East German Economic Elites and Their Companies Two Decades After the Transformation ('Wende'): Still Following the Patterns of the 1990s
Journal for East European Management Studies › Band 13 Nr. 4, Oktober 2008
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Zusammenfassung
Surveys among entrepreneurs and managing directors of companies with 50 to 1,000 employees are used to describe features of managerial elites in East Germany. The paper looks at four dimensions: (1) the reproduction of economic elites during the transformation period and its current consequences; (2) the development of "family capitalism " and processes of social closure; (3) qualification patterns of management; and (4) different attitudes of East and West German elites. Managers who were socialised in state socialist combines are still a large proportion of East German economic elites. Owing to their age distribution, changes in top management will be probable, and their effects on enterprises and social relations are discussed in the paper.
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East German Economic Elites and Their Companies Two Decades After the Transformation ('Wende'): Still Following the Patterns of the 1990s
Introduction
The economic transformation in East Germany is only partly understood. As previous studies have revealed, it was not accompanied by a replacement but by a reproduction of economic elites (Gergs et al. 1997; Schreiber et al. 2002). The process did not lead to manager capitalism (Windolf 2001), or to a colonisation of East German management by West Germans, as most of the managers in East German firms were from an autochthonous background (Windolf et al. 1999:65).About a third of companies in the industrial sector are still owned or controlled by West Germans or foreigners. However, even two decades after system transformation, information about them or the remaining two thirds of managing directors and entrepreneurs with an East German social background is limited. This holds true for the degree of continuity or change in regard to the careers of economic elites, and for the development of ownership structures and qualification profiles as important features in describing the peculiarities of management cultures. It is also true of the attitudes of economic elites concerning society, the state, and politics, as important cognitive dimensions of social change. This paper sheds light on these topics by using data on senior management of manufacturing industry firms in Germany. The focus is on East Germany; the West German cases are mainly used for comparative purposes.The study does not refer to top-level management of huge corporations or representatives of economic associations, since East German managers and businessmen are not members of these circles. Nevertheless, our respondents can be labelled elites, according to the following definition: "We conceive of an elite as a social circle of individuals that, in a socially relevant...Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes
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