Family and Bureaucracy in German Industrial Management, 1850–1914: Siemens in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This study analyzes the changing role of pre-industrial family and bureaucratic traditions in the development of Germany's leading electrical manufacturing firm. The Siemens company developed a decentralized, multi-divisional structure ten to twenty years before duPont and General Motors pioneered a similar organization in the United States. The pre-industrial bureaucratic traditions, considered in a multi-national context, facilitated the development of efficient modern management in Germany and help explain the relative success of German industry in the two decades before World War I.