were sector-specific. While members of the indirect sector, most notably administrative staff, complained about an increase in bureaucracy, production employees in the direct sector, on the other hand, painted a different picture. For them, temporal comparison did not reveal contemporary circumstances as less desirable. For example, a group of blue collar foremen drew a (literally) dark picture of the working conditions in the 1980s. Due to insufficient ventilation technology, there had been an “immense creation of dust and steam […] so that you couldn’t see the other end of the hall” (Int. 4, l. 409). Audi was recalled to have not paid any attention to the “outward appearance” and cleanliness of its production plant (l. 445). Moreover, the working conditions were recalled to have been physically demanding, the degree of manual labor higher (Int. 1, l. 23), and ergonomics at the workplace “had not been a topic you talked about back then” (Int. 4, l. 375). A similarly bleak picture was painted of the organization of manufacturing. An assembly line worker recalled, “You used to carry out a single task […]; the

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same task for half a year – only that!” (Int. 27, l. 34), which was monotonous and exhausting. Moreover, so-called “group foremen” had existed (Int. 24, l. 46), who supposedly pursued a hierarchical management style detached from their subordinates. Dubbed “green jackets” due to the color of their uniform (Int. 9, l. 182), these group foremen reportedly employed “an impudent tone of communication” that created an unpleasant atmosphere at work (Int. 24, l. 132). Altogether, the period of production in the 1970s and 1980s was portrayed as an era no one wanted to return. In contrast, contemporary working conditions were displayed as significant improvements and the outcome of continuous optimization efforts. Corporate initiatives were prominently recalled that had brought about these improvements. This included, for example, the introduction of self-organized “teamwork” in the 1990s (Int. 4, l 629), which rendered the much detested position of the ‘green jackets’ superfluous. Teamwork had also introduced the concept of “job rotation” (Int. 4, l. 179), which reduced monotony and stress on the body. Moreover, informants recalled that Audi started paying attention to the outward appearance of their production facilities in the 1990s; modern ventilation systems and a brighter color scheme made the plant appear cleaner and more presentable (Int. 4, l. 447). In the early 1980s, new automatization technology was introduced (Ethno. 48, l. 106), and the production unit started paying attention to ergonomics and health issues (Ethno. 84, l. 97). While a job on the assembly line remained demanding labor (Ethno. 70, l. 97), informants emphasized that Audi regularly came up with worker assistance systems that improved the ‘human factor’ in manufacturing. At the center of all of this stood the ubiquitously promoted idea of the “continual improvement process” [KVP] (Int. 24, l. 88): Instead of becoming annoyed by flawed tasks, workers were encouraged to make suggestions for improvement. A foreman stated, “Back in the old days, this would have been unthinkable; no one would have dared to go to the foreman, saying something like that; no way!” (Int. 4, l. 653). Managers, supervisors, and workers alike embraced “KVP” as an important “milestone” that had led to “a change in thinking” (Int. 24, l. 388). In terms of workplace safety, health, and technological advancement, organizational life truly had improved in the direct sector. However, the construction of a bleaker image of the corporate past was no coincidence. As already discussed in a previous chapter, the production marketing department was a stakeholder in the corporate past which had a share in its construction via various forms of organizational remembrance (Ethno. 74, l. 83). The department had strategically crafted an image of a backward past, in light of which the present seemed obviously superior. These efforts clearly had left their mark on the workforce, as well. As an employee in production reported:

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PI: [W]hen a new employee arrives and we tell him – ‘Yes, 25 years ago […] we used to do everything a bit differently’ – many think that we weren’t really able to build cars. We also built cars 25 years ago. […] We didn’t have power screwdrivers, no KVPs, and whatnot, but we built cars, too. They’re surprised that [these products] were running; but they were running, and they were also purchased [by customers]. (Int. 27, l. 510)

Equipped with a negative image of the past, younger employees in production reportedly could not imagine how Audi had been able to produce ‘proper’ cars under the conditions claimed by production marketing to have been so poor. Hence, they supported the status quo and assumed that their working lives were significantly better than what their older colleagues had withstood several decades ago. This case showed that different groups of the Audi workforce possessed entirely different images of the corporate past, which strongly affected their construal of the quality of contemporary organizational life.

9.5 Short Summary This chapter investigated how members understood organizational reality through retrospection. Meaningful recollections of, and references to, distinct elements of the past helped them to obtain a sense of how the organization operated. Four specific themes were discussed in more detail: Firstly, I showed how the workforce employed knowledge about the corporate past to explain the reasons for contemporary market conditions. Members believed that Audi had dodged the most recent economic crisis because of their historical experiences in dealing with crises. Moreover, it was demonstrated how references to a distinct element of the corporate past served to explain why the company’s performance on the U.S. American market was low compared with other markets. Recollections of the ‘Audi 5000 unintended acceleration case’ were a case in point. Second, this chapter discussed how members traced the roots of supposedly common working practices in the corporate past, which were believed to have originated in distinct periods in the company’s history. Several cases made the point that the roots of improvisational and ‘tinkering’ practices were thought to have been planted in a transformational period after World War II. Similarly, the practice of ‘circumventing formal rules’ for the benefit of the company was considered a common thread in the corporate past, which informants demonstrated by recounting core stories. It was then argued that certain internal parties attempted to instrumentalize these stories in order to rekindle supposedly lost working practices among the workforce, seeking to counter bureaucratic structures.

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Third, I addressed how members used distinct references to the corporate past to justify and legitimize the existence of contemporary corporate conflicts. An unequal subsidiary-parent relationship between Audi and Volkswagen was argued to be rooted in rivalry with a long history. Passed on from generation to generation, a number of negative elements of the corporate past, such as V.A.G. itself and various ‘usurped products,’ were shown as manifestations of the conflict. At the same time, members of AUDI AG recalled counter-narratives that challenged VW’s patriarchal rule, which helped them to establish a cultural community of ‘Audianer,’ demarcating them from Volkswagen. The last part of this chapter outlined the manner in which the workforce employed reductionist images of the past to help them assess the quality of contemporary corporate life and their own working conditions. In the indirect sector, temporal comparisons led the workforce to criticize the increase in bureaucracy; in the direct sector, on the other hand, temporal comparison enabled them to view working conditions in the present as an improvement over those in the past. It was argued that images of the corporate past which served as foils to the present were passed on from generation to generation and varied across the entire organization. Moreover, I discussed the phenomenon of nostalgia as a coping strategy for members who had problems dealing with contemporary developments. Altogether, it becomes clear that knowledge about the corporate past mattered immensely to the workforce. Historical consciousness was essential to everyday sense-making and influenced how the workforce thought about, and acted at, work. Since historical consciousness also mattered in the processes of ‘Audianer’ constructing themselves as a community, the following chapter will discuss the impact of remembrance on the formation of collective identities.

10 Constructing Identities in Light of the Corporate Past The workforce shared conceptions of the attributes and qualities possessed by Audi. Recollections of the corporate past played a pivotal role in the processes of constructing and understanding these Audi-related identities – characterizing Audi as a firm, a brand, and a community of people. This chapter investigates these relationships in detail. First, it addresses how the workforce identified profoundly with the contemporary success of the company exactly because they could remember images of an unsuccessful corporate past. Second, I discuss how memories of a substantial brand image transformation, which took place two decades ago, was an important step in the constitution of a collective identity among the workforce. Third, this chapter seeks to explain how this supraindividual conceptualization of ‘we’ contributed to the gradual emergence of a positive organizational identity, leading to increased member identification with the brand, the company, and the employer. Fourth, special attention is given to how members achieved something called ‘concreteness of identity’ by making select references to the corporate past. And fifth, I will discuss how the workforce managed to cope with identity threats via retrospection. Overall, this chapter demonstrates that organizational remembrance fulfilled many functions on the identity level of the workforce.

10.1 Identifying with Contemporary Business Success One of the fundamental traits of a company is that it strives for success in business (Schierenbeck, 2003). The workforce generally considered Audi a thriving firm and a brand that enjoyed a high level of popularity. In the words of a secretary in production, Audi had “found the right recipe for success” (Int. 19, l. 548). This section discusses the role remembrance of the corporate past played when members fashioned Audi and themselves as ‘successful.’ In an environment dominated by fierce competition, the fact that members belonged to a company that was acknowledged as a market leader already generated a high level of member identification. A member of the strategy department proclaimed, “[I]t is a status symbol that you’re working at a […] company that is widely known to be successful; [this] certainly is an aspect of identification” (Int. 11, l. 120). Likewise, a sales employee expressed, “[O]f course I like working here because […] it reflects positively on me” (l. 202). The image of

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AUDI AG as a company with a superb financial record thus affected how members constructed themselves as employees (cf. Hatch & Schultz, 1997). More than serving individualistic efforts at self-fashioning, however, contemporary business success first and foremost amplified the sense of community within the organization. As an employee of the technological development unit explained, “Everybody wants to be part of the winning team; that’s just normal” (Ethno. 102, l. 205). A worker from the assembly line added, “We have a boom phase right now and we are proud of being a part of it” (Int. 27, l. 844). Similarly, an HR manager proclaimed, “[success] forges a bond between the people; […] it takes effect like a pleasant drug” (Int. 10, l. 138). Employees identified with the financial success of the company and encouraged the notion that they belonged to an entity larger than themselves. In other words, this contributed to the emergence of a collective Audi identity among the workforce – supported by internal measures promoting collectivizing statements like “You are Audi” (Ethno. 6, l. 48).

10.1.1 Success as a cumulative outcome of previous efforts As mentioned before, AUDI AG achieved its “best result in company history” during the time of fieldwork (Volkswagen AG, 2011, March 8, para. 1; cf. FOCUS, 2011, March 8; SPON, 2011, March 3). While the majority of respondents characterized present-day AUDI AG as a highly successful company, they showed an awareness that this did not necessarily result from their most recent activities, but was a cumulative outcome of decades of previous work. For example, an employee in the technological development unit explained, “10 to 15 years ago, we basically laid [the foundations of] the success we have today […], and by now we know why we are so successful” (Int. 7, ll. 34– 50). He and his colleagues recalled (some of) the measures they and their company had taken to become successful. As a long-term marketing manager observed, “[W]e’re standing on the shoulders of many, many, very, very successful engineers, technicians, [and] workers who have made everything possible” (Int. 18, l. 262). Thus members did not live in a bubble detached from time, but took into account those elements of the corporate past that were believed to have contributed to contemporary success. This included specific organizational developments, products, technologies, procedures, and people who were credited to have made the company what it was. The more pronounced a member’s historical consciousness was, the more distinct these recollections were.

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10.1.2 The unsuccessful past as a point of comparison Contemporary business success was particularly important for the construction of a collective Audi identity because employees remembered that the company had gone through extremely unsuccessful phases, as well. For example, an employee in quality control recalled: GQ: An aspect I still remember very well was this periodic cycle of being afraid of losing your job. Back then, every couple of years you really had to fear for your job. Well, I still remember my grandpa’s accounts of the time when Audi was a real mess. […] The firm had always lived ‘from hand to mouth.’ […] It wasn’t the case that Audi had always been on a success spree the way we’ve gotten to know it for the past 15 years, that we’re hitting record after record; not at all! […] Since I’ve been with Audi, it’s only been going forward. At the moment, you simply don’t know what it means to fear for your job. I mean, the time will certainly come again someday, but not right now. (Int. 12, ll. 85 – 103)

Among long-time members, in particular, AUDI AG was remembered as a company which had struggled for the better part of its existence. In light of the unsuccessful past, the contemporary economic stability and record profits were not only perceived as a vast improvement, but something of which to be proud. In order to render the contemporary business success even more remarkable, the time between the post-war re-foundation of Auto Union in Ingolstadt and the 1980s was seen as an economically unstable time wished back by no one. A manager in the HR unit remarked: HR: The company used to have big, big problems. […] [T]he company had been on […] the full brink of extinction several times, which shows that the streak of success of the last years is quite extraordinary. […] It’s good to know that – from a contemporary perspective – many things appear measly, embarrassing, rickety, unsuccessful, and that this is decidedly different today. Well, we are somebody now. (Int. 10, l. 194)

The reductive and one-sided image of an unsuccessful past fulfilled an important function for the workforce, as it served as a way of emphasizing the extraordinariness of contemporary conditions. The more unsuccessful the past seemed, the more successful the present appeared. The evolution of Audi could thus be embraced as an impressive “success story that basically does not exist anywhere else in Germany” (Int. 7, l. 98). A common way to express the magnitude of this evolution was by drawing quantitative comparisons in time. For example, respondents recalled “the low volume Audi used to produce in the old days,” which was “unimaginable” if one compared it to the “one million [cars] we’re producing today” (Int. 26, l. l. 368). A worker demonstrated the impression this gave by remarking, “Higher

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sale numbers every year – it’s only been going up ever since” (Int. 27, l. 194). Another quantitative marker was salary, which had increased steadily over the last few decades (Ethno. 84, l. 83). Members also pointed out that they now received the “highest employee profit-sharing in the history of the company” (Ethno. 86, l. 112), which improved their personal economic situation substantially.

10.1.3 Seeking assurance in the corporate past to prevent future downturns Knowledge about unsuccessful periods in the corporate past not only revealed to members how the company had managed to overcome various crises, but also provided assurance that the company would ‘always’ remain successful. For example, a retired production manager stated: PI: I think there’s one thing you could clearly observe over the last 60 years: Audi cannot be brought down; Audi keeps on living. Even when times are bad, Audi keeps on living. This is when you roll up your sleeves three times, but Audi lives and will keep on living. Do you understand? I can’t really express it in any different way, but you could always observe during bad times that this kind of ‘Now more than ever,’ this kind of ‘We can do it’… that’s Audi to me. (Int. 22, l. 397)

Several older members, such as the one quoted above, were convinced that previous experiences of economic hardship had taught the workforce how to overcome any obstacle in the future, and this would keep the company alive forever. ‘Success through resilience’ was thus considered an essential quality of Audi and a core element of organizational identity. This conviction was also prevalent among informants who had been at the company for shorter periods of time and not personally experienced downturns. A young strategy employee, for instance, said, “[Dents in the past] strengthen the company because everybody knows […] ‘We’ve landed in a ditch and we got up again, and we can do this.’ This is definitely good for the spirit” (Int. 11, l. 426). Self-assurance about one’s capability to overcome downturns in the future, however, did not rely on the mere knowledge that the company had always managed to be resilient, but also on distinct recollections of how the company used to treat its workforce in times of crisis. For example, a secretary from the production unit stated: PI: [S]ocial security plays a very important role. […] If you look at history, the last 100 years, [the company managed to] overcome crises, they kept their employees, and they didn’t simply let them go. That’s the spirit of it, I believe. (Int. 19, l. 540)

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By making assumptions about future actions based on past experiences, many respondents were convinced that the company would treat the workforce in a socially acceptable manner if a crisis were to arise in the near future. Recollections of elements of the corporate past served as ‘signs of proof.’ These primarily included the efforts of committed leader figures (Ethno. 86, l. 18) and “collaborative actions” of a “strong, good works council” (Int. 1, l. 339). Even among those respondents who recalled major layoffs in the history of the company, Audi was still considered a ‘socially responsible employer,’ which is why they recalled occupational redeployment measures taken by the company. Corporate agents and the works council had a share in planting this conviction through organizational remembrance. For instance, the HR unit installed an engraved bronze bust in the corporate education center that honored “Fritz Böhm, Chairman of the Audi works council 1951– 1987” (Ethno. 86, l. 18). Moreover, under the slogan “60 years of worker participation,” the works council commemorated their “laudable achievements” via an anniversary (Ethno. 74, l. 313), through which they communicated a number of ideas – e. g. that “dependability” and “reliability” between AUDI AG and its workforce went both ways (Int. 13, l. 181). There were only a handful of workers and employees, predominantly with a blue collar background, who recalled negative examples that clouded this positive image of their employer (Int. 26, l. 54). Overall, memories of autobiographical experiences, mixed with historical knowledge about the conduct of the company in times of crisis, enabled the workforce to make plausible predictions about corporate behavior in the future. Deciding that the company would only continue to improve not only reduced the fear of an unknown future, but contributed to a high grade of identification with the employer. In consequence, members were more willing to work harder and make personal sacrifices if they assumed that their employer would do the same for them. The genuineness of this social contract was largely built on representations of the corporate past.

10.1.4 Historical ruptures made contemporary success appear ephemeral While the majority of respondents did not expect a recession at AUDI AG anytime soon, there were a number of more reflective informants who challenged the notion of success as an essentialist feature of organizational identity, largely taken for granted by the workforce. According to a marketing manager: VM: There have always been these ruptures; there’re plenty of them in [history]. Thank god that there were more success stories. […] Yet [Audi] didn’t always have a guarantee of suc-

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cess, but […] it could have also gone the other way. […] Once in a while, there are moments when you define the course and you say – ‘OK, it could go this way now, but it could also go the other way, and then the success story is over.’ That could be essentially the case tomorrow. (Int. 18, l. 236)

Knowledge about previous downturns not only taught members about the processes of successfully overcoming crises, but also brought the possibility of failure to the table. A guarantee of enduring business success which built upon historical experiences in handling crises did not exist. Memories of economic ruptures served as reminders of the dangers of doing business. They called for constant alertness to sudden changes in the marketplace – a theme that will be explored further in the last section of this chapter. Success was thus considered ephemeral in this sense. Altogether, contemporary business success became so crucial to identitybuilding because images of an unsuccessful corporate past lent it a degree of perspective. Organizational remembrance served to further elevate the triumphs of the present; memories of overcoming crises assured employees of the ability to do the same in the future, but these memories also called for caution. Since the construction of organizational identities through the corporate past was not just a matter of an increase in sales and profit, the next section addresses the impact of remembering a substantial transformation in brand image on the workforce.

10.2 Processing Changes in Brand Image Members of AUDI AG were generally affected in their construction and construal of a collective self by how others perceived their company (cf. Hatch & Schultz, 1997). As the majority of external stakeholders did not gain firsthand experiences with the company itself, their perception of Audi was mostly reflected in its brand image. Consequently, the way in which brand identity was crafted and brand image construed by the workforce strongly affected organizational identity, and in these processes recollections of the corporate past played a central role.

10.2.1 Univocal recollections of a historical brand image transformation More specifically, a substantial pillar of organizational identity was constituted by memories of a change in brand image which had taken place in the recent

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past. Regardless of business unit, rank, and length of tenure, virtually every member recalled that “the Audi brand has changed a lot” over the last 30 years (Ethno. 19, l. 26). As a young marketing employee explained, the brand image went through a “transformation from a driver-with-hat-car to a sportive, dynamic, young car; […] at least that’s what you hear everywhere” (Int. 14, l. 560). Similarly, an Audi dealer expressed, “It’s impressive what transformation the Audi brand has made from a suspenders image to a premium brand on a par with Mercedes and BMW” (Ethno. 46, l. 207). The overarching idea, expressed by a member of HR, was that “the brand really evolved […]; looking at it today, it’s not even comparable to 30 years ago” (Int. 13, l. 19). From the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, Audi had made a 180 degree turn “from a garden-variety brand to a real top brand” (Int. 18, l. 106). The majority of respondents described this transformation process in strikingly similar terms, using the same phrases and the motifs of improvement and progress. As with previous cases, the workforce commonly employed a reductive mental image of Audi’s former brand image as a foil to the present, through which they assessed the extent of progress across time. The contrasting of ‘then’ and ‘now,’ on the other hand, also provided insight into how members related to the contemporary brand, the company, and their roles as ‘Audianer.’ Moreover, retrospective accounts of the brand image transformation conveyed why certain technologies, products, and persons, which all dated back to more or less the same period, were considered strong identity-generating ‘milestones’ of corporate history.

10.2.2 A paradigmatic shift in brand attributes and product progress While Audi Tradition officially recollected Audi’s ‘old brand image’ between the 1960s and 1980s as “attractive” and “innovative” in its respective historical context (Ethno. 33, l. 84), the general workforce (and ‘tradition workers’ in their informal roles) did not prescribe to this image. Regardless of hierarchical status, organizational unit, and generational membership, the past was reconstructed by all as bleak and vastly inferior to the present: Respondents described ‘old Audi’ as a “conservative” (Int. 14, l. 58) and “boring young” brand (Int. 12, l. 447) with a “dusty image” (Ethno. 55, l. 99) and “no real history” (Ethno. 32, l. 28). Associated with “square” artifacts of the petit bourgeois (Int. 8, l. 274), such as “small crotchet tablecloths” (Ethno. 44, l. 155), “farmer’s hats” (Int. 7, l. 300), and “nodding dogs on the rear parcel shelf” (Ethno. 51, l. 62), the brand was recalled as having “not really had an [attractive] profile at the

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time” (Int. 18, l. 16), as having essentially been a ‘souped-up Volkswagen’ with a limited market standing. In contrast, Audi’s contemporary brand image was portrayed as “modern,” “exciting,” and “not particularly dusty anymore” (Int. 11, l. 80). Audi was transformed “from the toilet paper roll on the rear parcel shelf to super sporty vehicles” (Int. 26, l. 126). Now regarded as “a highly successful, […] brand ascribed with positive characteristics” (Int. 11, l. 124), Audi was considered “sovereign” (Int. 2, l. 487) and “mature” (Int. 10, l. 367), standing for “high quality” (Int. 8, l. 292) and “German craftsmanship” (Int. 17, l. 190). Informants proclaimed that Audi was “progressive” (Int. 15, l. 60), “in the lead” (Int. 6, l. 156), and widely acknowledged as a “tradition brand” with a rich history (Int. 31, l. 36), which is why it enjoyed an established position on the premium market. As a member of quality control assessed, “We are someplace entirely different now, further away from the hat-wearing image than ever before” (Int. 12, l. 467). The change in brand image was also physically manifested by progress in product development. Audi cars from ‘the old days’ were commonly recounted as having been mediocre “bread and butter cars” (Int. 1, l. 63), that were “underpowered” and “bland” – basically “not a car of which everybody would say – ‘Wow, dude, great car’” (Int. 12, l. 448). Design-wise, they were described as having been “a bit dowdy, a bit unsophisticated” (Int. 3, l. 189); and the overall quality of construction was recalled as having been “shoddy” (Int. 27, l. 98), which is why they were considered “rust buckets” (Int. 2, l. 95). In direct opposition to this, the contemporary lineup of Audi automobiles was embraced as superior in each and every way. Members praised contemporary products as “beautiful” (Int. 26, l. 126), “attractive” (Int. 4, l. 671), “dynamic, great cars that manage to convince” (Int. 13, l. 19). They had become “modern motor vehicles” (Int. 20, l. 388), packed with “sophisticated technology […] belonging to the best in the world” (Int. 6, l. 156). Quality issues were supposedly resolved for good; the material build quality was touted as “superb” and “unprecedented” in the premium segment (Int. 18, l. 106). Contemporary Audi cars were considered “emotional, powerful vehicles” (Int. 20, l. 388) that rightfully served as “lifestyle” accessories (Int. 20, l. 258). Overall, contemporary products were portrayed as everything their allegedly inferior predecessors had not been.

10.2.3 External indicators validating the transformation The majority of the workforce in Ingolstadt did not have direct access to confidential market research studies (e. g., Sinus Automobilmarktforschung GmbH,

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1986) and media monitoring reports (Ethno. 62, l. 418) that systematically scrutinized the evolution of the Audi brand image across time. Yet they still possessed a clear idea that this transformation had truly happened, based on a range of mundane indicators: The first indicator was a substantial change in customer base. Typical Audi customers of the ‘olden days’ were described as “people wearing hats” (Ethno. 30, l. 110), “retired folks” (Ethno. 74, l. 122), “civil servants” (Int. 18, l. 20), “teachers” (Int. 1, l. 31), “farmers” (Int. 7, l. 304), and “old grandpas” (Int. 4, l. 851). The most commonly made association was with the “driver with hat and suspenders […] who had a crocheted toilet paper roll cover on the rear parcel shelf” (Int. 13, l. 19). This caricature of a thoroughly square, bourgeois, and small-minded customer was portrayed as something “young people did not want to be associated with – not even the workforce itself” (Int. 7, l. 304). The present-day product lineup, however, was fashioned to appeal to a “rejuvenated” customer base (Int. 3, l. 287) of ‘movers and shakers,’ yuppies, and ‘go-getters’ (Ethno. 100, l. 208), with a desire for “luxury” and “understatement” (Int. 22, l. 18). In the understanding of various respondents, contemporary Audi drivers had “made it”; they were “seen in a different light” because the ‘Four Rings’ now served as a proper status symbol (Int. 1, l. 145). The fact that various celebrities and high-ranking politicians drove cars made in Ingolstadt affirmed that the brand had gained acceptance in the premium market segment (Int. 8, l. 278). Additionally, employees considered the positive reactions of customers toward new products as an indicator of a change. A production supervisor remarked in this regard, “Today they say – ‘Oh wow, an Audi!’ It wasn’t like that back then, not even remotely; there were worlds in between!” (Int. 24, l. 112). Another indicator of change was an alteration in organizational image. Members recounted that Audi NSU Auto Union AG had been viewed as a “volume producer of square cars” (Ethno. 63, l. 296), and that “the market did not take us seriously back then” (Int. 22, l. 177). Reduced to a “subsidiary of VW,” Audi had been seen as “some kind of tinkering shop that also happened to build cars” (l. 177). The backwards image tied to the “fustiness of DKW two-stroke engines” had supposedly “lingered over [the company]” for a long time (Int. 3, l. 379). Both in terms of financial status and identity, the company was portrayed as having been in “a bit in a slump […] because they also didn’t really know, ‘Where are we at, where do we want to go, what are we actually?’” (Int. 14, l. 544). In contrast, contemporary AUDI AG was perceived as a “very successful” and “very lifestyle-oriented” company (Int. 20, l. 259) that was “floating in money” (Ethno. 96, l. 314). According to a strategy employee, external stakeholders often assumed that “everybody at Audi is cool and they work in super modern loft-like offices” (Int. 11, l. 124). AUDI AG was now considered a serious contender on the premium market that was also an attractive employer.

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This impression was supported by the observation that Audi now competed with different brands. Respondents remarked, “Back then, Audi hadn’t been on a par with BMW and Mercedes at all” (Int. 26, l. 360). BMW had been “sportive, appealing to the youth,” Mercedes-Benz more oriented toward “traditional prestige and luxury” (Ethno. 30, l. 110), while Audi used to have “none of that” (Int. 24, l. 108). As a young marketing and sales employee asserted, “They weren’t really considered a genuine competitor to Mercedes and BMW; God forbid!” (Int. 14, l. 58). Contemporary Audi, in contrast, was seen as a competitive provider of luxury automobiles. Members commonly proclaimed that “we have caught up entirely within the last few years” (Int. 14, l. 174), and that Audi was now on a par with BMW and Mercedes-Benz. A retired production manager even touted, “[Audi] is a […] premium brand that is able to defy everybody else on the market” (Int. 22, l. 303). A marketing and sales employee was convinced that “we have cars that are way more beautiful [than the competition]” (Int. 14, l. 174). A retired manager claimed that Audi’s product design was “more sophisticated […] than the Bavarian baroque of BMW” (Ethno. 22, l. l. 181). And an HR supervisor remarked that Audi was “more understated” and “not so aggressive” (Int. 13, l. 19). The new brand image boosted the confidence that employees had in it, and this was achieved through the construction of Audi as a brand distinct from the ‘other.’ The ‘other,’ for its parts, was not just constituted through the retrospective representation of ‘old Audi,’ but also by historical brand images of the competition. As already indicated above, one of the most important indicators of brand image transformation was a substantial change in feedback quality from external stakeholders. Journalists had supposedly ignored, downplayed, and ridiculed Audi up until the mid-1980s (Int. 1, l. 63). Employees and managers alike recalled that they often needed to justify the fact that they were working for Audi during that time. For example, a former racing driver recalled that he was “laughed at” by other drivers when he first started racing for the Audi motorsport team in the late 1970s (Int. 2, l. 125). Similarly, a production supervisor mentioned that he “used to be ridiculed at the regulars’ table [for working at Audi]” (Int. 24, l. 104). And a communications employee recalled that, in the early 1980s, her college friends could not understand why she would accept a position at a ‘third tier car company’ (Int. 1, l. 31). Negative reactions by external stakeholders, according to a corporate historian, contributed to the workforce “acquir[ing] an inferiority complex” (Ethno. 100, l. 205). Once again, the present was fashioned as entirely different. Contemporary media coverage was described as “euphoric,” “totally positive” and “respectful” (Int. 1, l. 63). Journalists promoted Audi as a “benchmark” (Ethno. 47, l. 249), mentioning the brand “in one breath” with competitors from Munich and Stutt-

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gart (Int. 8, l. 274). A manager who had been retired for some time pointed out, “I haven’t met anybody who sees Audi in a negative light [anymore]. Everybody says – ‘Oh wow, how Audi has evolved!’” (Int. 22, l. 377). Similarly, an employee, who had just retired after spending his whole career with the ‘Four Rings,’ remarked that it was only within the last decade that he became “proud […] that I am allowed to work at the firm” (Int. 3, ll. 289 – 295). Moreover, AUDI AG had also become a sought-after employer. A communications employee stated, “Out there, they find [Audi] way better now. If you say you’re applying at Audi… that’s really something. And in the old days it used to be the toilet paper and teacher’s car” (Int. 1, l. 405). In general, the workforce thus entirely dissociated themselves from and disregarded their old brand image before the transformation, instead of retrospectively glorifying it. These highly contrasting recollections fulfilled an important cultural function for the workforce: Since they built upon the same mental images of the past, which were conjured up by the same phrases, they constituted a common set of meanings that were shared across the whole workforce in Ingolstadt. Because of the emphasis on progress and evolution, they generated an immense level of pride and identification with the brand and the company, which will be further explained in section 10.3. Representations of the past thus served as a foil against which the contemporary conditions could be seen as superior and embraced.

10.2.4 A narrative recalling the individual steps of the brand image transformation process This collective image of the historical brand transformation did not merely consist of the contrast between ‘then’ and ‘now.’ It also included in-between elements which explained the actual process of transformation. As an employee from quality control remarked, it took several decades until the “public perception changed […] to acknowledge that Audi isn’t such a bad car” (Int. 12, l. 461); and a marketing manager proclaimed, “[F]or a long time we’ve done way more than our competitors to get where we are; […] but there’s a story to that” (Int. 18, l. 106). Several respondents could narrate the same story, recalling a series of intermediate steps which contributed to the brand image transformation. These steps were also the ‘milestones’ many ‘Audianer’ considered the elements of the past most essential to the formation of organizational identity – even if they all occurred within the comparatively small time window from the 1980s to the mid 2000s.

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Most respondents maintained that the process of transformation began with the same point of origin – the release of the Audi quattro in 1980. A former communications manager recalled, “The quattro really set off a change in the Audi brand; without it, Audi would still be a petit bourgeois brand” (Ethno. 63, l. 298). Similarly, a former rally racing driver stated, “[W]hen I’m looking at the current state of the company, I’m still claiming that it was the quattro [which brought us here]” (Int. 2, l. 229). A high-ranking marketing manager added, “[I]f it hadn’t been for the quattro, the both of us wouldn’t be sitting here today; this company wouldn’t exist anymore” (Int. 23, l. 84). Regardless of generational membership or business unit, the quattro was generally claimed to have marked a break between ‘old Audi’ and ‘modern Audi.’ The majority of informants remembered the quattro as a highly innovative “carrier of technology” that most fully embodied the “Vorsprung durch Technik” marketing slogan (Int. 22, l. 177). Introducing a permanent four-wheel drive system, paired with a 5-cylinder engine, the quattro was recalled to have stirred up the competition, as other car companies could not offer these features at the time (Int. 2, l. 147). A retired production manager remarked, “They didn’t really take us seriously on the market back then; it changed for the first time when Audi released the quattro. […] And many [people] concluded that this is Vorsprung durch Technik; you can feel it, you can see it” (Int. 22, l. 177). A substantial increase in publicity was also accredited to the fact that, in the early 1980s, the company left a substantial mark in the international rally racing scene with its quattro rally cars. According to various respondents, the racing version was an “impressive beast” (Ethno. 39, l. 132), a “steam hammer” (Int. 12, l. 461), a “sporting ace” (Int. 19, l. 334), and “a super-car” (Ethno. 63, l. 298), which introduced a “technological revolution” in motorsports (Int. 6, l. 132), and had numerous “rally racing successes” (Int. 4, l. 851). Winning world championships was said to have “caused a tremendous amount of euphoria inside the corporation” (Int. 10, l. 210), which, in turn, lifted the spirits of the workforce. More importantly, quattro rally racing was recalled to have boosted the image of the Audi brand with a “big bang” on the international stage (Int. 12, 383), and made it possible to legitimately ascribe new meanings to the Audi brand, such as “innovativeness” and “sportiness” (Int. 2, l. 235). From a contemporary perspective, the meanings associated with the quattro fit in well with current constructions of organizational identity. Therefore, the quattro was commonly seen as a ‘game changer’ that marked the beginning of the ‘road to success’ on which the company was still driving. The second most-recalled element of the corporate past with a key role in the image transformation process was in fact a person – Ferdinand Piëch. Indeed, the workforce unanimously considered Piëch the most influential figure in the

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history of the company, ranking far above August Horch. Respondents called Piëch “the godfather [of Audi]” (Int. 13, l. 219), the “figurehead [of the firm]” (Int. 10, l. 252), and “a great milestone [on the road to success]” (Int. 27, l. 376). He was assigned the role of ‘mastermind’ behind the transformation process and remembered to have delivered innovations, such as aerodynamic body design, the TDI engine, and the quattro technology (Ethno. 46, l. 207). In other words, the majority of the technological milestones celebrated by the company today were credited as having emerged under his leadership (Ethno. 69, l. 58). A common saying, therefore, was that Piëch “has personally introduced the Vorsprung durch Technik” (Ethno. 41, l. 174). In addition, Ferdinand Piëch was also remembered as a visionary leader who had strategically pushed the brand “towards an up-market position” (Int. 11, l. 256). Based on “his vision of evolving into a premium brand” (Ethno. 15, l. 29), he was recalled to have “introduced a new direction,” which “brought the big turnaround” (Ethno. 46, l. 207). A substantial revision of the product portfolio towards a sportier, up-market lineup (Int. 11, l. 74) and a paradigm shift in target customer groups (Ethno. 32, l. 87) helped in overcoming the ‘man with hat and suspenders’ image. Because of his ‘far-sightedness,’ Piëch was labeled “the Übervater of image change” (Int. 2, l. 137), responsible for the initial “rise of the firm” (Int. 13, l. 19). Even a high-ranking manager of Daimler AG paid his respect with the words, “Piëch is idolized all over the [VW] Group. […] He can be described as a myth… a phenomenon you cannot explain” (Ethno. 91, l. 401). Moreover, the workforce commonly recalled a range of other measures that had aided the process of brand image transformation. These included the improvement in product quality under the (then-head of quality control) Martin Winterkorn (Int. 22, l. 181), the transfer of marketing and sales responsibilities to Ingolstadt in the early 1990s (Int. 11, l. 76), and a diversification in the product portfolio toward the upper segment in the early-to-mid-1990s. This last measure was true – especially in the case of the first Audi A8 in 1994, which was deemed “responsible that we have legitimate standing in the premium market segment” (Int. 18, l. 164). Furthermore, respondents recounted the company’s “design competence” (Int. 10, l. 342) as an important driver, which was commonly recalled to have started with the design strategy of Hartmut Warkuß and Peter Schreyer, who wished to demonstrate “design leadership” (Int. 30, l. 172). This design strategy culminated in a “design milestone” – the first Audi TT in the late 1990s (Int. 7, l. 308). On a successful design route ever since, respondents recollected that the company’s ‘design leadership’ was only further emphasized by the styling elements of the 2000s, such as the single-frame grill and LED headlights.

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The last step in the story of Audi’s brand image transformation was proclaimed to have been the element of official ‘tradition work,’ which helped the ‘Four Rings’ to evolve into a mature and sovereign premium brand “with a real history” (Int. 25, l. 100). From the perspective of the general workforce, this step was mostly represented by the erection of the Audi museum mobile in 2000, and, as mentioned before, reached its apex with the year-long celebration of the brand centennial in 2009. These measures “demonstrated that [Audi] was finally on a par with other brands” (Ethno. 32, l. 368). The steps presented above were considered by nearly all to be the cornerstones of the story behind the brand image transformation. By presenting the narrative, respondents demonstrated an awareness that the process had neither happened by coincidence, nor outside of time, but relied on people, their actions, and inventions during a specific period. Despite its striking similarity to BMW’s rise in the 1970s (cf. Simon & Fassnacht, 2009), the process was internally embraced as ‘unique’ in the automobile industry. The story served as a testament for the workforce that Audi had evolved (and overcome its own shortcomings) with its own power, and could, in turn, reinvent itself whenever required.

10.2.5 Explanations for the striking similarities in recollections of the transformation One might ask why the vast majority of respondents, regardless of age and unit, happened to recollect the brand image transformation process in surprisingly similar terms. Fieldwork found three distinct reasons for this: First of all, many members participating in this study had autobiographically experienced the transformation process themselves (see theoretical sampling in chapter 3.3.3). They either relied on memories of first-hand work experiences inside the company, or they referred to second-hand accounts which had been passed on by their colleagues. Second, it lies in the very nature of a brand image that it is constructed and construed through public discourse. Commonly recalled elements of the corporate past, such as the ‘driver with hat and suspenders’ brand image and the quattro rally racing successes, were widely known in the public sphere because they had been broadly perpetuated by journalistic media – both during the actual transformation process, as well as in retrospect. For instance a FOCUS (1996, March 4) article published in the midst of the process remarked that “Audi is re-defining its suspenders image” by producing sportier, high-performance cars, and by employing an “Audi-like design” (para. 4). A retrospective article in Die Zeit (2009, July 17), on the other hand, read, “The Audi brand […] stands for sport and luxury, a few years before, however, for cars that

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were driven almost exclusively by elderly gentlemen with hat and suspenders” (para. 2). Similarly, an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ, 2006, December 7) recalled: Audi managed to overcome its suspenders image with the help of two developments the brand is perseveringly connected with: the [quattro] four-wheel-drive introduced 25 years ago and the lightweight construction with aluminum parts. This ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ was undergirded by the Audi TT sports car in 1998 – an eye catcher. […] Audi finally caught up with Mercedes and BMW. Today, Audi is the fastest growing premium manufacturer. (para. 8)

Even in public, certain topoi seemed inextricably connected to the historical representation of Audi’s brand image transformation, and, due to their widespread availability, must have been for the general workforce to adopt. And third, numerous interpretations of specific elements of the corporate past, such as the quattro as a ‘game changer’ in brand image, had been planted and promoted by carriers of organizational remembrance like Audi Tradition, PR, and marketing. These interpretations were then internalized by the workforce, who adopted these mental images and phrases for their own sensemaking, as well as their own purposes in collectively remembering the corporate past. Now that an elaborate description of recollections relating to the brand image transformation has been provided, a key question will be addressed – namely what role these specific memories played in collective constructions of organizational identity.

10.3 Evoking a Positive Organizational Identity Remembrance of the corporate past, it was discovered, contributed to the emergence of a positive organizational identity among the workforce in Ingolstadt. Memories of the brand image transformation described above conjured up a feeling of collective pride in the company’s achievements, which members interpreted as their own collective achievements. By comparing ‘now’ and ‘then,’ members fashioned contemporary conditions as superior to past conditions. Recollections of progress and improvement regarding brand image development and business also positively affirmed the decision-making capabilities of top management, reinforcing both the status quo and the hierarchical structures responsible for it. Moreover, I argue that the construction of a positive organizational identity contributed to member identification with the Audi brand, its products, and the company. Last but not least, this sub-chapter discusses the finding that brand pride led to increased interest in the corporate past among local staff.

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10.3.1 The emergence of collective pride and self-confidence The practice of reminiscing about the brand image transformation process was a key component in establishing a feeling of collective self-worth among the workforce. All members participating in this study, most prominently those from older generations, proclaimed “pride in the developments that have been made in the last 20, 30 years, how the image has changed” (Int. 8, l. 270). Technologically-focused employees, for instance, were particularly proud of the “accomplishments in engineering” (Int. 2, l. 151), styling-oriented members in the design and “beauty” of their products (Int. 1 l. 399), and employees with a competitive edge expressed pride in the fact that Audi had turned “from the hunter into the hunted” (Int. 26, l. 126). There were only a few informants who admitted that “not everything [had been] as bad back then as some people claim today” (Ethno. 19, l. 85). For example, a long-time foreman expressed, “Of course, we were already proud Audianer back then; it has only been amplified now” (Ethno. 30, l. 108). While highly plausible in theory, these statements were rare, however. Hence, the depiction of a ‘modest past,’ in contrast to which contemporary accomplishments seemed even greater, was an important strategy in elevating the collective selfworth of ‘Audianer.’ As an HR employee remarked: HR: We’re proud that we managed to make it – that we got away from the dusty image, the danger of being closed down because operations wouldn’t continue, from one crisis to another – that we overcame this, that we’re very successful in our 13th or 14th year, that it’s going forward. This is quite motivating for me and all of us, and this is really great. (Int. 13, l. 55)

In this regard, the overcoming of economic hardship and the transformation in brand image was commonly fashioned as an outcome of continuous hard labor and collective team effort. On the social level, remembering these achievements first and foremost fulfilled a bonding function. As a marketing manager stated, “[E]very success forges a bond. […] If you share success, the feeling emerges that you can really achieve something” (Int. 22, l. 84). This feeling, among other components, formed the foundation of a community of ‘Audianer’ among the workforce. While younger members also expressed pride in the contemporary success of the company, it was of utmost importance for older respondents that they could see their individual contributions as also having played a role in the recent advancement of Audi. A ‘tradition worker’ remarked in this respect, “That’s why you can be proud of having been a part of that journey; and it’s also very important that someday, when you read about that time the brand got so big, you realize you were a part of it” (Int. 31, l. 124). Recollecting one’s personal contribu-

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tions to the transformation process legitimized one’s role as a ‘genuine Audianer.’ The collective bond and pride among the ‘Audianer’ were strengthened by the feeling of belated gratification. In the view of many respondents, Audi had long been “underestimated” (Int. 4, l. 671). A marketing manager recalled, “In the beginning, everybody laughed about us; but later they didn’t laugh anymore; in fact, they copied us. This gave this firm a tremendous amount of self-confidence” (Int. 22, l. 84). Competitors were recalled to have been “arrogant,” continuously “looking down at Ingolstadt” (l. 86). Remembering the process of ‘catching up with competition,’ on the other hand, made it possible for the workforce to fashion itself as a heroic “underdog” (Int. 11, l. 74), who, despite having faced various disadvantages, managed to stir up the market and eventually became a feared competitor – the “leader of the pack” (Int. 16, l. 134). Moreover, recollections of the transformation process enabled members to view Audi as a more sovereign entity within the Volkswagen Group. According to the narrative presented in the last section, the brand with the ‘Four Rings’ had become more successful the more Ingolstadt had distanced itself from the corporate parent in Wolfsburg. Whether or not it holds true, this notion substantially increased the workforce’s feeling of self-worth. After decades of ‘suppression’ by the corporate parent, the Bavarian company was believed to have finally overcome the inferiority complex involved with ‘being just a subsidiary.’

10.3.2 Affirming top management and re-enforcing the status quo The transformation process story, as mentioned before, taught the workforce that advancement had not happened by chance but required proactive commitment, strategic decisions, and hard labor. Despite this take on self-empowerment, the narrative of brand image change supported a heroic management ideology (cf. Baecker, 1994). The pivotal role of prominent top managers, such as Ferdinand Piëch, Martin Winterkorn, and Ulrich Hackenberg, suggested that a committed workforce still required visionary leader figures. Corporate leaders were thus embraced as role models with a high degree of professional competence in steering the company. Specific recollections of their achievements demonstrated that top management made good decisions which should not only be followed, but could also be trusted, because they produced successful outcomes. A production supervisor, for instance, admitted that the average employee, including himself, might be a bit “too small-minded” and vision-less sometimes (Int. 4, l. 671). He recalled that when Piëch had announced in the late 1980s that he planned on pushing the Audi brand towards an up-market position, several

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employees had thought that Piëch was a megalomaniac with unattainable, downright crazy goals. The successful outcome, which one could admire in the 2000s, however, eventually proved the respondents and his colleagues wrong. The widespread belief that (almost) every goal Piëch had announced was eventually attained served as a lesson that one should believe in, and follow, the visions of top management (l. 560). Some respondents in the lower ranks occasionally drew an analogy between Piëch’s former vision and the vision of the current CEO (Int. 27, l. 266). They assured themselves that those in top management probably knew what they were doing even if the proclaimed goals sounded far-fetched or unreachable at first. The story of the brand image transformation process thus helped to re-enforce hierarchical structures, thereby maintaining the status quo.

10.3.3 Increasing identification with brand, products, and company As a result of emerging pride in the collective accomplishments of AUDI AG, members substantially increased their tendency to personally identify with the brand, the products, the company, and their employer. Increasing member identification was not only detected in the ways that respondents talked about Audi in everyday life; it was also visible via material markers. A worker, for instance, was recalled to have received a tattoo of the ‘Four Rings’ to display his personal association with his formal membership role (Int. 20, l. 106). Less permanent forms included Audi-brand clothes and apparel. Blue collar staff, in particular, remarked that in the old days, only a few members had commuted to and from work wearing their Audi uniforms (Int. 27, l. 522). However, the number of workers who did so at the time at which fieldwork was conducted had increased significantly, which was interpreted as a clear sign of higher member identification. Moreover, various departments designed their own t-shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets, featuring the names of specific production lines, departments, and other organizational collectives (Ethno. 8, l. 74). Apart from the customer-oriented jobs that demanded the Audi-brand uniform, members were not forced to wear anything with the ‘Four Rings.’ Doing so was a way of expressing personal identification with the brand, proclaiming belonging to the organization, and distancing oneself from other automobile manufacturers. Identification with Audi also ventured into the private sphere. For example, a communications employee explained, “[W]hen there are employee activities at DTM races […] the workforce is proud of representing their brand there; and they dress accordingly with the [‘Four Rings’] emblem, and they show their pride of working at Audi” (Int. 14, l. 122). And a sales employee reported that she regular-

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ly wears Audi gear when she is working out, hiking with friends, or on vacation (Int. 8, l. 192). Corporate initiatives geared at the workforce, such as “Mitarbeiter machen Marke” [employees do branding], attempted to enforce this in the private sphere (Ethno. 84, l. 99), thereby emotionalizing the brand (cf. Rampl, Opitz, Welpe, & Kenning, 2014). The willingness of members to follow suit was certainly amplified by the fact that they received positive feedback concerning their membership status from various non-members outside the organizational sphere. For example, a communications employee noted, “I believe that everybody, even those on the assembly line, are proud of working here, and that’s simply [because of] the improvement in image out there. If you say you’re working at Audi, [externals say] – ‘Wow, great!’ […] This has really changed tremendously” (Int. 1, l. 395). Similarly, a member of quality control proclaimed, “It doesn’t even matter where you work, as long as it’s for Audi” (Int. 12, l. 134). Viewed as a testimony to one’s success, the increase in acknowledgement from external stakeholders encouraged both the development of a positive organizational identity and member identification with Audi on a personal level. In this way, the workforce no longer perceived AUDI AG as a ‘backwoods joint,’ but as a highly successful, international manufacturer of premium automobiles.

10.3.4 Brand pride as a source of interest in the corporate past An interesting phenomenon coincided with the growing degree of brand-related pride: The more positively the brand image was perceived on the market, the more members became interested “in their own past” (Ethno. 62, l. 269). Due to a rise in the brand’s popularity and a general rise in public demand for information about Audi, numerous members wanted to inform themselves about where the company had begun and what it had achieved prior to its operations in Ingolstadt. The reason for the increase in historical interest was threefold: First of all, the past of a now-successful company generally seems more appealing than the past of an unsuccessful firm. After all, in a “culture of affluence” (Luthar, 2003, p. 1581) that embraces consumption and material wealth as a central and legitimate goal in life, corporate success is more magnetic than failure. Consequently, people with aspirations want to learn and understand how the success has been achieved, because they hope to find the ‘key to success’ for their own endeavors. Otherwise, there would not be such a high demand for countless business publications that disseminate hundreds of case studies of ‘highly successful companies’ in light of their historical developments (e. g., de Geus, 2002; Peters & Waterman, 2004; Slywotzky & Weber, 2012).

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Second, and this has been stated before, it seems to be an established idea in the business world that members of unsuccessful companies have more pressing things to contemplate than their past – namely how to secure and prolong their subsistence in the future. Only in a successful company does a workforce have the time and energy to reminisce about the corporate past (other than in purely nostalgic ways) – especially when the possibility of instrumentalizing corporate history for business-relevant purposes has not been discovered yet by the respective employer. And third, AUDI AG’s increase in ‘tradition work’ went hand in hand with the image transformation process, thus offering an additional wealth of historical representations that had not existed before. The more the company remembered its past in official terms, the more value members ascribed to the time before their tenure, mainly because the corporate past became a legitimate topic in the wealth of company-related discourses. More importantly, a rising interest in the corporate past contributed to members’ ability to conceptualize concrete and binding forms of a collective organizational self, which the next section discusses.

10.4 Achieving Concreteness of Identity Those managing business organizations generally do not like insecurity. As previously noted in the theoretical chapter, it is highly important for a company to have straightforward answers to questions such as ‘Who are we?,’ ‘What do we stand for?,’ and ‘How do we go about things?’ (Gioia, Corley, & Fabbri, 2002). Clear answers provided in the form of corporate identity claims not only differentiate a company from its competitors (Dickson & Ginter, 1987; Whetten & Mackey, 2002), but also reinforce and concretize identity among the workforce. Adopting a cultural term by Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann (1994; cf. Nünning, 1995a), “concreteness of identity” (p. 186), in the context of this study, means that the members of a company possess a clearly defined conception of their organization’s distinct qualities; they view their company as a formation characterized by specific features and attributes that are maintained by the collective, while everything regarded as ‘untypical’ is excluded. During fieldwork, the workforce of AUDI AG in Ingolstadt was found to assign a relatively stable set of attributes to their company. The firm was widely regarded as an ‘old’ and ‘noble’ automobile manufacturer that was also ‘rich in tradition’; the members produced cars of the ‘highest quality.’ ‘Innovativeness’ and ‘progressiveness’ were considered key attributes of the organization, as well as traits the employees themselves felt obligated to exhibit. Moreover, various mem-

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bers fashioned the company as ‘sporty’ and ‘victorious’ – both in terms of the company’s ability to compete in the marketplace, as well as in motorsports. The fact that respondents commonly described their company with these traits does not mean that there was no divergence in the data. In fact, multiple organizational identities were crafted by the workforce, depending on whether members talked about their employer, the organization as an abstract entity, their community of colleagues, or the brand (cf. Parker, 2000), which was not always made explicit in every research situation. The idea of concreteness of identity merely meant that certain traits and attributes used to describe the company were more prominent than others. In any case, concreteness of identity was primarily established through acts of retrospection. Workers, employees, and managers alike justified assigning specific attributes to Audi by making references to the corporate past. As already demonstrated in the previous chapter, representations of elements of the corporate past were placed in relation to contemporary work experiences, based on which members detected parallels (however constructed these might be). These parallels, on the other hand, were interpreted as proof that Audi, despite having undergone numerous historical upheavals, was also somewhat stable across time, providing a sense of rootedness and continuity. Moreover, as I will show, these types of recollections offered guidance regarding future actions, reducing insecurities about company operations.

10.4.1 Attesting to the company’s noble heritage and quality To those members who bought into the pre-war origin story of Audi, ‘tradition work’ had provided assurance that the old car manufacturer possessed a long and rich history. A young member in communications, for example, proclaimed: PR: We’re basically one of the few companies that truly have a real history. I mean, after August Horch started it, [the company] kept on operating even when [he] didn’t [run] it anymore. That makes it a more than 100-year old history, which other automobile manufacturers cannot claim at all. (Int. 25, l. 100)

In contrast to most Asian premium car brands, Audi was fashioned as having been around for an exceptionally long time. Even if management, organizational structures, company names, or the legal status had changed significantly over the course of operations, members like the one quoted above were convinced that it had remained the same company across time. In consequence, ‘possessing’ a century-long history was considered a testimony to the company’s exper-

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tise, skill, and proficiency. A marketing manager stated, “We are no parvenus […], but we belong to the foundational history of the automobile […], and we have an experience of one hundred years” (Int. 18, l. 262). Similarly, a member in HR explained, “It is quite important that you say you have a long history, we are solid, […] we can look back on a long period of time, we have experience, we have knowledge, we have skills” (Int. 13, l. 393). All respondents, without a single exception, seemed convinced that Audi built premium automobiles of the highest quality. In their understanding, these products were ranked among the best in the world because of the ingenuity of the workforce. An employee, for instance, emphasized that most of her colleagues were “extremely obsessed with quality” (Int. 17, l. 196). Interestingly, various younger respondents argued that Audi was “not a retort car made of tin” like Lexus or Infinity, but a genuine premium brand “rich in history” (Int. 12, l. 617). A strategy employee, for instance, claimed, “We’ve always been premium and prestigious” (Int. 11, l. 344), and a marketing manager in his 30s pronounced that AUDI AG “has the historical roots that allow us to say, ‘We are high quality.’ We can prove with August Horch that we have been building high quality cars for 100 years” (Int. 23, l. 244). Similarly, a young sales employee remarked, VM: Horch is always referred to – the high quality of the product, the beauty, and the elegance. And you can still find that common thread today. […] I believe that important basic elements derive from history and that they keep on living in here today. (Int. 8, l. 316)

The claim to premium quality arising from ‘tradition’ was just that, of course – a claim (cf. Hobsbawm, 2010). Previous chapters have already discussed past upheavals in the company’s development and the more recent transformation in brand image, which makes the claim to a tradition of premium craftsmanship suspect. There were a number of reasons, however, why younger portions of the workforce embraced this idea nevertheless: First of all, organizational carriers of remembrance had repetitively promoted this idea through corporate identity building measures that instrumentalized the distant past in terms of continuity. They had obviously left their mark. Second, the market expected the ‘tradition’ component from a premium manufacturer, so it was necessary for employees themselves to believe in it in order to avoid incongruence between marketing-driven identity claims and constructions of organizational identity. And third, references to distant pre-war times sought to counter the idea of Audi as an artificial, young premium brand, which helped the workforce to perceive itself as a genuine member of the German automobile nobility.

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10.4.2 ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ as an obligation to oneself Another stable aspect of organizational identity rooted in the corporate past was the claim that Audi was innovative and progressive. Represented by the brand slogan ‘Vorsprung durch Technik,’ which various respondents considered “the core of the company” (Int. 23, l. 68), the idea of being ahead of competition technologically was said to rely on an unprecedented “engineering spirit […], love and passion to do things differently” (l. 68). A middle-aged assembly line worker declared: PI: Vorsprung durch Technik – that’s what Audi stands for, that’s the soul of Audi. […] We have great technology; […] it’s always been like that. Back in the days, too, the others weren’t as advanced; […] 30 years ago, we probably were a step ahead, too. We released the quattro; the others didn’t. […] We were ahead, and this is how we’ve kept on rolling – Vorsprung durch Technik. (Int. 27, l. 760)

Audi was commonly remembered as having been innovative for the better part of its existence, and this was understood as a distinguishing trait among competitors. References to specific elements of the corporate past, such as the quattro, TDI engines, aluminum body construction, and other technological milestones, served as proof. Interestingly, historical proof of ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ was not just restricted to recent decades. While many respondents were of the opinion that ‘modern Audi’ had only ‘come to life’ with the technologies of the last thirty years, there were also respondents who sought signs of innovation in earlier times. A member of the communications department, for example, was convinced that “there had already been Vorsprung durch Technik in history before” (Int. 1, l. 161). Similarly, a young car designer identified the 1930s Auto Union speed records of “Rosemeyer in those Silver Arrow race cars […] as the first case of Vorsprung durch Technik; it was about achieving something; […] we did more than the others back then” (Int. 16, l. 150). The claim of progressiveness and innovativeness was interpreted as a common thread worth celebrating. This, of course, was a result of retrospective sensemaking. ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ was a contemporary mental framework, through which the entirety of the company’s existence could be reconstructed in a way meaningful for today’s identity constructions, if the workforce chose to do so. It was an idea Audi Tradition had successfully planted in recent years, because it appealed to the human longing for temporal coherence and stability of identity. In direct consequence, the promise of being progressive and innovative was internally construed as more than a marketing slogan. A long-time marketing manager explained:

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VM: Vorsprung durch Technik is not just a promise you give to the outside [i. e. customers], but it’s also an obligation you have toward the inside [i. e. the workforce]. […] And I think that we all feel this way… that you have to do justice to that claim. […] This is always a critical question we ask ourselves – Are we still living up to the expectations of our forefathers? (Int. 18, l. 188)

Among workers, employees, and managers alike, the brand slogan was fashioned as an obligation, passed from generation to generation, to the customer and the workforce. Seen as an essential quality and a guiding mantra of AUDI AG, members expected that one would always have to come up with groundbreaking technologies. If the company no longer fulfilled that promise, respondents argued, Audi would lose a substantial part of itself. Because the magnitude of contemporary developments was assessed in relation to the high points in corporate history, contemporary constructions of organizational identity always stood in the ‘almighty shadow of the past’ – the negative effect of which will be discussed in another section at the end of this chapter.

10.4.3 Sportiness and being victorious Another pillar of organizational identity was the conviction that Audi was ‘sporty’ and victorious in competition in the marketplace. In the public sphere, highpowered models in the product lineup and motorsports successes at the German Touring Car Championship and the 24 hours of Le Mans served as contemporary statements of dynamism and automotive superiority over others. On an organization-internal level, these qualities were embraced via regular sports competitions between work teams, such as the “24 hour employee run” and the company-internal soccer cup (Int. 19, l. 220). Fast and sporty automobiles were glorified more than slow models, for instance, by exhibiting them prominently on the company premises (Ethno. 24, l. 50). Members of the board of management drove the most powerful models in the stable; some even had special editions designed for them in flashy racing trim, which they parked demonstratively in front of the CEO’s building (Ethno. 96, l. 99). In the ranks below, renowned employees were occasionally granted perks such as a weekend with an R8 supercar for pure rubberburning joyride pleasure (Ethno. 51, l. 66). Sportiness and competitiveness were thus not only abstract concepts, but actively lived within the organization. Members construed these traits as ‘essential to Audi’ by making references to the corporate past – most notably historical motorsport engagements. Motorsports was generally viewed as a continuation of competition on different grounds. A production employee recalled, “The quattro played a big role for

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the sportive side of Audi. […] The same with DTM and Le Mans. […] It helped us a lot because we showed our competitors, BMW and Mercedes, that we can perform equally well or, in fact, better” (Int. 24, ll. 320 – 340). A handful of respondents went even further back in time. They located the origins of Audi’s sportiness in the distant pre-war past. A high-ranking marketing manager argued, “The Four Rings were born on the race track. Yes, that’s the founding myth of Auto Union – those Grand Prix races in the 1930s. This is where we come from. In this regard, [sportiness] is an unbroken [tradition]” (Int. 18, l. 192).

10.4.4 Cementing concreteness of identity through corporate measures It was no coincidence that parts of the workforce encountered during this study characterized Audi in surprisingly similar terms – namely as an old and noble car manufacturer that possessed a rich history, had a tradition of building premium vehicles, considered innovation and progressiveness obligatory, and was sporty and victorious in competition. The similarity in these terms demonstrated that these members had, first and foremost, internalized and reproduced a set of so-called ‘brand values.’ These brand values were the company’s official brand identity claims, which included being “high quality, sporty, and progressive” (AUDI AG, Sales and Marketing, 2011, p. 10). They offered a cohesive vocabulary set that members could employ to communicate with each other and externals, including myself as a researcher. A marketing manager, for instance, explained that all employees were expected to “embody” the “brand values” of Audi “from 8 in the morning till 8 in the evening – actually, even in my time off, however, not at 100 % – but during the time I’m here [at the office], I’m 100 % Audi” (Int. 22, l. 236). Apparently, many respondents managed to do so, which, however, was found to have been the successful outcome of a range of strategic measures undertaken by various corporate parties. A number of strategic measures were meant to elicit and cement concreteness of identity among the workforce. One of the most prominent measures was a long-running PR and marketing campaign promoting the idea that Audi had a distinct ‘genetic makeup.’ Four years before fieldwork, the former head designer, Walter de Silva, proclaimed in an interview with Manager Magazin (2006, May 30): Audi is precision, technology, a simple and clean design – this is what the brand is based on, those are the strong columns, the most prominent lines. We will never betray this precious image. There’s an Audi DNA that keeps evolving, but the main features will always remain the same. (para. 61)

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A set of genes was meant to characterize the company, the brand, as well as the products carrying the ‘Four Rings.’ During the time of fieldwork, these “Audi genes” were proclaimed to include “quality,” “progressiveness,” and “sportiness” (Ethno. 84, l. 51). By applying a concept found in genetics, the idea of a ‘hereditary core’ was planted in the discourses of organizational life, implying rootedness, stability, coherence, and consistency, while leaving room for dynamism and evolution in the peripheral sphere. Corporate history, in this regard, was fashioned as the core of this automotive DNA (l. 51; cf. AUDI AG, 2010, July 27). The local workforce had been exposed to the genes campaign for several years, because the company wished for them to act as authentic ‘brand amplifiers’ (cf. Burmann & Zeplin, 2005; Helm, 2011; Morhart, Herzog, & Tomczak, 2009).⁵³ To give more shape and coherence to AUDI AG’s collective identity on an organization-internal level, a second initiative was launched prior to fieldwork. Entitled “21 gram – the soul of Audi” (Ethno. 24, l. 85), it was intended to operationalize brand identity claims in order to produce concrete ideas of how the organization (allegedly) had always functioned in practice. The initiative comprised a range of exercises that were meant to send members of various departments on a “soul searching journey” (l. 85). One of the final outcomes was an audio book, the intended use of which was in the formal socialization process of new employees (Ethno. 74, l. 21). By picking the brains of highly committed members, the organization hoped to create a convincing conceptualization of what the company stood for. According to the preface of the working concept (Campfire Audio, 2010, July 29), the initiative involved “exploring the motives that influenced the company over the course of history and which will also influence it in the future” (p. 2). The “soul of Audi” was thus constituted by “the DNA or the mythological core,” which “shaped the character of the company” (p. 2). Next, the preface argued that “[t]his particular character is stored in the stories that exist and oscillate inside the company” (p. 2). The goal was to collect these narratives and present them to the workforce in a way that they would “see the grand idea, the overarching guiding thought” (p. 2). More importantly, contemporary employees were meant to “relive the feelings, challenges and storms of passion the employees of yesterday experienced” (p. 2). In this way, “the stories form a springboard from the past to the present – they

 “[U]nderstanding and living the brand”, as Helm (2011, p. 662) calls it, is thought to promote brand identity claims around the business organization – for example, in the region in which a company has its headquarters where members not only work but also lead their private lives. ‘Brand excitement’ is thus supposed to be ignited via employee-led word-of-mouth (Gremler, Gwinner, & Brown, 2001).

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let ‘Audianer’ understand in what tradition they stand and on which established qualities they could always rely” (p. 2). A set of behavioral recommendations and values based on this proposal, hoped to secure the future of AUDI AG, was created beforehand. These were then embellished with a collection of stories gathered from interviews with long-time members in key positions, accounts of corporate historians, and stories extracted from corporate history books (Ethno. 52, l. 129). The last manuscript available to this ethnographic study (Campfire Audio, 2010, November 24) promoted ‘fighting spirit,’ ‘courage,’ ‘passion,’ and ‘creative disobedience’ as “vital element[s] of organizational culture” (p. 15). Fashioned to form a common thread running through corporate history, narratives of corporate leaders and their actions, such as August Horch’s foundation of Audi and the coming into being of the Audi brand name, Ludwig Kraus’ secret development of the Audi 100, and Ferdinand Piëch’s development of the quattro, were meant to authenticate and legitimize these corporate identity claims. Reactions among the workforce toward these initiatives were mixed. The fact that various respondents reproduced some of the meanings promoted indicated a substantial amount of congruence between corporate identity claims and individual constructions of organizational identity (cf. Whetten & Mackey, 2002). However, not everyone could come to grips with the essentialistic terms ‘DNA’ and ‘soul.’ Because of the historical consciousness of certain members, the idea of a stable core or a common spirit that had gone unchanged seemed plainly constructed. For instance, a production supervisor made the following criticism: PI: [T]he people who used to [produce automobiles] back then don’t have anything to do with the people who do that today. And that’s why […] ‘genes’ is a strange term [*laughs*]. Int: Why don’t they have anything to do with each other? PI: Well, let’s say – not in regard to the blood line. […] Of course, when you look into the past and into the future, and you also see the present, then you realize – Man, the stuff we’ve already done back then… there are parallels in what we’re currently doing, indeed. […] This is a general concept I can understand, […] but I really doubt if one is truly related to the other. (Int. 24, ll. 588 – 600)

Despite the identification of parallels between the distant past and the present, the genes idea seemed far-fetched, because the region-specific cultural identity (cf. Hall, 2003) of the workforce in Ingolstadt was thought to be substantially different from those in Saxony who had originally founded the company. Rather than regular age-based turnover, the ‘bloodline’ was believed to have been interrupted due to the numerous ruptures and transformations the company had undergone over the course of its existence. The same skepticism emerged in conver-

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sations with respondents who disliked the idea of a single ‘Audi soul’ or ‘spirit.’ For instance, a former rally racing driver argued: AS: [Audi] is too multifaceted. […] You don’t find a common spirit in what Horch [did], what Rasmussen [did] with DKW, what Piëch [did], what Kraus [did]… There’re so many masterminds… […] This kind of Audi spirit… since the quattro period, yes. (Int. 2, l. 531)

Recalling more complicated aspects and inconsistencies in the development of the company, informants, such as the one quoted above, found the expression of Audi’s identity in such essentialistic terms dubious. In their opinion, these generalizations only held true if one restricted the time frame to a smaller scale, which is why they also threw the idea of an ‘eternal soul’ into doubt. The critical reactions presented here demonstrate that attempting to craft concreteness of identity through official organizational remembrance could be tricky. The workforce did not blindly buy into any identity claim and storyline the company put forward to supports its aims. Members critically questioned and assessed their plausibility, and here their historical consciousness was a valuable resource. This critical attitude also ensured that corporate actors could not get away with just any instrumentalization of the corporate past. Concreteness of identity, however, was not a stable state but subject to change. The following sections thus address the manner in which the workforce used recollections of the corporate past to deal with what Ravasi and Schultz (2006) label “organizational identity threats” (p. 433).

10.5 Coping with Identity Threats Despite the wave of success AUDI AG’s rode on during the time of fieldwork, a critical discussion emerged among the workforce about whether or not the company was still ‘true to itself.’ This discussion, as my investigations found, was brought on by generational changes in the workforce and a number of organizational identity threats from inside and outside the company – most notably external stakeholders increasingly challenging the factuality of Audi’s central promise to deliver ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ Mixed with a degree of uncertainty about the future in the automobile industry, feelings of doubt regarding the organizational identity emerged among parts of the workforce. These, however, were not necessarily unhealthy for the organization, because they helped the workforce reflect upon changes in the marketplace and remain flexible, which prevented the organization from basking too much in its own glory and becoming stuck in outdated routines. At the same time, the company sought an ‘anti-

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dote’ to identity threats and a way to kick-start ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ again, which it hoped to find in recollections of the recent corporate past, presented as a means to rekindle old working practices and attitudes.

10.5.1 Generational changes and a lack of humbleness toward success A recurring theme among long-time members was that the workforce had changed tremendously within the last decade. A new generation of employees had supposedly emerged, which was criticized as fostering an unhealthy attitude toward the brand and the company. A long-time design manager explained: AD: The problem is, during the time I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, [Audi was characterized by] an extreme pioneering spirit; yet it sported a certain degree of humbleness. The youngsters who are roaming around today, however, don’t know that anymore. They’re growing up in a different time when Audi has a different kind of presence […] – less the outcast, but actually one of the big ones. […] And maybe some people are hiring here […] because they say, ‘[Audi] is the greatest, it’s the boss, they have the most prestige, […] and I want to shove everyone off the road.’ […] And this makes me think – ‘Oh damn, be careful; this could easily backfire!’ (Int. 15, l. 186)

In contrast to the recent past, when Audi had been an up-and-coming, yet allegedly humble organization, the brand image transformation and recent economic success reportedly attracted a different breed of people to the company – namely career-driven youngsters. A major generational difference was claimed to be the latter group’s lack of humbleness toward success. A long-time marketing manager proclaimed in this regard, “What has always made Audi likeable was the fact that it was still a down-to-earth company […] and not loudmouthed. […] This has changed a bit today” (Int. 23, l. 52). Similarly, an old ‘tradition worker’ stated, “Those new [employees] who start here think we’ve always been the greatest. […] We’ve got to watch out that we don’t become ostentatious” (Ethno. 19, l. 22); and two designers argued that members ran the risk of becoming “arrogant” if they “did not contemplate and look back” at the less successful times (Int. 16, l. 540). Moreover, younger members were accused of unrightfully taking credit for the company’s success. As a manager in quality control said in a farewell speech, held in honor of a long-time employee who was going into retirement, “Today, many people are basking in the glow of Audi who neither built nor shaped the company; he is not one of them, but he rightfully deserves [laudatory acknowledgement] as he has really contributed a lot” (Ethno. 62, l. 201). On top of that, members who had been with AUDI AG for all of their professional

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lives suggested that most career-centered ‘youngsters’ would not remain with the company in bad times anyway, but “could be working for BMW today, tomorrow at Mercedes, and at some point at Audi again, just because it suits their career path” (Int. 31, l. 172).⁵⁴ This was also thought to have negative consequences for the working style at Audi. A brand strategist, for instance, remarked that the “unconventional ways” of going about business and the “anarchic pulling up the sleeves” style “had gotten a bit lost,” turning operations “more mainstream” (Int. 11, ll. 124– 304) – similar to what could be found in other car companies, as well. In the words of Ravasi and Schultz (2006), the company underwent a “radical change of organizational identity” (p. 455). In addition to the identity aspect, the changes mentioned above were also feared to have negative consequences in more practical business terms. A marketing manager stated, “This joint is incredibly successful, fifteen years in a row by now, and this is, actually, quite untypical [for Audi]. I think that every system must fall flat on its face once in a while, […] because at some point, success makes one blind” (Int. 23, l. 52). Likewise, another long-time manager emphasized that the trait of “being arrogant and the claim one has already achieved everything there is [creates an] attitude that doesn’t prepare us well to tackle the future, which still poses a couple of challenges” (Int. 18, l. 114). In other words, older employees held the opinion that if one forgot about the extraordinary, ephemeral character of contemporary business success in light of the greater historical existence of the company, AUDI AG ran the risk of becoming blind to changes in the market. One would forget to prepare for the future, while basking in past glories. An ever-present, looming ‘risk of failure,’ on the other hand, could also be evoked by recollections of negative experiences in the corporate past. These memories were considered an ‘antidote’ to ostentatiousness, relaxedness, laziness, and complacency among the workforce. A member’s historical consciousness that did not account for the negative elements of the corporate past could jeopardize the future of the company.

 This notion certainly reflected the shift in employee-employer relationships that can be observed in many Western economies. In light of economic insecurity and a growing desire for individual self-actualization, young people do not necessarily believe in the concept of “organizationally based careers” (Feldman, 2000, p. 1286) anymore – i. e. staying with a single business organization from apprenticeship to retirement. Vice versa, as Baruch (1998) argues, this development is pushed by an increasingly “low commitment from organizations to their employees” (p. 135).

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10.5.2 Losing the ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ As already implied before, another organizational identity threat was the fact that external voices began questioning Audi’s promise to deliver the ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ A SPIEGEL article (2011, January 22), for instance, doubted that “Audi was actually prepared for the future” (p. 65), because the company was “missing a vision” in developing its technology (p. 66; cf. DK, 2011, January 23). Similarly, FOCUS (2009, December 1) wrote that the company “failed to materialize engine-related innovations,” and what they offered “wasn’t much more than what competitors had already introduced” (para. 2). Acknowledging how innovative the quattro system, TDI engines, and the aluminum space frame construction had once been (Autoblog.com, 2011, June 3; Die Zeit, 2009, July 17), journalists demanded similarly innovative technology in contemporary Audi products (SZ, 2013, April 20; SPON, 2013, June 4). A journalist from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ, 2013, April 20) brought it down to the point, “For a long time, Audi rushed from success to success. But the brand slogan Vorsprung durch Technik has to be substantiated over and over again – otherwise the fall into mediocrity is impending” (para. 2). Spiegel Online (SPON, 2013, June 4) even titled “Vorsprung through rhetoric” (para. 1). Such harsh criticism did not merely bounce off the workforce, but affected them deeply. As discussed in the previous section on concreteness of identity, the claim to deliver innovative and progressive products was a core element of the organizational identity, as constructed both by the general workforce and specific corporate agents. In consequence, the question of whether Audi had remained true to its own promises became an important subject inside the company. A young employee in communications remarked: PR: For a long time Audi got hyped-up in highly positive terms – incredible, catching up, and so on. Nowadays, however, an increasing amount of voices emerge that criticize Audi, claiming – ‘All the cars look the same, and where the heck is the Vorsprung durch Technik; they slowly have to come up with something new instead of resting on the laurels of their success story.’ (Int. 17, l. 194)

While the company’s PR and marketing units promoted current technologies as innovative, parts of the workforce frustratingly agreed with what the media observed. They knew that these were not the ground-breaking features a critical public expected. An outspoken employee of the technological development said in this regard: TE: Right now, I’ve got the feeling that we don’t have anything […] about which one will say in ten years, ‘Wow, once again, that was something like quattro, like TDI’… And this is an

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aspect I’m quite afraid of… that Audi could fall behind, or lose the Vorsprung it had once achieved. (Int. 25, l. 84)

None of the current offerings were interpreted as being as advanced as the old technology ‘milestones’ from the 1980s and 1990s. Contemporary features such as driver assistance systems were downplayed as “bits and bobs” but “nothing as major as quattro or lightweight construction” (Int. 8, l. 280). In consequence, members became afraid of beginning to lose touch with the core premise that was thought to define Audi. Once again, the benchmark for assessing the quality of contemporary conditions proved to lie in the past. However, one must point out that these formerly innovative technologies had acquired the status of ‘milestones’ mostly through acts of official organizational remembrance, and were thus nearly impossible for contemporary technologies to live up to. The call for innovation was not just a matter of keeping up with competition and maintaining one’s brand image, but also a generational issue of employee identification. A younger member of the technological development unit stated: TE: [Older employees] have really experienced that time when Vorsprung durch Technik became an important instrument. The majority of young employees haven’t had that experience yet. […] They should also have something about which they can say – ‘Oh yes, this is Vorsprung durch Technik, indeed.’ (Int. 25, l. 96)

For several young respondents, the ‘mysterious driving force’ behind ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ was not a part of their autobiographical work experiences, as they had only learned about it through secondhand accounts. Individual informants even expressed that, by now, they considered recollections of yesterday’s innovations as “somewhat exhausted” (Int. 8, l. 280). Instead of hearing about the accomplishments of preceding generations, they wished to write the next chapter and have it acknowledged as a genuine ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ Hence, it can be concluded that every generation of employees needed its own contemporary heroes and milestones to emerge from their midst in order to fully identify with them and claim them as markers of their collective self. In order to tackle the identity paradox emerging from the increasing incongruence between organizational identity, corporate/brand identity claims, and brand image, certain members in leading positions wished to take action.

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10.5.3 Rekindling bygone qualities found in a former organizational identity Various managers reportedly aimed during the time of fieldwork “to find the right path again” (Int. 11, l. 124). In addition to launching programs focusing on alternative fuels and futuristic propulsion systems (Ethno. 81, l. 87), they also attempted to elicit behavioral changes via the identity track. One of these ways consisted of the formulation of aspirational corporate identity claims, the meanings of which were inspired by how long-time members reconstructed an organizational identity of the recent past. Even if Audi was more popular and economically successful today, the key to innovation was believed to lie in reverting to virtues and practices that had been laid out twenty years earlier. At the time of fieldwork, the “golden 1990s” (Int. 1, l. 161) were remembered as a vibrant period, marked by a dynamic and creative working style that was impeded by only little bureaucracy. In retrospect, organizational structures had been less rigid, and the workforce had an ambitious drive to catch up with competition (Int. 18, l. 64). The company and the brand had displayed a “degree of understatement” (Int. 13, l. 19), and they had been more “humble” and “intelligent” (Int. 8, l. 240). This spirit had given birth to great technologies “you could not get from the competition” (Int. 11, l. 240), and this was precisely what those in charge at AUDI AG had decided was needed in the future. While respondents in management positions did not quite know yet how to rekindle these qualities in day-to-day practice (apart from telling stories about the ‘olden days’), they assured that something had to be done. In the words of Gioia et al. (2000, as cited in Ravasi & Schultz, 2006), “Who we want to become” was strongly connected to “who we have been” (p. 453).

10.6 Short summary This chapter discussed the manner in which the workforce of AUDI AG constructed brand and company-related identities through recollections of the corporate past. Five themes were discussed in more detail: First of all, the workforce considered economic success the attribute most closely linked with the identity of the company, which, taken by itself, was no surprise. My investigations, however, found that contemporary business success was considered so relevant precisely because it was viewed in contrast to a fragmented corporate history of economic downturns and crises. The knowledge that the workforce had overcome past upheavals, on the other hand, served as assurance that the company would overcome any obstacle in the future, as well. At the same time, more critically-mind-

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ed members regarded success as an ephemeral quality, exactly because they remembered its uniqueness in light of the greater corporate past. Second, I discussed that a substantial pillar of organizational identity was the fact that the Audi brand had gone through a transformation in image during a specific period in time, which was remembered in similar terms across the entire workforce. A shift in brand attributes changed how the workforce constructed themselves as ‘Audianer’ and viewed their own organization. Many respondents were capable of reconstructing the steps of the transformation process in the form of a ‘development story’ that featured several ‘milestones’ that they and their company considered important. Moreover, I pointed out various corporate measures that had contributed to the fact that members recollected the transformation in similar ways. Third, this chapter detailed how members constructed a positive organizational identity through comparing their circumstances in the present day to those in the past. Knowledge about the company’s evolution contributed to the emergence of pride and self-confidence about collective accomplishments, and these were only further elevated by exaggerating contrasts between ‘then’ and ‘now.’ At the same time, retrospective accounts affirmed the role and decisions of top management, thereby reinforcing hierarchical structures. Most importantly, comparative retrospection amplified member identification with the Audi brand, its products, the company, and the employer. As a side effect, emerging brand pride was argued to have led to an increase of interest in the corporate past. Fourth, I explained how the workforce achieved concreteness of identity by making references to the corporate past. In this way, members fashioned Audi as a noble company with a rich history that had a tradition of building premium automobiles of the highest quality, and which felt an obligation to be innovative and progressive as well as sporty and victorious in competition. All of these pillars of organizational identity were rooted in recollections of the corporate past that were meant to authenticate and legitimize them. At the same time, I showed the manner in which the company attempted to cement concreteness of identity both on a brand level and on an organizational level through initiatives that employed essentialist identity claims anchored in history. Evidence was then presented which proved that the historical consciousness of various members prevented the workforce from falling for just any corporate instrumentalization of the past. And last, this chapter investigated how the workforce attempted to deal with organizational identity threats by resorting to memories of the corporate past. A major issue was found to revolve around the question of whether Audi was ‘still true to itself.’ Older generations of ‘Audianer’ criticized that generational

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changes in the workforce led to alterations in identity and practice, thereby putting the organization at risk and causing it to lose touch with its ‘true self.’ This notion was amplified by the emerging public critique about the contemporary failing to deliver on the promise of ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ In consequence, long-time members aspired to rekindle the qualities and spirit of a former organizational self, through which they hoped to return to the path of innovativeness. Thus, essentially, this chapter demonstrated how the role of organizational remembrance could take so many forms in the construction of collective identities among the workforce. Further theoretical findings in this regard will be discussed in the following conclusion.

11 Conclusion At the beginning of this book I promised to explore empirically the phenomenon of organizational remembrance in a business context from a holistic cultural perspective. The goal was to unearth the relationships between organizational memory/remembrance, organizational identity, and organizational image in a corporate setting. The larger goal in the operation was twofold: On the one hand, this study aimed to provide insight into why and how a future-driven company officially remembers its past. On the other hand, it aimed to scrutinize what effect organizational remembrance has on the workforce and how employees process representations of the corporate past for their own purposes. In this way, I hoped to account both for organizational remembrance occurring on a formal business level, as well as on the sociocultural micro-level. This inquiry was, of necessity, grounded in both theory and empirical investigation. An interdisciplinary theoretical framework was created that guided the empirical research process. Termed organizational cultures of remembrance, it served as a heuristic device for grasping the complex links between organizational remembrance, organizational identity, and organizational image in modern companies from a cultural perspective. A twelve-month ethnographic study conducted at AUDI AG’s core plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, produced a rich set of empirical data upon which this book relies and builds. A multifaceted mix of qualitative research methods was employed in order to peel back the numerous layers of remembrance in and around the business organization. The results of this investigation were presented in seven empirical chapters, featuring a series of case studies which sought to break down and grapple with the phenomenon under scrutiny. This chapter concludes this study. First, key empirical insights are once again reviewed. In an attempt to adhere to an abductive approach, they are linked back, whenever possible, to findings from other studies in order to offer a broader and more contextualized scholarly perspective. This allows for more general inferences to be made that may also apply to settings beyond AUDI AG. Second, I discuss important implications for managerial practice – basically a set of guiding principles for history management. Of course, every ethnographic study also has its limitations, and the third section thus discusses the level of generalizability one might reasonably attribute to the findings. And last, a section dealing with the research outlook addresses specific issues deserving of further investigation.

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11.1 Review and Discussion of Key Empirical Insights The first empirical insight this study attempted to lay out in its full organizational complexity was the fact that remembrance in a corporate setting is not a random, chance phenomenon. According to Rowlinson et al. (2010), “organizations […] ‘make histories,’ or else others will make their histories for them” (p. 83). In this regard, chapter 4 showed that AUDI AG had installed an official carrier of organizational remembrance called ‘Audi Tradition’ – an institution appointed to carry out acts of remembering the corporate past on behalf of the company. Adopting a term by Linde (2009), the corporate history department was dedicated to “working the past” (p.3) on a professional, full-time scale. Through socalled ‘tradition work,’ its staff created representations of the corporate past, the content of which they fashioned as ‘history’ and ‘tradition.’ Slightly detached from the regular activities of the automobile business, yet formally embedded in the communications division, the ‘cultivation of tradition’ was considered a unique line of work which was simultaneously a luxury the company could afford in economically prosperous times. Despite the luxury status of the department, an elaborate structure of official ‘tradition work’ had been created as more than a temporary measure, and this was demonstrated by the establishment of organizational and physical structures specifically dedicated to ‘tradition work.’ While the corporate history department was expected to instrumentalize the past to serve contemporary business needs, thereby supporting the shortterm goals of other units, the department also pursued its own independent long-term strategy. This duality of interest sometimes demanded negotiating between contemporary opportunism and long-term ambitions. The management of corporate history was formally organized into twelve work areas, which determined what activities the department performed when ‘cultivating tradition.’ They included 1) a collection of historical motor vehicles; 2) a historical archive; 3) an audiovisual media archive; 4) corporate history and historical research; 5) a corporate museum and a museum shop; 6) events and trade shows; 7) providing ‘tradition content’ to press and media outlets 8) advertisement and marketing of ‘tradition offers;’ 9) the conceptualization of model cars; 10) automobile club support; 11) a classic car rental service; and 12) a spare parts shop. Accompanied by dedicated job positions, concrete tasks, budgets, resources, and an elaborate infrastructure for ‘tradition work,’ these formal structures channeled the ways in which the past was instrumentalized for contemporary business concerns. On the other hand, the ‘cultivation of tradition’ was performed by a committed staff of ‘tradition workers’ who also ‘worked’ the corporate past in their informal roles solely because of their personal interest in ‘the old days,’ which gave the official organizational remembrance not only a

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personal, creative touch, but also generated organization-internal acknowledgement of the department’s efforts. It was in this way that Audi Tradition gained the status of an institution. While there is limited empirical research on the set-up of corporate history departments, an early study by Anderson (1981) demonstrates that the bank Wells Fargo had installed similar organizational structures. For instance, the bank’s corporate history department was also “divided into […] sections and programs” (p. 27), following concrete objectives intended to benefit the company. This implies that the institutionalization of specific carriers of remembrance and the formalization of distinct practices of ‘working’ the corporate past can be encountered across industries. When it comes to the content recollected in practice, the corporate history department predominantly employed three thematic lenses, namely 1) brands, 2) products and technologies, and 3) organization, through which specific elements of the corporate past were selected, while others were categorically dismissed. These lenses served as complexity-reducing filters that determined which fraction of the corporate past counted as ‘history’ and ‘tradition.’ Due to the fact that the department was primarily oriented toward company-external audiences, there was a preference for recollecting the brand-, product-, and technology-related past, while mundane organizational life in its historical dimension was less represented. Since the content was thus heavily affected by concerns in the present, the retention and instrumentalization of the corporate past was a highly selective affair – a notion that is supported by Brunninge’s (2009) study of Scania and Handelsbanken, which found that “[o]rganizational actors use history selectively” (p. 23). At AUDI AG, the past was not ‘worked’ for the mere sake of retrospection. Through official ‘tradition work,’ the corporate history department aimed to reach a range of business-oriented goals, which helped securing the company’s existence and market position in the future. As Linde (2009) so aptly formulates, “The past or, more accurately, various representations of various past events are brought into the present to shape the future by continuous work” (p. 222). Chapter 5, taking up this idea, discussed seven purposes of official organizational remembrance identified during fieldwork: – Retaining physical proof of one’s existence – Legal protection of trademark rights – Historical accountability – Corporate identity construction in public relations – Brand identity construction in marketing – Direct economic utilization – Satisfaction of entertainment demands

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The breadth of these purposes demonstrates that organizational remembrance was, on an official level alone, much more than just knowledge management (e. g., Argote, 2013) or a marketing-oriented “dog and pony show,” as proclaimed by Keulen (2013, p. 115). At AUDI AG, ‘tradition work’ fulfilled a number of important functions which actively supported the company and created additional value on several levels. The mnemonic means through which the company pursued these businessoriented purposes were identified here as cultural forms of organizational remembrance. They were constituted by the practices, media, physical sites, tools, and mental conceptions through which organizational remembrance took place and became manifest in a corporate setting. The sheer variety of forms conveyed that retrospection was not just a matter of archives and corporate history books offered on the periphery of business operations, but that it also occurred in various spheres of day-to-day corporate life. A recent paper on memory and identity at LEGO by Schultz and Hernes (2013) promotes a similar approach. The authors assume a broader cultural perspective and distinguish between three so-called “organizational memory forms,” namely “textual,” “material,” and “oral” forms (pp. 4– 5) – some of which were considered relevant for the construction of organizational identity. In this study, however, all cultural forms of organizational remembrance encountered in the material, social, and mental dimensions of organizational life at AUDI AG were examined in light of their intended purpose and usage in practice. I found that the ‘how’ of organizational remembrance was strongly intertwined with, and/or dependent on, the ‘why,’ which is why chapter 5 presented case studies that described which purposes the company attempted to achieve by which means. And, as already mentioned above, these purposes went far beyond the construction of identity claims. Chapter 6 discussed the key finding that the appointed carrier of organizational remembrance, Audi Tradition, was not the only entity inside the company which recollected and represented the corporate past. Unlike other studies that suggest the existence of a unified corporate agent responsible for remembering (e. g., Nissley & Casey, 2002; Schultz & Hernes, 2013), this study proved that a number of other business units/departments not only had an interest in the corporate past, but also ‘worked’ it in the name of Audi for their own purposes via their own cultural forms. Corporate agents discussed here included the communications unit, marketing and sales, production marketing, legal services, human resources, and the general workforce. Influenced by their respective fields of business operation, these actors assumed different perspectives on the corporate past that affected which elements were recalled in which way. In consequence, a multitude of company-internal discourses about the corporate past existed and featured multiple voices. This finding is reconfirmed by Cor-

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Fig. 4: Organizational remembrance and its forms at AUDI AG in three cultural dimensions

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bett’s (1997) proclamation that “memory is less a structure than an ever-moving assemblage of memory fragments that are reconfigured and reconstructed by different actors in a multitude of ways to serve a multitude of purposes” (pp. 4– 5). Figure 4 provides a classification of the carriers, cultural forms, and manifestations of organizational remembrance encountered during fieldwork. While Sievers (2000) proclaims that corporations do not necessarily permit a multitude of historic interpretations, my empirical research produced evidence to the contrary. Due to the plethora of corporate discourses mentioned before and a lack of centralization in official organizational remembrance, various corporate actors released representations of the corporate past in the name of Audi that sometimes featured disparities. Audi Tradition, moreover, only had limited control over what neighboring departments released. This finding provides empirical confirmation to Glynn’s (1997) assumption that when it comes to recollecting the past, “power is not concentrated in the hands of the influential few, but is diffused throughout the organization in social networks” (p. 150). This, in turn, generated organization-internal struggles, which is why discourses about the corporate past, most notably its interpretation, created a politically-charged arena of conflict – a finding supported by Parker’s (2002) study of “contesting histories” (p. 589) among managers in a building society. Making matters more complex, discourses about the corporate past clearly transcended the boundaries of the company. Multiple actor groups situated on the fringes and in the external sphere of AUDI AG recollected and represented the corporate past, as well. While Walsh and Ungson (1991) merely point to “external archives” as “other sources [which] do house information that can be retrieved about the organization’s past” (pp. 66 – 67), they conceive of the company as the sole actor remembering its own past. This case study of AUDI AG, on the contrary, demonstrated the important active role of non-members. These groups recalled different elements of the Audi past through their own cultural forms, which led to the formation of multiple mnemonic communities (cf. Erll, 2005). The further detached from organizational life, the less these groups concerned themselves with the thematic lens of the organization, focusing more on brand- or product/technology-related content. In order to systematize these actor groups, this study introduced the idea of internal, semi-internal, and external stakeholders of the corporate past. The stakeholder idea was deemed more suitable than, for instance, the concept of “memory entrepreneurs” (Jelin, Rein, & Godoy-Anativia, 2003, p. 33), which has little to do with the business-oriented side of entrepreneurship. Despite detecting the existence of multiple mnemonic communities concerned with a single company’s past, this study dismissed the idea of unique cultures of remembrance existing in a closed systemic sense. Instead, chapter 6

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Fig. 5: Stakeholders of the corporate past and their corresponding lenses of remembrance

showed that inter-group boundaries were semi-permeable and not clear-cut; people oscillated between different groups and were often simultaneously members of multiple mnemonic communities. Moreover, stakeholder groups interacted with each other in a network of remembrance, used one another’s resources, formed collaborations to reach common goals, but also experienced conflicts because of diverging perspectives. These stakeholder interactions confirmed the usefulness of Feldman and Feldman’s (2006) recommendation to look at “the social and participatory conception of [historical] knowledge” that occurs in “networks of activity” (p. 862). The only other empirical studies located that offer similar evidence of stakeholder struggles, however, consist of a paper by Taylor and Freer (2002) on “the politics of history and heritage at the Hanford Plutonium Works” (p. 563), and a paper by Durepos, Mills, and Mills (2008), who describe the construction of corporate history as a “delicate and ambivalent dance between stakeholder advocates and organizational guardians” (p. 77).

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Therefore, I depicted the arena of organizational remembrance as a highly contested site. Depending on the thematic lens employed, different discourses about the corporate past were held in the public sphere. Despite of the number and variety of voices, discursive participants were certainly not equal in the arena of organizational remembrance. The strength of voices, power of actors, and availability of resources determined who assumed a dominant position in discourses – a finding which is supported by Nissley and Casey (2002). While AUDI AG had a better chance at promoting representations of its past than, for instance, an external automobile club, this does not mean that non-managerial voices were automatically marginalized, as Nissley and Casey (2002) suggest, however. Various case studies presented in this book demonstrated that external stakeholders successfully acted as the company’s ‘conscience,’ challenging the truthfulness of official corporate history-related claims. In a recent study, Schultz and Hernes (2013) remark that “[m]uch empirical work is still needed to further develop the temporal interplay between the evocation of memory forms and how different uses weave into one another” (p. 18). Chapter 7 of this book provided empirical evidence for how this might be accomplished. I presented the key finding that organizational remembrance in all its cultural dimensions was the outcome of a lengthy historical process of evolution and differentiation. Here a reconstruction of the development process in four phases was presented, demonstrating that the array of stakeholders, purposes, and cultural forms of organizational remembrance had emerged gradually over time. For more than two thirds of its existence, AUDI AG had operated in the default mode of organizational forgetting, which only featured occasional acts of organizational remembrance. A number of concrete reasons for this ‘belated start’ may be gleaned from the material collected during fieldwork, such as a lack of understanding for the actual purposes of organizational remembrance and so on. Benson Kohn (1981), for instance, only claims that “[i]n the earliest years of a business, little thought is given to recording history for posterity. The founders are much too concerned with reaching their objective of developing a successful and profitable concern” (p. 32). The author suggests that a company often becomes concerned with its history when the original founders have passed on the reins to a “second generation of management […] and interest quickens in reflecting on the achievements of the founders and in preserving the records of the firm” (p. 33). While this may be true for some companies, the case of AUDI AG, in contrast, exemplified that a company can also continue to neglect its past over the course of multiple leader generations when economic hardships occur relatively often and/or when ‘new beginnings’ prevent the establishment of organizational stability

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(e. g. through mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring). In these cases, subsistence-related concerns about the future appear more relevant than ‘bygone matters of the past.’ Moreover, the lack of remembrance at AUDI AG had been amplified by the fact that the corporate past had been pronounced decidedly irrelevant by leading corporate actors. At various points in time, the company had even attempted to actively forget, which is why the company engaged in both what de Holan and Phillips (2004) identify as “accidental” and “purposeful” “modes of organizational forgetting” (p. 1606). Next, the emergence of ‘tradition work’ was discussed, and, more specifically, the idea that official organizational remembrance only came into being through a chain of complex historical circumstances and beneficial catalysts. Much of it had to do with the gradual identification of legitimate reasons and purposes for organizational remembrance. Generally speaking, the reasons why companies start and continue remembering the past “are as varied as the companies themselves” (Benson Kohn, 1981, p. 32). A paper by Rowlinson and Hassard (1993), for instance, deconstructs the “history of the histories of Cadbury” (p. 299), and asserts that the chocolate manufacturer first started representing its past when the company “invented its corporate culture” (p. 299). The construction and functionalization of corporate history was internally motivated, as it helped management alter the status quo by legitimizing invented traditions and thus introduce new directions to the workforce. According to the paper, history became “part of the process of institutionalization” (p. 322) and an instrument of cultural management. In other studies, on the other hand, Schröter (2003) and Eley (2000) point out that in German companies, such as Deutsche Bank AG and Volkswagen AG, a decisive factor in the decision to delve into their pasts had been the emergence of external political pressure from the public sphere. Various external stakeholder groups had demanded these companies come to terms with their ‘dark Nazi past’ (cf. Booth et al., 2007). At AUDI AG, the tentative beginnings of official organizational remembrance were first and foremost motivated by internal forces. While the oldest effort consisted of the support of public relations efforts promoting the company and the brand, this was followed at a later stage by the retention of physical proof of the company’s existence, legal protection of trademark rights, and the achievement of historical accountability. Purposes employed only more recently involved the support of marketing efforts, satisfaction of entertainment demands, and direct economic utilization. Each purpose emerged after the company had learned that this would support contemporary strategies and help to reach business-relevant goals – the formulation of which had changed substantially over the course of corporate existence. Moreover, the company had to learn, step by step, what it meant to professionally ‘work’ the corporate past in day-to-day practice. One

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of those steps, but certainly not the first one, had been the installation of a corporate history department. Likewise, the repertoire of cultural forms of organizational remembrance developed gradually, and adapted to the emergence of additional purposes and stakeholders in the corporate past. In consequence, the network of remembrance became more complex over time. These findings fit in neatly with Feldman and Feldman’s (2006) notion of accounting for the “historicity […] of organizational remembering. Every act of organizational remembering has a career: it is specific to the time in which it occurs” (p. 868). Despite the emphasis on a general increase in organizational remembrance, it was clarified that the history of remembrance at the company also included periods of stagnation and sometimes decline caused by waves of forgetting. On an official level, the company could always stop remembering if dominant corporate agents, such as the CEO, decided as much, which is why the idea of an economic cycle of organizational remembrance was brought forward. This special cycle did not match up perfectly with the company’s regular business cycle, though, which means that it was not just a question of affording the luxury of ‘tradition work.’ A number of economic and non-economic factors were discussed to have driven the evolution of organizational remembrance. They included: – Individual activism and personal dedication of informal history aficionados – The existence of occasions for initiating remembrance – Support from top management – Business-relevant purposes and a genuine place in a greater strategy – Formalized organizational structure and institutionalization – Sufficient resources and infrastructure – Support from other stakeholder groups and lobbying efforts – Competition – Continual reaffirmation The variety visible in these factors, as well as the degree to which they matched up with a practical business rationale, demonstrated that Ryant’s (1988) claim, “[I]f business history is to be sponsored, it will be necessary to encourage historical consciousness within business” (p. 565), is detached from corporate reality. In fact, I argued that a company-wide historical consciousness was an outcome of official organizational remembrance, rather than a precondition for it. This book shifted perspectives substantially beginning with chapter 8. Since human beings “are the ones who do the actual remembering” (Manier & Hirst, 2008, p. 254), I had a closer look at collective remembrance among the workforce, and the impact official organizational remembrance had on them. I argued that ‘tradition work’ had first and foremost contributed to the emergence of a his-

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torical consciousness. Identified as a member’s competence in structuring and narrating a company’s past in terms of history, historical consciousness was found to be essential for making sense of the present. Historical knowledge, the basis of historical consciousness, enabled members to trace greater changes in the company over time and point out what had supposedly remained stable – a finding that adds empirical weight to Weick’s (1995) proclamation that sensemaking in organizations is always “retrospective” (p. 24). Multiple historical consciousnesses existed among the workforce. There was no universally binding, single version of corporate history which every member possessed. This became clear with the observation that members could not identify an unambiguous historical origin of AUDI AG, as they operated with multiple time frames in which they retrospectively placed the company’s operations. Moreover, the majority of respondents could not form a coherent narrative spanning from the genesis of the corporation to contemporary times. In consequence, the selection and arrangement of elements of the corporate past recalled by members showed significant variation. Nevertheless, members also recollected common temporal markers and ‘milestones’ of history, such as specific products, historical leader figures, and decisive organizational events, which were all assigned meanings that were more or less interpreted similarly. However, these common structural anchoring points were only loosely connected, namely through reductionist images of epochs. The reconstruction of these epochs proved to be a matter of plausibility and meaningfulness rather than completeness and historical accuracy. This finding is in line with Weick’s (1995) proclamation that sensemaking in organizations is always driven by “plausibility” (p. 17). As a result, many members perceived the history of Audi as fragmented and full of ruptures, such as company name changes, mergers, acquisitions, and economic crises, and thus had no common thread reaching from corporate beginnings to the present. More reflective members, in consequence, criticized marketing-oriented efforts to ‘smooth down history’ as overly constructed, as these functionalist representations were incongruent with the more complex historical knowledge they had acquired. On the other hand, members could handle a certain amount of historical incongruity. Moreover, the fragmented character of Audi’s history proved to be an important source of collective pride and a marker of organizational identity, because ‘Audianer’ constructed themselves as ‘underdogs’ who had eventually become economically successful, despite encountering adverse conditions along the way. The second part of this chapter detailed the reasons for the multiplicity of historical consciousnesses encountered among the workforce. A range of organizational and individual factors were identified to have influenced the acquisition and retention of historical knowledge:

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Length of tenure, age, and generational membership Departmental membership, work tasks, and the degree of professional involvement with corporate history Level of position and breadth of perspective on the company’s operations Formal and informal socialization in the workplace Pre-entry socialization through relatives employed at the company Utilization of ‘tradition offers’ and media consumption Educational background Personal interest in corporate history

The degree of relevance of some of these factors stands in contrast to some of the factors Casey (1997) identified in her own empirical research on collective memory among the staff of a substance abuse rehabilitation facility. For instance, Casey (1997) found that “[t]enure […] did not appear to be a major contributing factor” (p. 131). Also, she could not attest to any difference in recollection among the workforce when it came to the factors of “functional roles” and “hierarchy levels” (p. 133). While Linde’s (2009) study suggests that every company can have an “open canon” of “stories everyone can be expected to know” (p. 223), my own research showed that expectation does not automatically yield these results. At Audi, certain elements of the corporate past were indeed more likely to be known and interpreted in similar terms than others; however, there was no umbrella-like entity spanning across the entire workforce, as with Glynn’s (1997) conceptualization of “collective memory [in organizations] [a]s an ordered system of symbols that encode meanings so as to enable individuals to make sense of experience” (p. 151). The size and heterogeneity of AUDI AG’s workforce, as well as the multiplicity of factors combinations influencing the formation of a company-specific historical consciousness, it was argued, counteracted the emergence of such an ordered system. It was concluded that members did not possess a collectively available set of knowledge about the corporate past one could label ‘collective memory.’ The ‘shared past’ of AUDI AG was thus not so shared after all, which meant that conceptions of ‘sharedness’ were more imagined by parts of the community of ‘Audianer’ than empirically verifiable in day-to-day practice. Manier and Hirst (2008), for instance, argue that, [A] collective memory is not simply a memory shared across a community. It must serve a function for the community. Just as not all individual memories can properly be viewed as autobiographical memories, so also not all shared memories can be treated as collective memories. […] Collective memories […] are representations of the past in the minds of members of a community that contribute to the community’s sense of identity. (p. 253)

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However, the question remains open as to how many members of an organization must recall specific memories as a constitutive part of their collective identity for these representations of the past to gain the status of collective memory. Chapter 9 then investigated how retrospection affected and played into the construal of organizational reality and the understanding of corporate life. References to distinct elements of the corporate past helped the workforce to obtain a sense of how the company operated. From the myriad effects of retrospection on the manner in which company life was perceived, four themes received particular attention: Firstly, I argued that members explained the contemporary market conditions through select references to the corporate past. A case study showed that the company’s successful dealings with the recent economic crisis were thought to be rooted in skills acquired through historical experience in overcoming crises. Furthermore, I demonstrated how members explained the low performance of Audi on the U.S. market by recollecting the ‘Audi 5000 unintended acceleration’ case. Explanations for contemporary economic success and failure were thus placed in a larger historical context. Second, I explored how the workforce traced the roots of supposedly common working practices in the past, which they believed to have originated in distinct points in corporate history. As vehicles of meaning, members employed anecdotes and elaborate stories, recalling organizational experiences of the distant and near past to explain why Audi operated the way it did in the present. For instance, the roots of improvisational and ‘tinkering’ practices were thought to have emerged in a transformation period after World War II; and the practice of ‘circumventing formal rules’ to advance the company was considered a common thread running throughout history. These recollections of historical organizational experiences were used to explain what practices had supposedly endured over time, and therefore constituted company tradition, and what was worth saving in the future. Moreover, I argued that certain corporate actors inside the organization instrumentalized these representations of the past through the tactic of “myth motoricity” [Mythomotorik] (J. Assmann, 2007, p. 78) in order to revive supposedly lost working practices among the workforce. Their goal was to counteract the effect contemporary bureaucracy was thought to have on limiting creative energy and innovativeness – i. e. the future of the company. Similar findings were produced by Feldman and Feldman (2006) who state that “organizational remembering defines what is not correct practice by transmitting ‘good’ forms of practice and discouraging […] alternative possibilities. The carriers of these culturally defined, persistent frames of meaning are traditions” (p. 873). These traditions, however, could also be invented to a certain degree (cf. Hobsbawm, 2010).

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Third, I discussed the role of retrospection in construing and legitimizing the existence of contemporary conflicts inside the corporation. Members referenced the corporate past in ways that made the unequal subsidiary-parent relationship between Audi and Volkswagen appear rooted in a rivalry with a long history. Recollections of specific elements of the past, such as V.A.G. and a number of ‘usurped products,’ not only demonstrated the evolution of the conflict over time, but also kept it alive in the present. In this sense, memories “of the past reveal[..] important social facts about the present”, as Glynn (1997, p. 149) notes. Moreover, the results of fieldwork revealed that these recollections of a historical conflict had been passed on from generation to generation among local staff and served to perpetuate the difficult relationship between Audi and VW. At the same time, members recalled counter-narratives of subversive acts against the corporate parent. These acts were framed as setting Audi apart as a community, and thus reportedly helped ‘Audianer’ to maintain a sense of sovereignty, despite their status as a subsidiary within a large multibrand corporation. And fourth, chapter 9 discussed the finding that members used reductionist images of the corporate past to evaluate the quality of contemporary corporate life and their own working conditions. Conceptions of past epochs, it was shown, served as foils, against which the present could be assessed in terms of the company’s progress, as well as regression. Depending on the business unit examined, however, this investigation found substantial differences in the way these foils were crafted and employed. In the indirect sector, for instance, white collar members tended to criticize increases in bureaucracy by recalling memories of a supposedly better, unbureaucratic past. In the direct sector, on the other hand, blue collar workers fashioned the present as an improvement over the primitive working conditions of the past. In consequence, there were significant differences in how the different members of the workforce assessed the quality of their contemporary working conditions. In addition to this, I proved that, through acts of official organizational remembrance, dominant actors within the company managed to shape the reductive images of the corporate past held and used by the workforce. In this way, the company managed to paint a picture of the past as inferior to the present, which in turn reaffirmed the corporate status quo. This finding supports what Glynn (1997) identifies as the “politics of memory” (p. 149) – i. e. when “powerful organizational elites […] use memory and tradition as instruments of social control” (p. 149). Moreover, I found that these historical images of the past were passed on inter-generationally, which helped members who lacked autobiographical working experience assess the conditions of their own working lives. In this way, period-specific experiences were transported across time and turned into experiences of others (cf.

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Schmidt, 2004). Those members who could not deal with, and adjust to, contemporary changes in the company exhibited nostalgia, and this was identified as an important coping strategy which assisted them in maintaining their self-worth. The last empirical chapter, chapter 10, investigated the manner in which members of AUDI AG crafted Audi-related collective identities through recollections of the corporate past. By making distinct references to elements of corporate history, in particular, they ascribed specific meanings, such as characteristics and attributes considered typical for Audi, to a supraindividual organizational self in the present. These meanings, however, were not historically fixed, only waiting to be ‘reactivated,’ but reconstructed through acts of retrospection in the present, and thereby catered to contemporary identity needs of the Audi community – a finding supported by Schultz and Hernes’ (2013) case study of the relationship between organizational identity and memory at LEGO. At AUDI AG, the workforce widely considered economic success as the attribute most crucial to identity. Respondents recalled corporate history as fragmented and ruptured by economic downturns, crises, and failures, in contrast to which the stability of the present seemed unquestionably superior. Moreover, contemporary success was fashioned as an evolutionary outcome of previous developments and a testimony of the company’s ability to overcome upheaval, which assured the workforce that they could manage any obstacle in the future. At the same time, there were a range of more critically-minded members whose historical knowledge caused them to regard contemporary business success as ephemeral, precisely because the present economic state appeared as rather unique when viewed in its century-long historical context. Despite the non-existence of a collective memory among the workforce, commonly available knowledge about the corporate past was, in fact, found to exist. While this common knowledge fulfilled a collectivizing function among ‘Audianer,’ it did not encompass the entire history of business operations, but was limited to a specific epoch, which, unlike other periods, was recollected in surprisingly similar, detailed terms. This epoch, which concerned a brand image transformation process that had occurred between the 1980s and the mid2000s, was considered crucial to the organizational identity among large parts of the Audi staff. During this time in the recent past, a major shift in brand attributes was commonly recollected to have taken place – namely from a boring, bland brand with quality issues and no real history to a sporty premium manufacturer of high-quality products with a noble and long history. I then made the argument that this brand image change had contributed to a major change in organizational identity construction among the workforce, which only became visible in retrospect – namely through comparisons members made between ‘then’ and ‘now.’ Memories of transformative indicators, such as a change in customer

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base, an improvement in media feedback, etc., served respondents as concrete validation that Audi – as a brand, company, and community of ‘Audianer’ – had truly transformed from an ‘ugly duckling’ into a ‘beautiful swan.’ Ashforth and Kreiner (1999), for instance, argue that people at work generally “seek and secure social affirmation for what they do” in order to assign a “positive identity” (p. 413) to the organization to which they belong. The brand transformation process was essentially fashioned as the evolution of an organizational self over time. Moreover, I demonstrated that many members were, in fact, in command of a complex ‘development story’ about this brand image change, which recounted specific steps the company had taken to achieve the transformation. These steps, for their part, were shown to match up neatly with many ‘milestones of corporate history’ both the company and the workforce embraced as important, which is why the organizational identity of Audi was very much rooted in the late 20th century. These findings not only provided empirical evidence of a reciprocal relationship between organizational identity and image (cf. Hatch & Schultz, 1997, 2002), but also emphasized the role of remembrance in creating such reciprocity. Moreover, why exactly the workforce happened to recollect the brand image transformation process in similar ways was also discussed. Various corporate actors had managed to establish certain meanings associated with the transformation process through acts of official organizational remembrance, which then served as convenient “identity cue[s]” (Schultz & Hernes, 2013, p. 18) for the workforce. These identity cues, however, were only considered viable material for collective identity construction because they allowed the workforce to a) see parallels between the ‘old days’ and their contemporary work, b) explain why contemporary circumstances had become the way they were, c) generate collective pride in one’s accomplishments, and d) demarcate a community of ‘Audianer’ against other parties outside the company. In this respect, the fact that the comparison in time contributed to the emergence of a positive organizational identity among the workforce was discussed next. Recollections of the ‘old days,’ when the company had been economically unsuccessful and the brand unpopular, were placed in contrast to present times, which were marked by success and an attractive brand image. Comparison in time allowed the workforce to feel a pride in collective achievements and an increase in self-confidence as ‘Audianer,’ which also led to increased member identification with the brand and the company. This supports newer empirical findings by Anteby and Molnár (2012), as well as Schultz and Hernes (2013), which maintain that organizational identity constructions not only change over time, but become traceable mainly through retrospection.

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Furthermore, it was shown that these recollections of brand image transformation reaffirmed the role of top management and reinforced hierarchical structures, because, from a contemporary perspective, past decisions by management had led to contemporary success. Recollecting these decisions thus helped to affirm the status quo and allowed members to further identify with their employer and corporate leaders (cf. Humphreys & Brown, 2002). Another side effect of an increase in member identification was increased interest in the corporate past. To the workforce, the past of a highly successful company seemed more appealing than that of a struggling business. Another important insight from chapter 10 was the fact that references to the corporate past helped members of AUDI AG achieve a concrete sense of who they were as a corporate collective. Labeled concreteness of identity (A. Assmann & J. Assmann, 1994), large percentages of predominantly younger member generations were found to ascribe to the company the same set of qualities – namely that Audi was an old and noble manufacturer of high-quality premium automobiles that, in line with its tradition, was innovative, sporty, and victorious in competition. According to these depictions, all of these supposedly stable pillars of organizational identity were believed to run through corporate history as a common thread, which made them appear to be qualities inherent to the organization. Recollections of specific historical events, products, and leader figures, thought to embody these qualities, were seen as proof of organizational identity and its continuity over time. A discussion that took place next regarded how members’ constructions of organizational identity matched corporate identity claims made by marketing and communications. This was because the company had engaged in a range of internal initiatives aimed at cementing a specific understanding of an organizational self. These initiatives used essentialistic metaphors, such as ‘Audi DNA’ and an ‘Audi soul,’ to imply stability and coherence over time, and anchored these corporate identity claims in the past in order to ‘authenticate’ and legitimize them. These measures had obviously left an impact on the workforce. These findings demonstrate the constructedness of supposedly “deeply rooted patterns or heritage [which] reflect the central or core aspects of identity that remain through time” (Casey & Olson, 2003, p. 9). Corporate efforts to cement concreteness of identity, however, also produced critical reactions among parts of the workforce. A case study demonstrated that overly essentialistic statements sometimes did not sit well with the historical consciousness of members, because they did not offer a sufficient degree of coherence with the historical knowledge they already had. The last section of chapter 10 discussed the role of retrospection in coping with identity threats. During the time of fieldwork, the company was dealing

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with a range of internal and external issues that raised the question among the workforce of whether Audi was ‘still true to itself.’ On the one hand, older members argued that generational changes in staff had caused the emergence of more bureaucratic working practices and an organizational identity dominated by ostentatiousness, which, in their opinion, jeopardized the future of the company. In consequence, members who had been at the company for longer periods of time longed back for distinct attributes of an old organizational identity – the ‘true self’ of Audi – that younger members seemed to have lost. On the other hand, external critiques that maintained the company was losing the ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ were becoming more audible. Journalists assessed that contemporary technologies released by the company with the ‘Four Rings’ did not live up to the innovativeness of previously produced technological ‘milestones’ – an allegation that touched upon a fundamental pillar of organizational identity. The workforce thus critically asked itself whether or not they still fulfilled the central promise of delivering ‘Vorsprung durch Technik.’ This assessment, however, was not an objective matter. Processes of official organizational remembrance had rendered certain technologies, such as quattro, TDI, lightweight construction, etc., so iconic that, in retrospective comparison, contemporary technologies seemed less innovative by default because they had not yet been glorified to the same extent. Contemporary technologies did not yet benefit from the “the power of hindsight” (Freeman, 2010, p. 3), which is why Audi stood, essentially, in the mighty shadow of its own past. I then discussed that, in reaction to these internal and external identity threats, various long-time members in leading positions attempted to rekindle old qualities and the spirit of a former organizational self through inspirational acts of organizational remembrance in order to return to the path of innovation. While Gioia et al. (2000, as cited in Casey & Olson, 2003) “assert that a discrepancy between identity and image often leads to change” (p. 6), this section thus drew attention to the role of remembering the corporate past in eliciting change. At AUDI AG, the key to the future was believed to lie in the past. These findings support a study by Ravasi and Schultz (2006), in which the authors explore “organizational responses to environmental changes and shifting external representations that induced members to reflect on their organization’s recent and prospective courses of action” (p. 455). They conclude that “collective history, organizational symbols, and consolidated practices provide cues that help members make new sense of what their organization is really about and give that new sense to others” (p. 455). Altogether, this ethnographic study offered a wealth of empirical insights into the cultural workings of organizational remembrance and its relationships with identity and image. It demonstrated that organizational remembrance shap-

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ed a company and its workforce at foundational levels, and thus that it transcended the mere functions of knowledge management and history marketing promoted by many scholars. Remembering the past in a corporate setting was shown to be a complex affair with many functions and purposes, involving a wide variety of stakeholder groups, interests, perspectives, mental conceptions, practices, media, tools, and social interactions. Selectively made reconstructions of, and references to, the corporate past not only helped a company to sustain its existence in the future, but also generated a sense of collectivity and stability among the workforce. In the words of Rowlinson et al. (2010), “[the corporate past] is not only remembered for instrumental reasons, to provide lessons for improving present organizational performance. Instead it is vital for our sense of identity” (p. 83). Similarly, Feldman and Feldman (2006) postulate that “[r]emembering is considered crucial to maintaining a sense of continuity and shared identity in organizations by actively constructing meaning” (p. 861). This book finally provided empirical evidence of the micro and macro processes occurring at the intersection of organizational remembrance, organizational identity construction, and image construal. On top of that, I delivered a detailed ethnographic account of ‘what goes on’ when a company professionally ‘works’ and manages its past in terms of corporate history. While this book is neither a managerial study nor a commissioned project for improving a company’s history management efforts, a range of practical implications could nevertheless be derived from the investigation. They may help in adjusting some expectations about the management of organizational remembrance in a corporate context to accommodate business interests.

11.2 Implications for Managerial Practice Every company has a past, but only few make themselves a history: This inquiry into organizational remembrance, especially my discussion of organizational forgetting as a default mode, demonstrated that companies do not automatically have a history; they need to make one for themselves in the first place by actively ‘working’ their past. They reconstruct a coherent historical narrative, which is often represented as a linear development from the genesis of the company to present-day operations. This account can come, for instance, in the form of a ‘heroic tale’ glorifying previous achievements, but also as a ‘history of guilt’ geared towards the reappraisal of previous wrongdoings and ‘dark chapters.’ What matters is that the contemporary business organization actively puts itself in relationship to its past.

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Starting early and planning ahead: One of the biggest errors across various industries seems to be neglecting to retain physical proof of a company’s operations over time. As shown in this study, for an organization to ‘work’ its past, it requires first and foremost relevant vestiges of it, such as old business documents, classic products, and testimonials of the workforce, which allow for the reconstruction of a plausible historical account. Therefore, it is advisable to start collecting, retaining, and systematizing materials from an early point in operations. The longer a company waits the more expensive and laborious any efforts at ‘working’ the past will become. Since the remnants of today will help to craft the corporate history of tomorrow, official organizational remembrance is as much concerned with the past as it is with the present and the future. Working the past is a long-term engagement: Building an official carrier of organizational remembrance, such as a corporate history department, is a longterm engagement. Becoming professional in one’s working practices and acknowledged as a legitimate corporate actor takes time, patience, and hard work. Moreover, attempts at official organizational remembrance do not necessarily generate an immediate impact, unlike various marketing efforts that commonly aim to produce short-term effects. It is safe to assert that the real value of managing one’s history only becomes clear in the long run, and much of this has to do with gaining legitimacy through authenticity. A company that has never made a noticeable effort at ‘looking back’ is not credible when it suddenly starts making claims about ‘long-term traditions.’ Ascribing a new set of meanings to a company, especially when these are anchored in the past, requires time in order for these meanings to sink in and become established, and later become accepted among other stakeholders. Extraordinary costs vs. limited direct profits: Official organizational remembrance is a costly affair, but its actual impact is difficult to measure in terms of generating direct profits. In theory, the primary benefit of retrospection is the creation of community and the ability to see the company’s operations as, in some way, more meaningful. This, in turn, may contribute to higher employee motivation, member identification, and boost a brand’s image among customers; however, these are indirect effects realized only in the long run. A direct link between an increase in organizational remembrance and, for instance, additional product sales is difficult to trace, especially when regular marketing and sales measures that have a more direct impact are at work, as well. In consequence, when a company is willing to invest a good deal of resources into ‘working’ the past, the driving force should be the belief in creating a more stable organization and a more pronounced brand, rather than the wish for an immediate boom in profits.

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Mixing professionalization with enthusiasm: When staffing a corporate history department, it is advisable to have a mix of formally trained business historians and privately-motivated aficionados of old brands and products. This way it is possible to ensure methodological soundness, as well as a genuine passion for the company-specific elements of the past. Moreover, privately-motivated aficionados are more likely to stay motivated and committed across stretches of time involving hardship, when corporate support of the ‘history cause’ ebbs. Mapping stakeholder needs and customizing offers: A company may have a range of different stakeholders in the corporate past that are located in and around the organization’s boundaries. In order to avoid conflicts and tailor offers, it is advisable to scrutinize the different perspectives and needs of these groups. Based on systematic need mapping, it is then possible to customize which elements of the corporate past are instrumentalized in which way for whom. In this way, official efforts at ‘working’ the past can have the highest impact. Lobbying in favor of the history cause: Different stakeholder groups may have competing expectations about the ways the corporate past is exploited to pursue specific goals. Thus whenever the past is put in service of the present, it becomes automatically political. The handling of power struggles about the validity of certain interpretations of the past, the dominance of voice within discourses, and the allocation of resources therefore require a well laid out strategy. In this respect, it makes sense to lobby in favor of one’s own goals throughout the network of remembrance in order to gain broad support among different stakeholder groups. Plausibility vs. historical accuracy: What may sound detestable from an academic perspective tends to be the norm in corporate day-to-day practice. Organizational remembrance does not rely on the objectivity of historical events; plausibility is more important than historical accuracy when it comes to the question of how convincing a historical account is from a contemporary perspective. The more temporally distant the elements of the past to be ‘worked’ are from the present, the more malleable their interpretation seems to be. Malleability vs. authenticity: The extent to which the past can be manipulated in the interest of the present has its limits, however, because blatant deformation may not be accepted. As soon as competing accounts are brought forward by influential stakeholders, they have the capacity to debunk representations of the past offered by the company. It therefore is advisable to adhere to what a company considers its historical ‘truth’ to be. Moreover, the installation of a central expert system for checking corporate claims about the past may prevent the release of questionable accounts of the past before they cause harm.

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Staying consistent: Whenever a company happens to produce two diverging representations of exactly the same element of its past, a lack of consistency may compromise the authenticity of the claims made through organizational remembrance. A company should therefore attempt to represent an element of the past in more or less similar terms over time, without making substantial changes to the meanings ascribed to the respective element just because it seemed opportune in the moment. This notion also applies when multiple parties within an organization decide to instrumentalize the same element for their own purposes, which means that efforts at ‘working’ the past from different angles need to be coordinated to achieve a sufficient level of consistency. Embracing the participative character: The community-creating effect of organizational remembrance becomes more noticeable the more stakeholders gain the impression that they are actively involved in the process. Therefore, it makes sense to encourage the workforce, customers, and aficionados alike to contribute their retrospective accounts related to the corporate past. By departing from the idea that only corporate historians may interpret what counts as history, it is easier to spread a feeling of possessing a genuinely ‘shared past,’ which transforms a loosely connected network of remembrance into an integrated community. A company never fully owns its past: No matter how professionalized the procedures of official organizational remembrance have become, a business organization is never fully in control of how its past is remembered by others. The more stakeholders hold a genuine interest in recollecting the corporate past, the more control a company loses over dominating the discourses about corporate history. Instead of attempting to mute potential counter-voices, it is more advisable to collaborate and gain control ‘through the backdoor.’ Fights for sole interpretive power are uphill battles one is likely to lose. Paying attention to new media: In recent years, representing a company’s past has come to involve new formats and platforms, such as websites, blogs, and online forums, which allow non-professionals to create retrospective content. These user-generated accounts of the corporate past may be enriching for a company, but they may also create issues. For instance, an openly generated Wikipedia entry may have a greater impact on how customers and the workforce narrate corporate history than an officially printed history book. Digital natives, in particular, expect the immediate availability of content in the moment they need it, which often makes them prefer digital over analog media. This generational change also requires a shift in thinking when it comes to the employment of media in official organizational remembrance. Accounting for the good, the bad, and the ugly: In most business organizations that have existed for an extended period, there are not just shiny success

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stories and milestones, but also ‘dark’ elements corporate actors would prefer to hide. In my opinion, however, it is the moral obligation of every business organization to account for former malpractice, misbehavior, and exploitation, if it decides to selectively glorify the ‘gems’ and milestones. Covering up the ‘dark’ past cannot be expected to constitute a viable strategy forever, because external stakeholders, such as academics and journalists, sometimes have a desire to unearth a company’s ‘dirty laundry.’ In consequence, a company should at least make sure that it is in possession of internal studies that come to terms with ‘dark chapters.’ Of course, not every study needs to be published to a public audience; however, not possessing knowledge and the attending proof about one’s ‘skeletons in the basement’ may create even bigger problems when external stakeholders not only start digging, but publish incriminating accounts that harm the company’s social license to operate in the future. Becoming proactive: One way to amplify a company’s voice in the discourses about its past is the pursuit of a proactive strategy of organizational remembrance. In situations involving problematic elements of the corporate past in particular, it is advisable to act first, instead of waiting for other stakeholders to address and represent the issue, and then adopting a defense position, issuing, for instance, an apology. By ‘working’ the past in proactive ways, an organization can set the tone, and gain credibility because it is not on the defensive right from the start. These implications for managerial practice are more or less applicable to any business organization that wishes to ‘work’ its past in more elaborate terms. Several scholarly insights this study produced, however, are limited in their generalizability due to the greater research design – an aspect that will be discussed next.

11.3 Generalizability and Limitations of this Empirical Study When this study was designed, there was little empirical evidence to work with that would allow me to account for the numerous contingencies I would later encounter in the field. Facing vast research gaps, an explorative approach was chosen that was thematically focused, while remaining relatively open in order to do justice to the unpredictable nature of qualitative research. As mentioned several times before, all empirical findings presented in this book are based on an ethnographic study conducted in a single company, which raises an important question – are the findings about organizational remembrance at AUDIA AG in Ingolstadt applicable to other companies, as well? The short answer is that that depends.

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More broadly applicable findings would require a cross-industry-wide study conducted in multiple business organizations, which this ethnography clearly did not aim to pursue. My goal was to make a first empirical step at uncovering the complexities, extremes, and contingencies of organizational remembrance in depth. Due to limitations of time, manpower, and other resources, the realization of this endeavor was only possible in a single setting. Had the number of companies been higher, empirical exploration would have only managed to scratch the formal surface, without accounting for the informalities of day-to-day organizational life. On top of that, it is important to point out that qualitative research – ethnography in particular – does not aim to be representative beyond the respective setting under examination (Brewer, 1994, 2000); this is what quantitative studies are for (cf. Kelle & Kluge, 2010). In the interest of conducting a reflexive ethnography, it makes sense to account for the case specificities of this qualitative study. As mentioned before, a large, well-known company that produces publicly visible, meaning-laden products such as automobiles is exposed to a host of factors with which other companies do not necessarily have to deal. The automobile industry happens to be a setting in which various external stakeholder groups are passionately engaged. This results in a high degree of dynamism across the boundaries of manufacturers and demands more interaction with the outside world, which is not necessarily the case with unknown companies and manufacturers of products with limited public visibility, a low degree of materiality, and little ‘cultural significance.’ Linde (2009), for instance, demonstrates that ‘working’ the past also occurs in the service industry, namely in an insurance company; yet, in her study, it remains a company-internal phenomenon. Therefore, I argue that companies with strong brands that sell highly emotionalized products (e. g. motor vehicles, fashion, apparel, foods, beverages, consumer electronics, etc.) on an openly accessible market are more likely to develop a complex network of remembrance, which, in turn, must deal with different stakeholders of the corporate past who employ a variety of cultural forms of remembrance to pursue an array of purposes. Thus it is fair to claim that the case of AUDI AG may have been more complex than the average business organization on the market. From what was learned in the field, I suggest that many findings about organizational remembrance at AUDI AG are more generally applicable to the automobile industry in Germany. The majority of automobile companies in the country have established similar structures and offers when it comes to ‘working’ the corporate past. Daimler, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen, and Opel, for example, have all installed dedicated corporate history departments, which employ more or less the same array of cultural forms of organizational remembrance (cf. BMW Group Mobile Tradition, 2008; Frank, 2008; Niemann, 2008; Schug, 2003;

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Wachs, 2008). Likewise, they pursue similar purposes in instrumentalizing their past, which include documentation of operations over time, public relations, marketing, protecting legal interests, and so on (cf. Diez & Tauch, 2008). All of these companies construct some sort of heroic tale about their past, which is filled with product milestones, leader figures, core events, and other elements also encountered at Audi. Furthermore, claims of operating ‘in a long tradition’ are common in the automotive industry – at least among brands of a certain age. The formal side of organizational remembrance can in this way be expected to look more or less the same, which implies at least a degree of general applicability. Major differences may not even be industry-specific, but lie in the composition of the workforce. According to Linde (2009), every business organization has its anecdotes and stories that are shared, to varying extents, among the workforce. After all, human beings are “storytelling animals” (Gottschall, 2012, p. 199), and it can therefore be deduced that most work communities somehow ground their supraindividual conceptualizations of an organizational self in recollections of an allegedly shared past (cf. Casey, 1997). However, there may be substantial variations in the content of recollection – not just in terms of company-specific experiences, but also in terms of how far back in time informal recollection reaches. For instance, this study argued that at AUDI AG in Ingolstadt the historical time frames of some member groups did not touch upon organizational experiences before the late 1940s, which rendered half a century of corporate existence irrelevant. Rather than, by default, “referring to a limited time horizon [of 80 to 100 years] that continuously moves along,” as proposed by Jan Assmann (1992, as cited in Erll, 2008b, p. 171), this was a long-term result of a major breach caused by World War II, and, more importantly, the relocation from Saxony to Ingolstadt. In companies that went through upheavals from mergers and acquisitions, name changes, and relocations, it is much more likely that the workforce does not consider each and every epoch as relevant to their constructions of organizational identity, but only ‘keeps’ those they can retrospectively link to contemporary organizational life in a meaningful manner. In companies that have developed in a more linear fashion, on the other hand, recollections of the distant past can be expected to play a greater role among the workforce – especially when a company’s past is strongly interwoven with a single region’s past over multiple generations. The latter argument points to site-specific differences that may exist even within a single company. As discussed before, AUDI AG was a company scattered across many sites and local pasts. Site-specific factors were assumed to have had a substantial impact on what was remembered and deemed an identity-generating element for the workforce. In contrast to the Ingolstadt plant, the Neckarsulm

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plant, for example, had been in the same location for over a century. According to various informants, the workforce still identified themselves as ‘NSU-lers’ – decades after the NSU brand had fully vanished and the Audi brand had made the race. Judging from the handful of research occasions spent in Neckarsulm, I am convinced that the historical consciousnesses of members were probably shaped much more by the local history of NSU AG rather than Auto Union GmbH; their historical time frames likely dated back to the early beginnings of NSU in the mid 1870s rather than Horch; and the primary ‘other,’ utilized by the local workforce to strengthen their collective identity, was probably the Audi headquarters in Ingolstadt, more than the corporate parent in Wolfsburg. Likewise, it can be assumed that country-specific cultural differences play a role in which corporate past a workforce considers its own. For instance, I doubt that Audi employees at the production plants in India or China recalled and identified with exactly the same elements as their German colleagues. Every plant can therefore be considered its own micro-community that, to a certain degree, fashions its own corporate past. Another case specificity is the time-bound economic state of the company in which empirical data was generated. Organizations can change substantially over the course of their existence, and thus the organization itself and the data gathered during a specific period of operations ought to be historicized (Kieser, 1994; Strati, 2000). Most likely, insights into remembrance and identity produced during a time of economic euphoria were different from what would have been gathered during a time of crisis and severe layoffs. Despite these potentially limiting case specificities, this ethnographic study of organizational remembrance at AUDI AG does possess a greater bearing on the scholarly exploration of the relationships between memory, identity, and image in a corporate setting. It should be uncontroversial by now that recollections of the past are crucial for the construction of collective identities in companies. More importantly, some of my findings could be extrapolated to a certain degree by comparing and aligning them with the insights produced in other empirical studies on the subject. However, these studies remain extremely scarce, and vast methodological differences make alignment of results problematic. Hence, this project first and foremost serves as a primary study which establishes the basic ground-work upon which future inquires can build. Both qualitative and quantitative research is strongly needed if the goal is, for instance, the creation of a generally applicable, empirically-grounded theory of organizational memory/remembrance. All said, research on the relationships between organizational memory/remembrance, identity, and image is far from being exhausted. Moreover, a wealth of additional data and insights produced during the time of fieldwork at AUDI

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AG could not be presented in this book, so even my own empirical material leaves vast room for further exploration. The last section, therefore discusses a selection of issues which would be well worth investigating in the future.

11.4 Issues for Future Research & Outlook Staying with a qualitative research design in a single corporation, it would be interesting to explore the cultural differences in organizational remembrance on the informal member level across multiple sites. Additional research at the Audi plant in Neckarsulm, for instance, would provide valuable insights into conflicts in processes of organizational identity construction that emerge when a local workforce embraces a different predecessor company’s past as ‘theirs,’ rather than what the official carrier of organizational remembrance promotes at the headquarters. These types of insights may be helpful for other companies when dealing with mergers and acquisitions, and the cultural integration of workforces. Moreover, by exploring what identity-generating elements each company-internal mnemonic community embraces on the content level, it becomes possible to understand what elements of the past actually overlap across sites, and, more importantly, why this is the case. In addition to gaining scholarly insights, there would also be practical benefits for HR management and internal communications. In large corporations that manage a heterogeneous workforce distributed across multiple sites, the instrumentalization of these common elements may have an integrative effect, serving to de-emphasize regional differences, and contributing to the emergence of a corporation-wide collective identity. After all, managerially-oriented culture scholars, such as Schein (2004), proclaim that a more culturally integrated company is better suited for performing well in business. As indicated before, further research is also required on the influence of a company’s economic state on what elements of the past are remembered in which way. A longitudinal qualitative study may uncover how the same element can be retrospectively ascribed entirely different meanings, depending on the situation of recall. Questions emerge, such as whether times of crisis evoke different images of the past than boom phases, and how it may be that historical product failures criticized for most of their existence are suddenly portrayed in a positive light after the passage of a number of years. Research on organizational remembrance has mostly been conducted in the Western hemisphere – i. e. in the U.S., U.K., Scandinavia, and Germany. The identification of cultural differences therefore does not account for the extremes that can be found in the world. De Geus (2002), for instance, proclaims that, when

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viewed on an international scale, the oldest, most successful companies all operate in Japan; and he argues that their key to success lies in the maintenance of traditions in day-to-day business, their reservations regarding trends, and their continuous acknowledgement of the corporate past. Considering the fact that organizational culture studies experienced a boom in the 1980s by following “the major theme of comparing the functioning of American and Japanese firms with culture as a principal explanatory variable” (Deshpande & Webster, 1989, p. 4), it would be insightful to explore national differences in cultural forms of organizational remembrance. On a different note, why certain markets seem to be less susceptible to history marketing efforts than others – a hypothesis set forth by various respondents at AUDI AG – also remains under-researched. Furthermore, it would be interesting to see what role the age of a business organization actually plays in the emergence of a drive to remember. A common assumption seems to be that a company first and foremost needs to be ‘old’ – i. e. several decades, preferably with a century of continuous business operations behind it – in order to make remembrance appear like a legitimate practice. However, this assumption still needs to be put to the test. Tesla Motors, for instance, the electric car manufacturer which is less than a decade old, was seen to engage in various acts of inventing its own tradition by claiming its ideological legacy could be traced to the famous inventor Nikola Tesla (Tesla Motors Inc., 2006, October 25), who, technically speaking, had nothing to do with the young American company. This example demonstrates that even a future-driven start-up can seemingly render its operations historical, often by inserting itself into biographies of other entities that predate the respective firm’s actual business operations. Most importantly, a large scale quantitative study should be conducted, which tests the findings produced through qualitative research. Preferably, this study would cover multiple companies of varying sizes (e. g. large, medium, small), with different organizational structures (e. g. publicly traded corporations, family businesses, privately held shops), ages (e. g. more than a century, half a decade, start-up), industries and product categories (e. g. tangible consumer goods vs. services), and affiliations with national cultures (e. g. the U.S., Germany, China, Japan, Dubai). The selection of firms should account for different levels of stability and fragmentation (e. g. a past of mergers and acquisitions vs. an unchanged corporate structure), the degree of professionalization in ‘working’ the past (e. g. a fully equipped corporate history department vs. none at all), and the composition of the workforce (e. g. size, educational/vocational background, age, tenure, local rootedness). Moreover, it would be interesting to reconstruct the complexity of cultures of remembrance in other types of organizations outside the corporate sphere, such

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as universities, health organizations, and public authorities – similar to Casey (1997) conducting a collective memory study in a substance abuse rehabilitation facility, and Hoskins (forthcoming) doing an ethnographic study of the British Army’s corporate memory unit. By scrutinizing the cultural forms and functions of organizational remembrance in a comparative manner, it would become possible, for instance, to figure out what factors make remembrance particularly ‘corporate’ rather than just ‘organizational.’ In addition to testing the myriad of factors with an impact on organizational remembrance, further inquiries should also be linked to the growing research field on organizational forgetting (e. g., Casey & Olivera, 2011; Engeström, Brown, Engeström, & Koistinen, 1994; de Holan & Phillips, 2004; Sandoe, 1998). This book took up a stance that advocated the recollection of the past. However, a more differentiated inquiry would also need to shed light on organizational forgetting as an equally legitimate tactic, rather than a practice that needs to be overcome. According to Halbwachs (1985), for example, remembrance always goes hand-in-hand with processes of forgetting. Commenting on that notion, Jan Assmann (2007) argues that “if a human being – and a society – is only able to remember a past that is reconstructable within the contemporary frame of reference, then it will forget those elements that do not have a frame of reference in the present” (p. 36). While Esposito (2008) claims that forgetting “is necessary especially to enable action and prevent being bound by the ties of the past” (p. 181), there is little empirical evidence about the cultural dimension of forgetting (cf. Rowlinson et al., 2010). More specifically, an empirical exploration of the paralyzing effects of organizational remembrance for a company’s ability to remain dynamic and embrace necessary change would be highly interesting. March (1972, as cited in Walsh & Ungson, 1991), for instance, claims that “memory is an enemy of organizations that can reinforce a single-loop learning style that maintains the status quo” (p. 71). Additional research is needed especially when it comes to the impact of formalized processes of unlearning on the workforce, which Walsh & Ungson (1991) label “retroactive interference” (p. 75). Studying the interplay between remembering and forgetting points to a larger issue – namely how business organizations should best deal with experiences of time in ways that are themselves able to endure it. Overall, this glimpse into a range of different issues demonstrates that the topic of organizational remembrance offers many more aspects worth exploring from multiple angles. Future studies should therefore embrace an interdisciplinary approach that draws from organization studies, management studies, marketing, communication studies, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and the study of history. More importantly, the production of empirically grounded

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insights matters both for scholars and practitioners alike. Inquiries that are simultaneously theoretically-informed and practically-oriented, as well as descriptive and relevant for scholarship, and that also offer consulting advice, have the potential to solve relevant questions about that which emerges at the crossroads between organizational remembrance, identity, and image.

12 Appendix This appendix contains all additional information and documents referred to in the previous chapters.

12.1 Research Opportunities and Sampling of Respondents As the headline implies, this section contains a list of special research occasions as well as an explanation of the sampling of interviewees.

12.1.1 List of special research occasions In addition to participating in daily organizational life on the company premises in Ingolstadt, a number of special research occasions emerged during fieldwork, which are listed here. Occasions marked with ‘AT’ indicate that they were either organized by Audi Tradition or featured ‘tradition workers,’ whose working practices I observed. – 3 August 2010, Guided expert tour, Audi museum mobile, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 4 August 2010, Daily meeting of communications department managers (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 7 August 2010, Wedding of city councilman with vintage cars, Downtown Ingolstadt – 17 August 2010, Opening reception of the “Farbverlauf” exhibition (AT), Audi museum mobile, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 6 September 2010, Meeting on internal research activities (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 7 September 2010, History presentation to new employees, hosted by Audi Tradition (AT); Guided tour for new employees through Audi museum mobile, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 10 September 2010, Introductory event for new apprentices, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 11 September 2010, “Nacht der Museen” and special tour through Audi museum mobile (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 14 September 2010, Farewell party for employee, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt – 15 September 2010, Guided tour through engine component production line, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt

12.1 Research Opportunities and Sampling of Respondents

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20 September 2010, Interview appointment with foreign journalists (AT), Audi museum mobile, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 24– 27 September 2010, Riedenburg Classic “Hill Climb” & Vintage Car Show (AT), Riedenburg 28 September 2010, Brainstorming session on 21-gram initiative (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 29 September – 2 October 2010, Eifel Classic Rally (AT), Nürburgring 4 October 2010, Guided tour through production facility, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 5 October 2010, Automobile club meeting of foreign vintage car club (AT); Guided tour through production facilities, AUDI AG, Neckarsulm 7 October 2010, Audi museum mobile vintage car training event for museum guides (AT), Ingolstadt region 12– 13 October 2010, Oral history interviews for 21-gram initiative (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 14– 17 October 2010, Symposium of Audi Club International presidents (AT), AUDI AG, Neckarsulm 17 October 2010, DTM touring car racing event, Hockenheimring 19 October 2010, Guided tour through paint-spray line (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 26 October 2010, Vintage car photo shoot (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 28 October 2010, Farewell party for retired employee, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 30 October 2010, IG Audi Sport reunion party, Kösching 8 November 2010, Autograph session for the Audi Tradition calendar with former race car drivers (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 23 November 2010, Guided tour through Audi museum mobile for Volkswagen Group audit commission (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 25 November 2010, Transfer of exhibit piece to Audi museum mobile by automobile club members (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 28 November 2010, Model car & memorabilia trade show (AT), Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 3 December 2010, Product management event & vintage car driving event for Audi managers (AT), Trade Center, Nuremberg 8 December 2010, Department workshop (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 8 December 2010, Regulars’ table of former managers of technological development unit (AT), Stammham 8 December 2010, Department Christmas party (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 10 December 2010, Annual reunion of former production managers, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 13 – 14 December 2010, Presentations for apprentices, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 15 December 2010, General assembly, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt

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12 Appendix

15 December 2010, “10 Years of Audi Forum” anniversary party (AT), Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 16 December 2010, Christmas party for the communications division (AT), Gaimersheim 17 December 2010, Press conference, Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 11– 12 January 2011, Corporate history lecture for legal practitioners during “Audi Praxis-Seminar Produkthaftung in der Praxis des Unternehmens” (AT), Bad Wörishofen 31 January 2011, Partial transfer of documents from design archive (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 2 February 2011, Corporate history lecture for new managers (AT), Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 7 February 2011, Meeting on Audi Tradition advertisement campaign (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 18 February 2011, Jubilee event for long-time employees, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 1 March 2011, Exhibition opening event of Lamborghini special exhibition (AT), Audi museum mobile, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 22 March 2011, Guided tour through vintage car depot for foreign Audi managers (AT), AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 24– 26 March 2011, “Zwickauer Automobilkolloquium,” Corporate history lecture (AT); Exhibition opening event of the special exhibition “Pioniere des Automobilbaus,” August Horch Museum, Zwickau 1– 5 April 2011, Techno Classica Vintage car trade show (AT), Gruga Messe, Essen 7– 9 May 2011, “125 Jahre Automobil” corso (AT), Porsche Museum & Schlossplatz, Stuttgart 21 May 2011, 24-hour employee run, Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 17 June 2011, Donau Classic vintage car rally (AT), Audi Forum, AUDI AG, Ingolstadt 23 July 2011, “Museum mobile DKW Schnelllaster Tour” & “Lernfest” (AT), Ingolstadt

12.1.2 Sampling of respondents for semi-structured interviews – – – – –

11 September 2010, Employee, Communications 30 October 2010, Group interview, 2 former Audi Sport Rally pilots 11 November 2010, Retired employee, Quality control 12 November 2010, Group interview, 5 employees, Production 30 November 2010, Employee, Technological development

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20 December 2010, Employee, Sales 13 January 2011, Employee, Plant security/production 17 January 2011, Manager, Human resources 21 January 2011, Employee, Strategic planning 25 January 2011, Employee, Quality control 26 January 2011, Employee, Education 1 February 2011, Employee, Marketing 21 February 2011, Manager, Design 21 February 2011, Group interview, 2 employees, Design 28 February 2011, Employee, Communications 21 March 2011, Manager, Marketing 22 March 2011, Employee, Production 23 March 2011, Trainee, Marketing 24 March 2011, Retired manager, Technological development 29 March 2011, Retired manager, Production 31 March 2011, Manager, Marketing 5 April 2011, Supervisor, Production 13 April 2011, Employee, Communications 26 April 2011, Employee, Technological development 28 April 2011, Worker, Production

12.1.3 Sampling of respondents for expert interviews – – – – – –

23 November 2010, Group interview, 2 vintage car club members 28 November 2010, Vintage car club member 20 January 2011, Corporate historian, Audi Tradition 28 January 2011, Group interview, archivist & classic car specialist, Audi Tradition 16 March 2011, Audi museum mobile employee, Audi Tradition 16 May 2011, Manager, Audi Tradition

12.2 Supporting Material for Fieldwork The following sections provide detailed insight into the research design of fieldwork by presenting specific guiding questions for participant observation, a template for structured daily protocols, an exemplary guide for semi-structured interviews, and an exemplary guide for an expert interview with a corporate historian.

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12.2.1 Guiding questions for participant observation Ethnographic research on internal working life at the offices of Audi Tradition was guided, among others, by the following research questions: – Who are the institutionalized gatekeepers of corporate history, and what is their position inside the department/company? – How is the institution setup and how does the ‘gatekeeping’ of the past work in practice? – What are the strategies that internally legitimize the work of Audi Tradition within the corporation at large? – What is their official function concerning the production and internal/external communication of corporate history? – What professional practices of ‘working’ the past do exist? – What are the underlying logic and purpose of these practices? – How do these practices selectively reconstruct the past? – How do members of Audi Tradition decide to share which knowledge about the past, and with which internal audiences do they do this? – In doing so, what is their intention and what impact do they actually have? – What are the well-known, potentially shared, topics of day-to-day conversation referring to past events and persons, which create a discursive frame of reference? – What cultural artifacts with a mnemonic function are used in these practices? – How are these artifacts produced, and who has a stake in their conceptualization and/or production? – What does the symbolism of architecture and the interior design of office space communicate? – How does it stand in contrast to publicly accessible corporate sites of remembrance? Research on the staff of Audi Tradition conducted outside the offices, on the other hand, was guided by questions such as: – What are the dominant practices of (re‐)activating the corporate past in the present for image construction purposes directed at an external audience? – What elements of the past are officially remembered and reactivated in external contexts? – If they are presented in narrative form, how are these narratives performed? – What attributes, values, beliefs, and claims are officially communicated to be unique to Audi at these performances? – What techniques are used for connecting the past with the present and the future?

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What cultural artifacts are publicly used as mnemonic media or materialized vehicles of remembrance?

Organizational members of AUDI AG who were not part of the corporate history department were observed with the following guiding questions in mind: – During which social situations do organizational members who are not professionally concerned with ‘tradition work’ recollect the organization’s past, and what is their purpose of retrospection? – How and through what formal and/or informal cultural forms of organizational remembrance do members recollect and pass on elements of a collective organizational past? – What is their attitude towards corporate history and official efforts regarding heritage management? Special attention was also paid to material manifestations of organizational remembrance. Data was gathered on the existence and arrangement of relevant cultural artifacts such as banners, posters, framed pictures, graphics and photographs, calendars, model cars, statues, and plaques featuring references to the corporate past, which served decorative, commemorative, motivational, or instructive purposes.

12.2.2 Template for structured daily protocols Daily Protocoll Title Running Number Date Setting Context Intention Participants Detailed description of setting Statements, actions, interactions Interpretation

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12.2.3 Exemplary guide for semi-structured interviews Updated version (19 April 2011) I.

Einleitung [Introduction] a) Zweck der Studie [Purpose of this study] b) Vertraulichkeitserklärung & Anonymisierung [Confidentiality agreement & anonymization] c) Erlaubnis für Audiomitschnitt [Permission to audio tape] d) Nach sonstigen Fragen erkundigen [Inquire about other questions] II. Arbeitsbiografie [Work biography] a) Wann und wie kamen Sie zu Audi? [When and how did you come to work for Audi?] b) Wie sieht ihre jetzige Arbeit aus? [Can you describe your current job?] III. Organisationsidentität & Image [Organizational identity & image] a) Bevor Sie bei Audi anfingen, was wussten Sie über das Unternehmen und wie wirkte es auf Sie? [Before you started at Audi, what did you know about the company and how did it strike you?] b) Wie funktionierte Audi damals? [How did Audi use to operate back then?] c) Wie hat sich das Unternehmen als auch die Marke Audi über die Zeit verändert? [How have the company and the Audi brand changed over the course of time?] d) Wie funktioniert Audi heute? [How does Audi operate today?] e) Wie würden Sie ihre jetzige Beziehung zu Audi beschreiben? [How would you describe your present relationship to Audi?] f) Worauf ist man als Mitarbeiter stolz? [What makes you proud as an employee?] g) Was macht einen Audianer aus? [What characterizes an Audianer?] h) Wie sieht die Beziehung zu anderen Abteilungen aus? Gibt es da Unterschiede?

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[How would you characterize the relationship to other departments? Are there any differences?] i) Gibt es ein Audi-Wir-Gefühl? Wenn ja, was macht es aus? [Is there an Audi-specific feeling of ‘We’; and if so, how does it demonstrate itself?] j) Ich habe schon öfters die Phrase gehört, dass Audi “wie eine Familie” sei. Wie sehen Sie das? [I have often heard the phrase that Audi was “like a family”; what is your opinion on that?] k) Wie reagieren Menschen, wenn sie hören, dass Sie bei Audi arbeiten? [How do people react when they hear you are working at Audi?] l) Was unterscheidet Audi von Wettbewerbern wie Mercedes Benz oder BMW? [What is the difference between Audi and competitors such as Mercedes-Benz or BMW?] IV. Soziales Organisationsgedächtnis [Social memory in organizations] a) Was waren Ihres Erachtens nach die wichtigsten Ereignisse, Entwicklungen und Personen in der Vergangenheit des Unternehmens? [In your opinion, what do you consider to be the most important events, developments, and persons in the company’s past?] b) Könnten Sie mir bitte eine Geschichte oder Mythos erzählen, der weitläufig im Unternehmen bekannt ist, den jeder Audi-Mitarbeiter schon einmal gehört hat, oder der verdeutlich, was Audi ausmacht? (Wenn nichts kommt, dann cues: “Audi” Namensgebung, Auto Union in IN, Audi 100 Kraus-Story, quattro, Piëch) [Could you tell me a story or myth that is widely known in the company – a story that every Audi employee has somehow heard before, or a story that demonstrates what constitutes Audi? (Provide cues if no answer)] c) Wie haben Sie davon erfahren? [How did you learn about that?] d) Welches Wissen über die Vergangenheit wurde Ihnen von Kollegen weitergegeben? [What knowledge about the past was passed on to you by colleagues?] e) Welche Erlebnisse verbinden Sie mit ihren Kollegen oder auch mit dem gesamten Unternehmen? [What experiences make you feel connected to your colleagues or the company?] f) Welche Ereignisse in der Geschichte von Audi würden Sie als identitätsstiftend für die Mitarbeiter ausmachen? [What events of the past do you consider formative for employees’ sense of identity?]

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Welche Bedeutung haben die Vorgängermarken für Sie persönlich / in ihrer Arbeit? [What meaning/significance do the predecessor brands have for you, personally / for your job?] h) Welche Rolle spielt Geschichte für das Unternehmen? [What role does history play for the company?] i) In welchem Rahmen oder für welche Zwecke greift das Unternehmen auf die Geschichte zurück? [In what situations or for what purposes does the company reactivate history?] j) Wer oder was hält die Erinnerungen an die alte Zeit fest? [Who or what retains the memories of the olden days?] k) Welche Rolle spielt dabei Audi Tradition? Wie wirkt die Abteilung auf Sie? [In that respect, what role does Audi Tradition play? How does the department appear to you?] l) Würde man einen Querschnitt durch die letzten 100 Jahre des Unternehmens machen, wie würden Sie die “Seele von Audi” beschreiben? [If we were to make a cross-section through the past 100 years of the company, how would you describe the “soul of Audi”?] m) Welche Rolle spielt die Vergangenheit für die Gegenwart und Zukunft von Audi? [What role does the past play in the present and future of Audi?] n) Was bedeutet Ihrer Meinung nach “Erinnerungskultur”? [In your opinion, what does “culture of remembrance” mean?] V. Fragen des Interviewten über diese Studie, oder was hätte ich Sie noch fragen sollen? [Questions about this study, or what else could I have asked?] VI. Dank & Nachgespräch [Thank respondent & debriefing]

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12.2.4 Exemplary guide for expert interviews Version corporate historian (20 January 2011) I.

II.

III.

Einleitung [Introduction] a) Zweck der Studie (Experteninterview, Einsicht & Verständnis Arbeit eines Unternehmenshistorikers) [Purpose of this study (expert interview, provide insight into corporate historian’s work)] b) Vertraulichkeitserklärung & Anonymisierung [Confidentiality agreement & anonymization] c) Erlaubnis für Audiomitschnitt [Permission to audio tape] d) Nach sonstigen Fragen erkundigen [Inquire about any other questions] Arbeitsbiografie [Work biography] a) Wann und wie kamen Sie zu Audi? [When and how did you come to work for Audi?] b) Wie kamen Sie dazu, zur Historie von Audi zu arbeiten? [How did you come to work on Audi’s history?] c) Welche Aufgaben fallen als Unternehmenshistoriker in Ihren Bereich? (Geschichtsfindung, Geschichtsschreibung) [What tasks do you perform in your job as a corporate historian? (Cue: Researching history, writing history)] Unternehmenshistorie allgemein [Corporate history in general] a) Wann, wie und warum fing die Historienarbeit bei Audi an? [When and how did working the corporate past start at Audi?] b) Was ist der der Zweck von Geschichtsfindung und -schreibung bei Audi? (emotionalisierende Geschichten, Daten für Jubiläen, Typenkunde, stringente Überlieferung) [What is the purpose of finding and writing history at Audi? (Cue: emotionalizing stories, anniversary dates, model histories, coherent tradition of historical knowledge] c) Was sind die Vorteile, als auch Nachteile eines Unternehmens, Wissen über die eigene Vergangenheit herzustellen? [What are the advantages and disadvantages of a company producing knowledge about its own past?] d) Wer hat die Deutungshoheit über die Vergangenheit des Unternehmens? [Who claims the right to interpret the corporate past?]

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e) Welche Verantwortung hat man als Historiker bei Audi? Welche sollte man haben? [What kind of responsibilities does a corporate historian have at Audi? Which ones should one have?] f) Wer sind die internen und externen Zielgruppen und Rezipienten Ihrer Arbeit? Welche unterschiedlichen Bedürfnisse haben diese? [Who are the internal and external target groups and audiences of your work? What needs do they have, and how do they differ?] Praxis des Unternehmenshistorikers [Practice of a corporate historian] a) Welche Faktoren beeinflussen die Geschichtsfindung bei Audi? (Datenschutz, Produkthaftungsfälle) [Which factors influence the historical research at Audi? (Cue: data privacy, product liability cases)] b) Welche Rolle spielt das Archiv bei Ihrer Arbeit? (Dokumente) [What role does the archive play in your job? (Cue: documents)] c) Welche Vorteile und Problematiken gibt es bei der Quellensuche im Archiv in diesem Unternehmen? [Which advantages and difficulties do you have when searching for sources in the archive of this company?] d) Welche Rolle spielt Oral History? (Zeitzeugen) [What role does oral history play? (Cue: contemporary witnesses)] e) Welche Vorteile und Problematiken gibt es bei Oral History im Bezug auf dieses Unternehmen? [Which benefits and problems do you encounter in oral history concerning this company?] f) Welche Quellen gibt es noch? [Which other sources do you use?] g) Wie gehen Sie als Unternehmenshistoriker bei der Erstellung einer historischen Publikation, wie dem Vier Ringe Buch, oder dem WandererBuch, vor? Welche Schritte und Prozesse von der Planung bis zur Publikation kann ich mir da vorstellen? [How do you, as a corporate historian, proceed when creating a historical publication, such as the Four Rings book or the Wanderer book? Which steps and processes from planning to publication does it include?] Geschichtsfindung und –schreibung im Kontext der Unternehmung [Researching and writing history in the context of business] a) Was unterscheidet die Forschungs- und Geschichtsschreibungspraxis eines Unternehmenshistorikers von der eines Historikers, der an

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einer Universität beschäftigt ist? [What are the main differences in the practices of research and historical writing between a corporate historian and those of a historian employed at a university?] b) Sie sprachen einmal von der “Linie des Unternehmens”, der sie schon folgen müssten. Was kann ich mir darunter vorstellen? [You once told me that you were bound to “the company’s course.” What exactly do you mean by that?] c) Inwieweit beeinflussen abteilungsspezifische Ziele, aktuelle Unternehmensthemen und Strategien ihre Arbeit? (Exporte, Elektrotechnik, Innovationen, Leichtbau, Stromlinie) [In what manner do department-specific goals, current corporate topics, and strategies affect your work? [Cue: exports, electric technology, innovations, leightweight construction, streamline] d) Welchen Einfluss haben unternehmenspolitische Entscheidungen von Vorgesetzten, Vorständen oder anderen einflussreichen Personen im Konzern auf Ihre Arbeit oder die Inhalte und Medien, die Sie produzieren? (Form, Zielgruppe, Inhalt) [What influence do corporate-political decisions of superiors, CEOs, or other influential persons inside the corporation have on your work or the content and media you produce? (Cue: form, target group, content)] Kritische Fragen [Critical questions] a) Mir wurde von einem Kollegen mitgeteilt, je näher man sich an die Gegenwart bewege, desto schwieriger wird die Geschichtsfindung. Wie lautet Ihre Meinung dazu? [One of your colleagues told me that the closer one moved to the present, the more difficult it was to reconstruct history. What is your opinion on that?] b) Wie kam es, dass der dritte Band der Unternehmensgeschichte noch nicht existiert? [Why is it that the third volume of the corporate history book has not been created yet?] c) Wie steht es mit Selbstzensur? (bspw. in Bezug auf die Vergangenheit der Auto Union im 3. Reich) [What is your attitude toward self-censorship? (e. g. in regard to the past of Auto Union in the Third Reich)] d) Was kann man aus Ihrer Sicht an Bedingungen für die Unternehmensgeschichtsfindung und Geschichtsschreibung bei Audi verbessern?

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[What, in your opinion, would you improve with regard to the researching and writing of history at Audi?] VII. Theoriebezogene Fragen [Theory-related questions] a) Was ist für Sie ‚Geschichte‘? [What does the term ‘history’ mean to you?] b) Was ist der Unterschied zwischen ‚Geschichte,‘ ‚Vergangenheit,‘ und ‚Tradition‘? [What is the difference between ‘history,’ ‘the past,’ and ‘tradition’?] c) Ich habe jetzt schon oft den Begriff ‚Authentizität‘ gehört. Was bedeutet das? [I have often heard the term ‘authenticity’ here. What does that mean?] d) Was ist der Unterschied zwischen ‚Authentizität‘ und ‚Wahrheit‘? [What is the difference between‘authenticity’ and ‘truth’?] VIII. Zusatzfrage [Additional question] a) Wie steht es bei Audi um das Verhältnis von Typengeschichte zu interner Unternehmensentwicklungsgeschichte? [What is the relationship at Audi between model history and the internal history of organizational development?] IX. Fragen des Interviewten über diese Studie, oder was hätte ich Sie noch fragen sollen? [Questions about this study, or what else could I have asked?] X. Dank & Nachgespräch [Thank respondent & debriefing]

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Subject index Abduction, See Methods and methodology 50 Ackerman, M. S. 24 Acura, See Honda 120 Adam Opel AG 327 Advertisement 20, 76, 108, 120, 142, 186 Affective space 150 Aficionados, See Stakeholders 76 Age 232, 315 Albert, S. 19 Alterity 19 Alvesson, M. 9, 17, 31 f., 51 Amnesia, corporate 1, 186 Anand, V. 23 Anarcho spirit 257, 260, 298 Anchoring points, collective 225, 314 Anderson, B. 18 Anderson, H. P. 306 Andorka, C. P. 122, 162, 164 Anecdotes 31, 148, 150, 152, 316 Anniversaries 2, 31, 112, 135, 143, 149, 155 – birthdays 107, 148, 187 – centennials 2 – 10 Mio Audi 80/A4 143 – tenure jubilees 107, 140, 148 – 125 years August Horch 201 – 75 years of Audi 114 – 100 years of Audi 50, 119, 161, 207, 242, 282 – 100 years of Horch 124, 205 – 40 years of Ingolstadt plant 199 – 60 years of Ingolstadt plant 240 – 100 years of NSU 188 – 25 years of quattro 108, 161 – 30 years of quattro 112, 124, 153 Anteby, M. 22, 319 Apex of organizational remembrance 207 Architecture, corporate 16, 30 Archives – central registry 89, 183, 197 – corporate historical 2, 28, 30 – 32, 75, 87, 98, 189, 192, 194 – grey 184 – private 98

– Saxon Public Records Office 88, 98, 183 Ashforth, B. E. 135, 319 Assmann, A. 34, 288, 320 Assmann, J. 20 f., 33, 255, 288, 316, 320, 328, 332 AUDI AG – description of company 38 – official history 44 – organizational structure 40 – physical structure 41 – production sites 38 – relationship to VW 38, 46 – 48, 253, 256, 285, 317 – workforce structure 38, 40 Audi Automobil-Werke m.b.H. 45 Audi NSU Auto Union AG 47 Audi products 40, 48 – Audi 50 88, 152, 156, 259 – Audi 80 143, 156, 240, 253 – Audi 100 82, 108, 129, 139, 152, 156, 223, 225, 242, 250, 253 f., 260, 295 – Audi 200 115, 129 – Audi 5000 146, 224, 235, 250, 316 – Audi A1 91, 259 – Audi A2 156 – Audi A4 143, 240 – Audi A6 139 – Audi A7 254 – Audi A8 82, 118, 129, 281 – Audi Duo 72 – Audi Front 156, 242 – Audi quattro 48, 82, 108, 119, 129, 131, 135, 148, 155, 203, 223, 225, 253, 280, 291 – Audi R8 91, 142, 292 – Audi TT 147, 225, 255, 281, 283 – Audi Type A 131 – Audi Type C 82 – Audi V8 129 – Auto Union Silver Arrow 91 f., 110, 122, 131 f., 141 f., 177, 186, 191, 223 – 225, 291 – Auto Union/VW Iltis 253, 259 – DKW F102 140 – DKW GT Malzoni 91 – DKW Munga 129

Subject index

– DKW rapid transporter 91 – Horch 670 156 – Horch 855 131 – NSU Ro80 47, 156 – NSU/VW K70 259 – Wanderer Puppchen 111 Audi quattro Owners Club UK 163 Audi technologies – aerodynamic body design 48, 224 – 4-cylinder engine 47 – 5-cylinder engine 225, 280 – 8-cylinder engine 82 – front-wheel drive 47, 82, 141 – fully galvanized body construction 48 – LED headlights 281 – lightweight aluminum body construction 82, 143, 208, 225, 291, 299, 321 – quattro drive system 48, 82, 108, 124, 141, 143, 208, 224 f., 280, 299, 321 – TDI 48, 82, 119, 141, 203, 208, 225, 281, 291, 299, 321 Audi Tradition 69, 203 – description 43, 69 – foundation 204 – management 77 – organizational structures 69, 74, 77, 204, 305 – perspectives on the past 80 – premises and offices 73, 77, 204 – understanding of tradition 80, 84, 305 August Horch Automobilwerke GmbH 44 August Horch & Cie 44 August Horch Museum, See Museums 126 Augustynek, M. 36, 68 Authenticity 72, 79, 93, 102, 112, 141, 171, 228, 320, 323 f. Auto Union AG 45 AUTO UNION GmbH, See Tradition companies 70 Auto Union GmbH 46 Auto Union Veteranen Club e.V. 78, 163, 192 Autobiographical – memories 133, 149, 153, 158 f., 216 f., 244, 282, 315

375

– work experiences 150 f., 217, 232, 235, 252 f., 265, 273, 300, 317 Automobile, cultural significance 41, 78, 109, 133, 163 Backwardness of the past 144, 265, 271, 275 f., 317 Baecker, D. 1, 285 Bagozzi, R. P. 117 Baird, L. 24 Balmer, J. M. T. 20, 33 Barker, C. 19 Barth, P. 165 Bartlett, F. C. 25 Baruch, Y. 298 BASF 30 Becker, S. 30 Bedbury, S. 37 Belated gratification 285 Beliefs 16, 32 Benson Kohn, B. 311 f. Berek, M. 28 Berg, P. O. 9, 17, 30 – 32 Berghahn, V. R. 224 Bessel, P. 176 Beyer, J. M. 17 Bishop, W. L. 4, 22 Blaich, F. 165 BMW AG 2, 37, 94, 107, 117 f., 124, 165, 175, 184, 196, 200, 205, 227, 250, 275, 278, 282, 298, 327 Boch, R. 101, 165, 176 Boddy, D. 62, 66 f. Boia, L. 4, 33, 229 Boje, D. M. 22, 26, 31, 231 Booth, C. 3 f., 22, 165, 175, 312 Bormann, P. 101, 165, 174 Borries, B. 231 Bourdieu, P. 150 Bowles, M. L. 32 Boyce, M. E. 31 Brand 37 – construction 37, 200 – emotionalization 81, 92, 110, 117 – genetics 37, 293, 320 – loyalty 116, 159, 170 – premium 117

376

Subject index

– values 119, 143, 293 – world 37, 126, 200, 203 Brand identity 37 – aspirations 48, 118 – claims 37, 119, 201, 293 f. – construction 116, 185, 200 f., 203, 206, 229, 258, 274 Brand image 37 – transformation 48, 202, 224 f., 274, 284, 287 f., 297, 318 Brewer, J. 13 f., 36 f., 50 – 52, 54 – 56, 61 f., 65 – 67, 327 Brewer, M. B. 19 Brothman, B. 32 Brown, A. D. 320 Brown, J. S. 31 Brunninge, P. O. 22, 27, 306 Buchanan, D. 36, 62, 66 f. Budget 70, 77, 79, 103, 191 – 194, 196 f., 199, 201, 212, 305 Bureaucracy 11, 13, 254, 262, 316, 321 Burmann, C. 294 Business – history 101 f., 165, 313 – organizations, See Organization 10 – records 86, 89, 98, 183 f., 198 – success 86, 230, 269, 274, 298, 316, 318 Cadbury PLC 312 Canonization 218, 315 Carriers of organizational remembrance 31 f., 69, 167, 203, 305 Casey, A. 3 f., 22, 25, 27, 30 f., 36, 307, 311, 315, 320 f., 328, 332 Censorship 99 Chambers, E. G. 37 Chandler, A. D. 34 Chauffeur service 135 Chemnitzer Velociped-Depot Winklhofer & Jaenicke 45 Cheney, G. 19, 260 Chevrolet 2 Christensen, L. T. 19, 260 Chronicle 103 Clark, P. 175 Classic motor vehicles 74, 90, 121 Clifford, J. 51

Clubs, See Stakeholders 76 Coca Cola Company 2 Coffee, J. W. 23 Collection of historical motor vehicles 74, 90, 121, 190, 195 Collective memory 4, 27 f., 218 – in organizations 23, 25, 27, 315 – relationship with collective identity 20 Coming to terms with the past 99, 163, 165, 174, 176 f., 312, 326 Commemorative – ceremonies 31, 114, 125, 135 – photographs 143, 153, 173 – pins 148 – plaques 2, 31, 114, 134 – speeches 115, 148 Common working practices 252, 316 Community 5, 11 f., 18, 34, 164, 270, 284, 315, 317 f., 323, 325 Company magazines 30, 144, 148, 151 Competition 115, 117, 171, 197, 200, 202, 213, 250, 269, 278, 285, 289, 292, 313 Complexity reduction 80, 141, 179, 205, 242, 306, 314 Concept cars 91, 132, 156 Concreteness of identity, See Identity 288 Conflicts – external 113, 174, 205, 296 – internal 79, 99, 142, 178, 201, 204, 209, 256, 317 Continual reaffirmation 214, 313 Contrasting the past and the present 144, 262, 271, 274, 279, 283, 317 f. Corbett, J. M. 22, 309 Core stories 235, 242 – Audi 100 secret development 242, 253 f., 260, 295 – Audi brand name 45, 81, 187, 227, 229, 242, 295 – brand image transformation 280, 319 – development of quattro 253, 295 – exodus from Saxony to Ingolstadt 183, 187, 228 Corley, K. G. 288 Corporate – history, See History 120 – identity, See Identity 20

Subject index

– memory, See Organizational memory 22 – sites of remembrance, See Sites of remembrance 25 – social responsibility 116, 147, 163, 175, 191, 273, 326 Corruption 111, 163, 172 Counter-narratives 119, 152, 163, 214, 255, 260, 317, 325 Creative disobedience 254, 295, 316 Crises 103, 147, 227, 248, 271, 274, 314, 316, 329 Cross, R. 24 Cultivating tradition 69 f., 77 f., 106, 111, 113, 116, 194 f., 305 Cultural – artifacts 30 – forms of organizational remembrance 5, 30, 86, 167, 182, 307, 309 – memory, See Collective memory 4 – perspective on business organizations 5, 9, 15 – phenomena 9, 17, 28 – 30 Cultures of remembrance 17, 29, 309 Cunliffe, A. L. 11, 13 Customers, See Stakeholders 11 Czarniawska-Joerges, B. 14 f., 32 Daimler AG 2, 37, 46, 81, 94, 107, 115, 117 f., 124, 152, 165, 175, 177, 184, 196, 200, 205, 207, 224, 226 f., 230, 250, 275, 278, 298, 327 Danilov, V. 3, 32 Dark past 90, 99, 103, 122, 141 f., 146, 150, 162, 165, 174, 223, 225, 312, 322, 326 Deal, T. E. 14, 21 Degussa 175 Delahaye, A. 3, 175 Demarcation 120, 141, 230, 261, 289, 317, 319 Departmental membership 234 Deshpande, R. 331 Deutsche Bank AG 3, 312 Diamond, M. A. 15 Dickson, P. R. 288 Diez, W. 3, 328 Direct sector 40, 235, 237, 317

377

Discourse 15, 21, 33, 83, 93, 138, 161, 166, 168, 186, 214, 222, 224 – 226, 282, 288, 294, 307, 309, 311, 325 Disdain for the past 185, 196, 208, 312 Disney Company 231 Division of labor 13, 76 Donaukurier 60, 125, 160, 187 Dress codes 16, 71, 286 Driving events 121, 123, 134 f., 140, 171, 206 Durepos, G. 310 Dutton, J. E. 18, 20 Economic – cycle of organizational remembrance 200, 209, 313 – principle of business 10 Education of workforce 104, 145 f., 232 f., 236, 273 Educational background 244, 315 Eichenberg, A. 28 El Sawy, O. A. 22 – 24 Elements – of physical space 30 – of the past 33, 35, 80, 104 Eley, G. 175, 312 Emerson, R. M. 41, 52, 55, 61 Emotional labor 135 Employee – handbooks 32, 294 – marketing 143 Engeström, Y. 332 Entertainment, See Purposes of organizational remembrance 133 Epochs 223, 317 f. Erdmann, T. 101 Erll, A. 4, 17, 28 – 30, 32, 34, 309, 328 Esposito, E. 332 Ethnography, See Methods and methodology 50 Eulogies 153 Eventification 75, 112, 120 f., 123, 191, 199, 206 Exclusion 11, 88, 91 Exhibitions 108, 126, 149, 155, 188, 190, 199 – 201 Experience 2 f., 21, 25, 34, 117, 119, 133, 140

378

Subject index

Expertise 2, 99, 102, 104, 164, 180, 192, 199, 204, 289 External sphere 12, 28 Fabbri, T. 288 Facts – hard 98, 145, 198, 245 – soft 98, 245 Family – businesses 11 – ties 239 f., 315 Fatigue concerning the tradition topic 208 Feldman, D. C. 298 Feldman, R. M. 4, 22 f., 27, 310, 313, 316, 322 Firth, R. 66 Flick, U. 61 Folklore trap 9 Forced labor 11, 46, 102, 163, 165 f., 174 f., 224 – 226 Formalization 10, 13, 32, 195 Founding date 188 Fragmentation 43, 184, 221, 226, 228, 230, 314 Frank, T. 327 Franklin, B. 1 Freeman, M. 69 Freer, B. 310 Fretz, R. I. 41, 52, 61 Friendship 13, 106, 111 Friese, R. 84, 101 Funding of this study 63 Future 1, 91, 116 – orientation 1, 35, 73, 117, 139, 141, 182, 185, 199, 208 – predictions 72, 273 – securing the 288, 299, 301, 306, 321 Gabriel, Y. 33, 264 Gardner, W. 19 Gatekeepers 11 f., 25, 28, 33 – 35, 62, 73, 98, 169 Geertz, C. 51 Generational – changes 297, 321 – membership 233, 315

German – Association of Business Archivists 88 – automobile nobility 118, 229, 290 – craftsmanship 276 – Federal Initiative for Excellence 63 – reunification 198 Geus, A. de 287, 330 Gilmore, J. H. 133 Ginter, J. L. 288 Gioia, D. A. 4, 18 – 21, 33 – 35, 288 Girtler, R. 53 f., 56, 64 Glaser, B. G. 50 Gläser, J. 59 Glorification 100, 106 f., 122, 129, 178, 229, 321 f. Glynn, M. A. 309, 315, 317 Gobo, G. 54 Gomes, G. M. 23 f. Gonzales, M. V. 23 f. Goodwood Festival of Speed 110, 121 Gossett, L. 11 Gottschall, J. 328 Gough, P. 2, 31 21 gram initiative 255, 294 Gremler, D. D. 294 Grieger, M. 1, 30, 32, 165, 176, 224 Griffiths, J. 30 Gudehus, C. 28 Guffey, M. E. 232 Haimerl, E. 117 Halbwachs, M. 21, 25, 33, 332 Hall, S. 19, 295 Hammersley, M. 51 Handelsbanken 22, 306 Hanford Plutonium Works 310 Hartley, J. 55 Haskell, T. L. 33, 137 Hassard, H. 30 Hassard, J. 1, 312 Hatch, M. J. 11, 13, 19 f. Hauptfleisch, T. 120 Hayes, P. 30, 102, 175, 224 Helm, S. 294 Herbrand, N. 3 Heritage 27, 69, 80, 187 Hernes, T. 3, 22, 307, 311, 318 f.

Subject index

Hierarchy 13, 40, 235, 315, 320 Hirst, W. 313, 315 Historical – accountability, See Purposes of organizational remembrance 97 – accuracy 79, 92 f., 102, 157, 179, 220, 222 f., 225, 237, 259, 314, 324 – associations 2, 32 – consciousness 114, 127, 177, 196, 205, 208, 216, 218, 230, 232, 270, 313 f. – knowledge 99 f., 164, 218 f., 231, 236, 241 f., 314 – process of evolution and differentiation 182, 311 – self-images 32, 271 – truth claims 34, 72, 79, 84, 88 f., 98, 100, 102, 178, 206, 311, 324 Historical figures – August Horch 44, 114, 118, 124, 127, 141, 178, 187, 189, 201, 207, 224, 281, 289, 295 f. – Bernd Rosemeyer 162, 224 f., 291 – Carl Benz 44, 179 – Carl Hahn 196 – Carl Hahn Jr. 114 – Christian Schmidt 47 – Ewald Kluge 107 – Ferdinand Piëch 48, 108 f., 185, 199 f., 209, 224, 260 f., 280, 285, 295 f. – Franz-Josef Paefgen 202, 206 – Fritz Böhm 115, 273 – Hanns Schüler 107 – Hans-Joachim Stuck 122 – Hartmut Warkuß 281 – Heinrich Stoll 47 – Herbert Demel 201 – Johann B. Winklhofer 45, 107 – Jörgen Skafte Rasmussen 45, 187, 296 – Ludwig Kraus 253, 295 f. – Martin Winterkorn 48, 281, 285 – Peter Schreyer 281 – Richard A. Jaenicke 45 – Richard Bruhn 107, 196 – Rupert Stadler 48 – Ulrich Hackenberg 285 – Walter de Silva 293 – Walter Röhrl 109, 224

379

– Wolfgang Habbel 114, 190, 194, 199 Historicity 17, 86, 217, 270 Historiography 2, 28, 33 f., 75, 81, 83, 88, 100, 189, 198, 218 History 80, 120 – as a diagnostic tool 24 – as a discourse 33 – books 28, 30, 84, 100, 112, 131, 167, 189, 198, 206, 218, 242, 253 – construction of 33, 100, 229 – consultancy 104 – corporate 33, 43, 117, 189, 218 – departments 2, 32, 43, 69, 86, 169, 203 f., 305 f., 327 – lectures 103, 145, 236 f. – management 3, 5, 48, 305, 322 – merchandise 30, 71, 75 f., 96, 130, 201, 239 – objectivity 34, 100, 324 – research 75, 97, 198, 326 – shared 4, 21 – subjectivity 34, 100 Hobsbawm, E. 17, 119, 221, 290, 316 Hockert, F. 101, 165 Hoffman, R. R. 23 Holan, P. de 36, 183, 312, 332 Honda 120 Honoring the workforce 107, 112 f., 116, 148 Hopmann, B. 165, 176 Horch, See Tradition brands 44 Horch Club e.V. 163 Hoskins, A. 332 Huber, G. P. 23 Huberman, A. M. 50, 66 f. Hugo Boss AG 2 Humphrey, R. H. 135 Humphreys, M. 320 Hwang, W. 24 IBM 2 Iconization 109, 321 Identification 12, 18, 135, 211, 269, 279, 286, 298, 300, 320 Identity 18, 269 – brand, See Brand identity 37 – building blocks of 22, 30, 230

380

Subject index

– claims 2, 5, 17, 20, 37, 106, 109, 288, 290, 293, 295, 301, 320 – collective 19, 21, 33, 316 – concerns 4, 35 – concreteness 288, 320 – corporate 2, 20, 104, 106, 109, 113, 143, 203, 288, 290, 295, 301, 306, 320 – dynamics 19, 28, 35 – initiatives 20, 143, 203, 255, 287, 290, 293 f., 320 – needs 35, 318 – stability 2, 28, 33, 35, 291, 294, 320, 322 – uniqueness of 2, 19, 21, 230, 261 Ideology 16, 32, 285 IFA Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau 46 IG Farben 165 Images of the corporate past 144, 264, 314 Imagined communities 18 Impact of history management on business 71, 86, 129, 323 Improvisation and tinkering 252, 254, 316 Inclusion 11, 88, 91 – partial 11 f., 18, 35 Indirect sector 40, 237, 317 Infiniti, See Nissan 120 Informal 11 – behavior 13, 20 – practices 14, 78, 193 – social structures 13 Infrastructure 28, 212, 305 Infringement 95, 104 Ingolstadt factor 201 Institutional memory, See Organizational memory 22 Institutionalization 31, 79, 203, 211, 255, 306, 313 Interdisciplinarity 5, 332 Interessengemeinschaft Audi Sport 153, 173 Intergenerational tradition 238, 240, 264, 282, 317 International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture 63 Intranet 144, 148, 243 Invented traditions 119, 221, 290, 312, 316, 331 Islam, G. 31 Issue management 99, 147, 251, 326

Jaguar Land Rover Ltd 124 Jargon 16 Jelin, E. 309 Journalists, See Stakeholders

102

Karsten, H. 24, 36 Kaschuba, W. 34 Kelle, U. 9, 51, 54, 61, 65, 327 Kelly, J. W. 31 Kennedy, A. A. 14, 21 Kennedy, J. L. 232 Keulen, S. 307 Keupp, H. 19 Kieser, A. 44, 329 Kirchberg, P. 101, 123, 165 Kluge, S. 9, 51, 54, 61, 65, 327 Knowledge – management 23 f., 97, 147, 307, 322 – retention 23 – storage systems 4, 23 f., 90 Kohl, K.-H. 66 Kohl, P. 176 Kolb, A. 165 Körber, A. 231 Kransdorff, A. 1, 186 Kreiner, G. E. 319 Kreiner, K. 30 Krisenerfahrenheit 249, 272, 316 Kukowski, M. 84, 101, 165 f., 174, 176, 198 Lamborghini S.p.A 48 Laudel, G. 59 Legal affairs 70, 83, 89, 94, 99, 104, 145, 163, 188, 194, 222 Legal protection, See Purposes of organizational remembrance 94 Legewie, H. 66 Legitimization 2, 34, 80, 98, 125, 187, 197, 254, 295, 317, 320, 323 Lego Group 307, 318 Level of position 235 Levy, D. 5, 28 Lewandowski, J. 162, 164 Lewis, W. D. 30, 34 Lexus, See Toyota Motor Corporation 120 Liability, See Legal affairs 90 Lieux de mémoire 31

Subject index

Linde, C. 3 f., 12, 22 f., 26, 28, 32, 36, 69, 305 f., 315, 327 f. Lloyds TSB 2 Lobbying for the tradition cause 77, 196, 213, 313, 324 Loewen, J. W. 231 Loewy, D. 232 Luhmann, N. 10 – 13, 17 Luthar, S. S. 287 Luxury, working the past as a 71, 209, 212, 305, 313 Lynch, J. 117 Mackey, A. 288, 295 Malinowski, B. 51, 66 Manier, D. 313, 315 Mannheim, K. 233 Manning, P. 37, 126 Marcus, G. E. 52 Marketing 30, 37, 47, 72, 100, 117, 126, 141, 178, 200, 203, 222 Martin, J. 11, 14 – 16, 19, 21, 31 f., 38, 230 Material dimension 17, 29 f., 84 Mazda Motor Corporation 105 McCalman, J. 62, 66 f. McDonald, T. 197, 210 McWhinney, W. 32 Mechanische Werkstätte zur Herstellung von Strickmaschinen Christian Schmidt 47 Media, See Mnemonic media 22 Media consumption 240, 315 Megill, K. A. 22, 24 Membership role, See organizational membership 12 Memoirs 151 Memorials and statues 31, 121, 273 Mental dimension 17, 29, 32 Mercedes-Benz, See Daimler AG 2 Merchandise, See History merchandise 76 Merck & Co 2 Mergers and acquisitions 43, 47, 188, 222, 227, 311, 314, 328 Methods and methodology 50 – abduction 9, 50 – access to the field 62 f. – anonymization of personal data 56 f., 63, 65

381

– case study 52, 55 – coding data 61 – computer-assisted data analysis 60 – corporate demands for reciprocity 68 – document and media analysis 59 – ethnography as a style of research 51 – exiting the field 67 – expert interviews 59 – feedback 67 – field notes 55, 64 – going native 66 – guiding questions 52, 338 – informal conversations with a purpose 54 – interview guide 56, 340 – key informants 65 f. – nosing around 54, 65 – organization fever 66 – participant observation 52 – photography 55 – reflexive approach 51 – research diary 55, 66 – roles of the ethnographer 53, 64 – sampling of respondents 57, 336 – selection criteria for company 62 – selection of research opportunities 54, 65, 334 – semi-structured interviews 56 – shadowing 54 – social process of fieldwork 62 – transcription 59 – triangulation 60 f. Méthot, M. 197, 210 Miles, M. B. 50, 66 f. Milestones of corporate history 92, 108, 156, 208, 223, 225, 255, 266, 280 f., 300, 314, 321 Mille Miglia 123, 171, 199 Minute of silence 115 Mnemonic – communities 29 f., 34 f., 152, 180, 309 f., 330 – media 30, 59, 100, 108, 154, 243, 325 – practices 27, 30, 115, 153 f., 180, 309 – recessions 209 – triggers 133, 144, 150, 154, 159, 259 Model cars 76, 131 Molnár, V. 22, 319

382

Subject index

Mommsen, H. 102, 165, 176 Moral obligation 197 Morgan, G. 10 Morhart, F. M. 294 Motorsports 92, 108, 110, 131, 153, 280, 286, 292 Müller-Jentsch, W. 1, 10 f. Multi-vocality 14, 35, 307, 311 Mumby, D. K. 14, 33 Museum mobile, See Museums 43 Museums – Audi museum mobile 75, 126, 205 – August Horch Museum 126, 128, 228 – corporate 2, 25, 28, 30, 32, 75, 90, 108, 126, 155, 205, 228, 241, 282 – curation of exhibitions 71, 75, 126 – debate about erection 113, 190, 195, 199, 201, 203, 205 – Deutsches Museum 88, 91, 190 f. – guided tours 127, 200, 236 f., 242 – private 131, 155 – Zeithaus 155 Myth motoricity 255, 316 Myths 16, 32, 187, 228, 255, 260 Narratives 21, 26, 28, 30 f., 33, 43, 84, 100 f., 114, 142, 149, 158, 187 f., 216, 279, 285, 294, 314, 322 – bridging 129, 227 Naumann, F. 151 Nazis, See Third Reich 46 Network of remembrance 138, 167 f., 213, 310 Niebuhr Eulenberg, J. 2, 31 Niemann, H. 327 Nissan 120, 290 Nissley, N. 4, 22, 25, 30, 307, 311 Nora, P. 31, 115 Nostalgia 264, 318 NSU AG 47 NSU GmbH, See Tradition companies 70 NSU Motorenwerke AG 47 NSU-Wankel Spider Club Deutschland e.V. 163 Nünning, A. 4, 21, 28, 33, 288

Obituaries 107, 187 Occasions for initiating remembrance 210, 313 O’Donnell-Trujillo, N. 14 Okely, J. 66 Olick, J. 4, 28 Olivera, F. 3 f., 22, 36, 332 Olson, T. 22, 27, 320 f. Oral history 98, 140, 195, 217 O’Reilly, C. 55 O’Reilly, K. 64, 66 Organization 9 Organizational – boundaries 12, 21, 32, 168, 309 – change management 255, 293, 301, 312, 321 – culture 14 f. – cultures of remembrance 5, 29, 138, 180, 304 – entry 232, 238, 240 – ethnography, See Methods and methodology 36 – forgetting 25, 183, 186, 193, 195, 199, 210, 213, 228, 233, 311, 313, 322, 332 – life 6, 14 f., 39, 262, 317 – memory 3, 22, 307 – reality 14, 16, 25, 218, 248, 316 – self 6, 14, 274, 318 f. Organizational identity 19, 27, 269, 274, 283 – change 283, 298, 318 f. – construction 229 f., 314, 318 f., 328 – department-specific 71, 286 – essentialization 117, 272 f., 279, 292, 294, 320 – historical images of former 297, 301, 321 – pillars 288 f., 291 f., 299, 320 – threats 19, 185, 188, 296, 320 Organizational image 19, 27 – change 277 – damage 114, 147, 197, 250 Organizational membership 11, 35, 64, 148, 287 – formal role 13, 76, 169, 212, 235, 264 – informal role 13, 78, 197, 212, 239, 305 Organizational remembrance 21, 23, 180 – as a practice 4, 26 f., 166

Subject index

– formal/official level 35, 69, 79, 305 – informal/inofficial level 35 – sporadic acts of 186 Organizational structures 10, 31 f., 203 – formal 13, 40, 69, 74, 79, 211 – informal 13, 78 Origins 118, 188, 219, 227, 257, 287, 289, 314 Other, the 19, 120, 278, 329 Overell, R. 150 Pacanowsky, M. E. 14 Parallels between the past and the present 254, 286, 289, 295, 319 Parker, M. 14 – 16, 19, 31, 38, 289, 309 Past 1, 21, 80 – different concepts of 22 – distant 87, 93, 110, 120, 124, 127, 132, 148, 190, 200, 220 f., 224, 290, 293, 295, 316, 324, 328 – near 220, 316 – neglect 1, 82, 113, 184, 188, 191, 196, 203, 311 – objectivity 25 – representation of 2, 4, 25, 30, 34, 69, 77, 87, 229, 279, 305 – shared 25 – 27, 29 f., 34, 174, 315, 328 Peek&Cloppenburg KG 2 Personal – dedication and individual activism 192 f., 208, 212, 241, 305, 313 – interest in history 155, 221, 245, 287, 315 Peters, T. 18, 231, 287 Phillips, N. 36, 183, 312, 332 Phillips Newton, W. 30, 34 Pine, B. J. 133 Planted articles 106, 110, 139, 162 Plausibility 228, 259, 296, 314, 324 Poland, B. D. 59 Politics 15, 25, 34, 188 f., 260, 309 f., 317 Pönisch, J. 101, 165 Porsche, Dr. Ing. H.c. F. Porsche AG 107, 117 f., 196, 327 Posner, R. 17 Power 14, 35, 79, 137, 163, 168, 211, 256, 258, 309, 311, 324

383

Practices 16, 27, 31 – mnemonic, See Mnemonic practices 27 Prasad, P. 32 Prensky, M. 243 Present 1, 26, 71, 179, 189, 306 Press releases 100, 106, 139, 144 Pride 203, 224, 229 f., 242, 256, 271, 279, 283, 286 f., 314, 319 Procter, S. 175 Products 10, 30, 40, 90, 96, 159, 327 Professionalization 27, 32, 62, 69, 74, 188, 196, 203, 206, 211, 305, 312, 323 f., 331 Progress 82, 115, 144 f., 266, 276, 283, 291 Proshansky, H. M. 31 Protection of legal interests, See Legal affairs 90 Public relations 20, 30, 32, 70, 76, 104, 139, 186, 191, 199 Purge of the archives 184, 197 Purposes of organizational remembrance 5, 84, 86, 211, 306, 311 f. – direct economic utilization 129, 306 – historical accountability 97, 198, 306 – legal protection 94, 194, 306 – marketing 116, 200, 203, 306 – public relations 104, 187, 199, 306 – retaining physical proof 86, 192, 195, 306 – satisfaction of entertainment demands 133, 306 Rallies, classic motor vehicles 123, 171, 192, 199, 201, 206, 236 Rampl, L. V. 287 Rasmussen & Ernst 45 Ravasi, D. 19, 21, 296, 298, 301, 321 Re-enactment 127 Reckwitz, A. 27 Reducing the fear of an unknown future 273 Regulars’ tables 152 Reichertz, J. 50 Rental service for classic motor vehicles 76, 130 Replicas 91, 93, 96, 121, 173 Resources 77, 79, 137, 168, 170, 189, 194, 196, 203, 205 – 207, 209 f., 212, 305, 311, 313, 323 f. Restoration 92, 191, 195

384

Subject index

Retrospection 3, 27, 69, 71, 307, 318 Reunions 151, 153, 173 Reuß, E. 225 Reviving the past 301, 316, 321 Ricoeur, P. 21, 33, 97 Rites and rituals 16, 31 Robert Bosch GmbH 2 Rock, P. 63, 65 Röhrig, S. 3 Roots 119, 206, 220, 252, 290, 316 Rosa, H. 1, 18 Rosenstiehl, L. von 65 Rowlinson, M. 3 f., 22, 25, 27, 30, 36, 59, 175, 183, 305, 312, 322 Ruptures in the corporate past 142, 226 f., 230, 273, 295, 314 Rüsen, J. 216, 231 Ryant, C. 313 Sandoe, K. 24, 332 Scania 22, 306 Schatzki, T. R. 26 Schein, E. 4, 14 f., 18, 21, 330 Schierenbeck, H. 10, 269 Schmidt, S. J. 15, 21, 33, 318 Schröter, H. G. 102, 175, 312 Schug, A. 3, 30, 327 Schultz, M. 3, 15, 19 f., 22, 296, 298, 301, 307, 311, 318 f., 321 Schulze, G. 133 Schwartzman, H. B. 36, 64 Selection criteria for retention 72, 88, 90, 195 Selectiveness of corporate history 75, 84, 88, 90, 117, 122, 126, 141, 186, 228, 306 Semiotic systems 29 Sensemaking 12, 33, 81, 223, 227, 235, 242, 248, 283, 291, 314, 321 Setright, L. J. K. 164 Shadow of the past 292, 321 Shared meanings 14, 16, 18 f. Shaw, L. L. 41, 52, 61 Sievers, B. 1, 3, 224, 309 Silverman, D. 50, 52 Sites of remembrance 30 f., 114, 127, 201, 203 Sköldberg, K. 9, 51

Slywotzky, A. J. 117, 287 Smircich, L. 14 – 16, 31 Smith, G. D. 24, 264 Social dimension 17, 29, 31 Socialization – formal 236, 315 – informal 150, 238, 315 – organizational 12 – pre-entry 238, 315 – primary 12 – secondary 12, 231 Sommer, R. 19 Source materials, availability of 102, 183, 189, 193, 198 Spare parts 76, 95 Spatial structures 73, 77 Spinning history 102, 141, 177 f., 229, 314, 324 Spoerer, M. 165, 174 Sport quattro Club 163 Spülbeck, S. 36 Stakeholders 11, 31, 77, 97, 137 – academia 103, 165, 183, 198 – aficionados 76, 78, 96, 111, 123, 131, 163, 173, 191, 212, 324 – agencies 157 – clubs 32, 76, 78, 111, 124, 155, 163, 169, 191 – collaborations between 76, 103 – 105, 110, 126, 138, 162, 170, 206 f., 213 – communications unit 69, 139, 201 – conflicts between 174 – customers 11, 81, 118, 132, 158, 201, 277 – dealers 154 – external 20, 83, 99, 157, 309 – hobby historians 102, 164 – human resources unit 147 – internal 83, 138, 307, 309 – journalists 11, 102 f., 105, 109 f., 125, 140, 159, 171, 205, 257, 278, 282, 299 – legal services 145 – marketing and sales unit 141, 200, 228, 260 – negotiations between 150, 207 – of the corporate past 137 – organized retired colleagues 152, 173 – production unit 143

Subject index

– public 11, 113 – retired members 151 – semi-internal 151, 309 – semi-permeable boundaries 169, 310 – workforce 144, 149 Status quo 34, 285, 312, 317, 320 Statutory regulations 89 Steadman, L. E. 24, 264 Stehr, N. 99 Stories and storytelling 16, 20, 26, 31, 143, 149, 218, 316 Strategies 38, 69, 71, 185, 196, 203, 206, 214, 234, 238, 253, 281, 285, 305, 313, 324, 326 Strati, A. 10, 12, 14, 31, 38, 79, 329 Straub, J. 216, 225 Strauss, A. L. 50 Success through resilience 272 Suppressing the unwanted past 113, 122, 142, 144, 176, 186, 191, 225 Systems of meaning 14, 16, 138, 315 Tauch, P. 3, 328 Taylor, B. C. 30, 310 Techno Classica, See Trade fairs 156 Temporary workers 11 Tenure, length of 148, 232, 315 Tesla Motors Inc. 331 Thematic lenses 80, 306, 309 – brands 81 – human resources 147 – legal affairs 145 – organization 83 – production 143 – products and technology 82 – public relations 139 – stakeholder-specific 137, 309 Third Reich 30, 46 f., 89, 101 f., 122, 141 f., 146, 150, 163, 165 f., 174, 176, 223 – 226, 312 Tiedtke, P. 101, 165, 174 Time 1, 17, 80 Time frames 219, 233, 235, 244, 328 Timelines 144 Top management, role of 185, 190, 194, 199, 202, 206, 211, 285, 313 Tourism 134, 190

385

Toyota Motor Corporation 120, 250, 290 Trade fairs 130, 132, 142, 156 Trademark rights 94 f., 104, 130, 145, 193 f., 196, 210, 306, 312 Tradition 31, 316 – companies 69 f., 73, 79, 94, 193, 204 – corporate understanding of 80 – oral 28, 31 – scholarly understanding 17 – work 69, 74, 196, 282, 305 Tradition brands 70, 73, 81, 94 f., 101, 111 f., 118, 124, 128, 227 – Audi, pre-war 44 – Auto Union 45 – DKW 46 – Horch 44 – NSU 47 – Wanderer 45 Transfiguration of the past, See Spinning history 229 Trauma 250 Trice, H. M. 17 Triggers, See Mnemonic triggers 133 Truth, See Historical truth claims 79 Tuomi, I. 24 Turner, H. A. 175 U.S. market 224, 235, 250, 316 Ungson, G. R. 3, 22, 24, 235, 309, 332 Unintended acceleration incident 146, 224, 235, 250, 316 Unthinkable known 224 Usurping the past 104, 119, 156, 259, 317 Utilization of tradition offers 240 V.A.G. 47 f., 94, 258, 260, 317 Values 16, 32 Van Maanen, J. 232 Veruki, P. 232 Victimization 165, 175, 224 f., 250 Vintage motor vehicles, See Classic motor vehicles 2 Visitor paths 144 Vitra Design Stiftung gGmbH 2

386

Subject index

Volkswagen AG 29, 38, 46 – 48, 115, 155, 165, 175 f., 184, 188, 190, 196, 200, 226, 253, 256, 285, 312, 317, 327 Vorsprung durch Technik 48, 83, 109, 117, 119, 203, 208, 280 f., 283, 291, 296, 299, 321 Wachs, O. F. 328 Waddington, D. 36, 53, 55, 63 – 66 Walsh, J. P. 3, 22, 24, 235, 309, 332 Walton, J. 164 Waterman, R. H. Jr. 18, 231, 287 Waters, T. 231 Weaver, B. N. 4, 22 f. Weber, M. 10, 44 Websites 142, 154, 243 Webster, F. E. 331 Weick, K. E. 10, 12, 14, 23, 259, 314 Weinrich, H. 1 Wells Fargo 2, 306 Welzer, H. 21, 33 Werner, C. 165, 176 Westermann, G. G. 101

Wexler, M. N. 23 Whetten, D. A. 19, 288, 295 White, H. 4, 33, 97 Whitewashing 177 Whyte, W. H. 240 Wikipedia 157, 243, 325 Wilson, A. 20 Wineburg, S. S. 216, 231 Wolff, S. 59, 63 Working the past 3, 5, 26, 32, 69, 167, 187, 305 World War II 46 f., 104, 107, 114, 124 f., 129, 134, 165, 174, 176 f., 183, 187, 221, 225, 227, 249, 253, 267, 316, 328 Zeithaus, See Museums 155 Zeplin, S. 294 Zeppelin GmbH 2 ZF Friedrichshafen AG 2 Zierold, M. 29 Zschopauer Motorenwerke J.S. Rasmussen AG 45