Competition as a vocation. The social and cultural history of West German managers after the postwar boom

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ralph Jessen
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2016 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 321103162

This research project deals with competition and competitiveness as essential elements of the sociocultural habit of managers in the middle and upper strata of West German companies from the 1960s to the 1980s. Combining methods of social, cultural, and business history this study investigates the changing job culture of managers in an age of rapid transformation: When the European post-war boom came to an end in the late 1960s, early 1970s, the German model of a coordinated market economy with its strong tradition of corporatism, hierarchy, and lifelong identification with the company came under pressure. The cultural upheaval of '1968' as well as the basic trend towards 'postmodernist' pluralization, individualization, globalization, and increasing insecurity presumably also affected the career patterns, values, and everyday practices of German managers. The study sets out to examine the hypothesis that German companies and their executives during this period of change underwent a process of increasing 'competitivization' with respect to recruitment policy, internal organization, career advancement, salary schemes, and working habits. On the one hand we will analyze the semantics of competition in career guides, management literature, and autobiographical texts written by managers, and on the other hand we will use case studies from two companies (Bayer AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke) to investigate, how and to what degree the organizational infrastructure and everyday practices of competition within the companies did change.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants