Can families resist managerial and financial revolutions? Swiss family firms in the twentieth century

Ginalski, Stéphanie

doi:10.1080/00076791.2012.744587

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Founding families detained large shares of firms with inheritors running them. Family ties were frequent among the elites (Ginalski 2013). Board directors developed strong organisational ties with other elite members (elected politicians, senior servants, renowned professors).…”

Section: Transformations and Reproduction Of Swiss Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Integrated to Fragmented Elites. The Core of Swiss Elite Networks 1910-2015

Rossier¹,

Ellersgaard²,

Larsen³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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This article focuses on historical elite dynamics and investigates elites’ integration over time. We describe the changing relations and composition of the central circles in Swiss elite networks at seven benchmark years between 1910 and 2015 by relying on 22,262 elite individuals tied to 2587 organisations among eight key sectors, and identify for each year the most connected core of individuals. We explore network cohesion and sectoral bridging of the elite core and find that it moved from being a unitary corporate elite following family-based elite reproduction, before 1945, to an integrated corporatist elite involved in educational and professional-based reproduction, between the 1950s and 1980s, before fragmenting into a loose group in the 1990s onwards. The core was always dominated by business and their forms of legitimacy but, at times of crisis to the hegemony of corporate elites, elite circles expanded and included individuals with delegated forms of power, such as politicians and unionists, detaining more university credentials, and less transnational connections and elite family ties.

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Section: Transformations and Reproduction Of Swiss Elitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Integrated to Fragmented Elites. The Core of Swiss Elite Networks 1910-2015

Rossier¹,

Ellersgaard²,

Larsen³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The existence of this vanguard of coordination can partly be explained by the existence of important family connections between the people who led MEM firms. Indeed, at that time, family capitalism was the dominant form of corporate governance in the sector (on this issue, see Ginalski, 2013). As a case in point among many other similar examples, in 1910, Gustave Naville-Neher (1848-1929, a former manager of Escher Wyss, chaired the board of AIAG and belonged to both the ASM and VSM executive committees, along with his wife 's cousin, Robert Neher (1838-1925, who was the general manager of SIG and a member of the board of Georg Fischer.…”

Section: The Construction Of the Swiss Mem Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’—the construction of business cooperation in the Swiss machinery industry

Eichenberger

Ginalski

2016

Socio-Economic Review

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This article addresses the historical emergence of business cooperation. We resort to Ho ¨pner's (2007) concepts of organization and coordination in order to analyze how firms progressively engaged in Business Interest Associations (BIAs) and interlocking directorates during the first part of the 20th century. Our inquiry is based on a network analysis on large firms of the Swiss machine, electrotechnical and metallurgy (MEM) sector. Our results show that before the First World War, only major firms were promoting coordination and organization through, respectively, interlocking directorates and BIAs. Although many firms were reluctant to cooperate in the first place, interests beyond the firm level (organization) and the economic needs of firms (coordination) had cumulative effects, and most firms progressively engaged in both mechanisms of cooperation from the interwar period. We argue that differentiating between organization and coordination contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the emergence of non-liberal capitalism.

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“…In family business organizations, careers are constructed in an environment of longevity, family control, and succession. The organizational environment favors longevity because it is risk averse and continuity oriented 34 as a result of the control exhibited by family fi rms, which is based on management and ownership by a single family. 35 Consequently, the family governance infl uencing career development in family fi rms produces a situation in which the next generation of the family succeeds the earlier generation.…”

Section: Career Paths Of Members Of the Institutional Business Elite mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…59. Maclean,et al,"Sensemaking,Storytelling,[33][34] and entrepreneurs, who focused on company loyalty. The increasing professionalization of Finnish executives and increases in fi rm size produced career paths that were based primarily on professional and formal networks.…”

Section: Career Paths Of Members Of the Institutional Business Elite mentioning

confidence: 99%

Career Paths in Institutional Business Elites: Finnish Family Firms from 1762–2010

Kansikas¹

2015

Enterp. Soc.

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This article analyzes the career paths of family business executives in institutional business elites in Finland using an empirical database based on a Bourdieusian prosopographical approach. The results indicate that career paths became more complex but shortened in length toward the beginning of the twenty-first century. The early career paths of family executives changed from positions as assistants and salesmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to governance, chief executive officer (CEO), and management positions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Compared with the founder generation, next-generation family members benefited from more rapid institutional business elite career paths. The complexity of the career paths in the institutional business elite increased in subsequent generations. However, although there were few family executives with a third- or fourth-generation background in family businesses, founder-generation family executives existed in each cohort, apart from the pioneering generation.

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Can families resist managerial and financial revolutions? Swiss family firms in the twentieth century

Cited by 6 publications

References 17 publications

From Integrated to Fragmented Elites. The Core of Swiss Elite Networks 1910-2015

From Integrated to Fragmented Elites. The Core of Swiss Elite Networks 1910-2015

‘Si vis pacem, para bellum’—the construction of business cooperation in the Swiss machinery industry

Career Paths in Institutional Business Elites: Finnish Family Firms from 1762–2010

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