Susanne Hilger. ”Amerikanisierung” deutscher Unternehmen: Wettbewerbsstrategien und Unternehmenspolitik bei Henkel, Siemens und Daimler-Benz (1945/49-1975). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 2004. 314 S. EUR 60.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-515-08283-9.
Reviewed by Alfred C. Mierzejewski (University of North Texas)
Published on H-German (November, 2005)
Americanization of Consumerism
In her interesting new book, Susanne Hilger addresses the problematic concept of the Americanization
of German industry since World War II. This issue is
part of a larger debate on the Americanization of German society as a whole. The discussion on this matter
was spurred by Volker Berghahn with his The Americanization of West German Industry, 1945-1973 published in
1986.[1] Despite the fact that Berghahn’s book was built
on a thin research foundation and contains many questionable assertions, it has set the terms of the subsequent
debate. Hilger seeks to place this discussion on a firm
empirical foundation by examining the behavior of three
prominent firms in different industries in order to determine what actually happened. Her objective is to explain
how the adoption or adaptation of U.S. business practices
influenced business behavior in West Germany.
On this foundation, Hilger structured her work
around five cultural transmission belts that she identified
in this context. They include personal contacts between
West German and American business people, visits by
West German managers to the United States, agreements
by West German firms to license U.S. technology, cooperative arrangements between firms based in the two countries and the establishment by American companies of
branches in West Germany.
Of the three firms discussed by Hilger, Henkel went
the furthest in adopting U.S. business practices. Henkel
worked closely and consistently with American consultants McCann-Erickson and especially Stanford Research
Institute. This was made possible by a generational
change in the leadership of this closely held family firm
in 1961. Under intense competitive pressure from ProcHilger selected Daimler-Benz, the manufacturer of tor & Gamble, Henkel gradually and hesitantly adopted
automobiles and trucks, Henkel, producer of branded, U.S. marketing techniques. The company resisted mountpackaged consumer chemicals such as the famous Per- ing splashy advertising campaigns and was reluctant to
sil laundry detergent, and Siemens, manufacturer of a full produce a single, all purpose laundry powder. However,
range of electrical goods as her illustrative examples. She P&G’s success on Henkel’s home turf forced managemade extensive use of the records of all three companies ment to change its policies on these matters. To facilitate
as kept at their archives as well the relevant secondary this new competitive stance, Henkel examined the mulliterature. The boundaries of her topic were set by the tidivisional structure that had been pioneered by DuPont
caesura of the German defeat at the hands of the Allies in and General Motors and become standard in the United
1945 and the thirty-year rule that limits access to archival States. Henkel adopted a form of the “M-Structure,”
materials. She employs concepts from the New Cultural though with modifications that made it less than orHistory to illuminate the development of modern society derly.[2] It also implemented the American internal acby looking at cultural, or “soft” factors that are usually counting practice of designating segments of the comignored by social scientists.
pany as profit centers. At about the same time, it also be1
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gan strategic planning similar to U.S. firms. The company
altered its personnel management methods, prompted by
changes in West German labor law and the democratization of the West German political system and society. It adopted U.S. human relations practices with suitable adjustments to the West German environment. In
particular, it implemented the management by objective
and management by delegation approaches. Hilger attributes the development of these concepts to the “American” business analyst Peter Drucker. In fact, Drucker was
an Austrian corporatist who had emigrated to the U.S.
in 1939.[3] It would be interesting to determine whether
his background rendered his ideas more acceptable to the
West Germans. Finally, Henkel began using many American public relations techniques in its internal corporate
communications and to improve its external corporate
image.
available in the U.S., were influenced by American developments hardly at all. Siemens did adopt the multidivisional structure due to increased competition and a
change in West German corporate law. Similarly, it also
reorganized its operations to create profit centers. Its
public relations work was expanded and changed in light
of lessons learned from the Americans, but, like DaimlerBenz, it adhered to the traditional message.
After surveying these developments, Hilger concludes quite reasonably that West German firms observed developments in the United States, but did not
adopt American methods wholesale: “von einer grundsätzlichen Amerikanisierung der Unternehmensführung
nicht gesprochen werden kann” (p. 279. See also pages
168 and 282). She notes, correctly, that most West German managers did not see the emergence of a consumer society in their country as a form of AmericanDaimler-Benz, despite its heavy involvement in the ization. Most interestingly, Hilger attributes the move
U.S. market, made fewer adjustments than Henkel. to change West German business methods as motivated
DBAG did not use consultants. It did alter the equip- primarily by market competition. As she puts it, “Damit
ment of its passenger car models and trucks in light of bildete der ökonomische Wettbewerb einen wesentlichen
demand in the American market. In particular, it added Antrieb für die interkulturellen Transferprozesse nach
safety devices and environmental protection equipment dem Zweiten Weltkrieg und für die Adaption (sic) von
to conform to American regulations that were more strin- U.S.-amerikanischen Know-how” (p. 284). However, she
gent than those then in effect in West Germany. It also asserts, Europeans and West Germans in particular readded convenience features to its passenger cars such fused to follow this process to its logical conclusion. Geras air conditioning, power windows and power steering man firms reacted to the competitive challenge posed by
to satisfy calls for them from American buyers. In ad- U.S. firms in the traditional manner. They tried to ordition, it selectively adopted U.S. marketing techniques, der markets. They sought to moderate competition to
particularly as they related to media advertising. How- ensure that all of the players would survive. Although
ever, it refused to conform to the American practice of Hilger doesn’t mention it, this was an outgrowth of the
the annual model change and, most importantly, adhered German view of the firm as an Existenz intended primarto the German tradition of avoiding price competition. ily to ensure the livelihood of its owners and employDaimler-Benz resolutely refused to adopt the American ees, rather than as a profit-making mechanism and the
multidivisional structure and rejected the use of profit view that competition wastes national resources. Hilger
centers. It did take up some factory floor practices from summarizes her findings by stating that West German
Detroit. Its public relations efforts were modified in light companies selectively adapted American procedures to
of American developments, but they transmitted a tradi- their purposes in their social setting. This helped them
tional message of German quality and solidity.
limit and control U.S. influence, enabling them to concentrate on traditional German entrepreneurial goals and
Siemens made very little use of consultants. It relied strengths such as the preservation of the firm and the inheavily on cooperative arrangements with U.S. firms to cremental improvement of a given technology (p. 287).
gain access to their technology and management methHilger’s general conclusion that no thoroughgoing
ods. It worked with Westinghouse and Allis-Chalmers in
the fields of electrical engineering and nuclear technol- Americanization of West German industry took place is
ogy. When it became clear that it had picked losers with surely correct. In this regard, she performs the useful
both, it switched to working with one of its main com- service of further undermining the Berghahn thesis. She
petitors, General Electric. It cooperated with Westing- makes clear that such change as did take place was the
house in semiconductors and RCA on computers, again result of competition. In passing, she also highlights the
choosing its partners badly. Siemens household appli- persistent desire of German firms to evade competition
ances, sold primarily in West Germany and largely un- by engaging in collusive activity. Indeed, she makes clear
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that Daimler-Benz and Siemens continued the practice in
the period that she examined (p. 195). Only Henkel, and
then reluctantly and belatedly, condescended to compete
on price. She also points out that Siemens and Philips
ran a cartel to control the market for medical devices in
Europe during the 1960s. Just as importantly, she also
highlights Siemens’s and Daimler-Benz’s continued embrace of the traditional German high price policy. This
was intended to give their products an aura of exclusivity and fit the high wage policy that was forming in the
Federal Republic in the late 1950s and 1960s.
North. The result was that German firms sought to divide
markets, moderate competition and concentrated on perfecting existing technologies in order to avoid risk, thus
preserving livelihoods.
Overall, Susanne Hilger’s useful book should help
bury the bogey of Americanization. It is an ill-defined
concept with little empirical evidence to support it. Her
book also raises questions about the viability of the New
Cultural History as a method of understanding the behavior of German firms and the performance of the German economy as a whole. As she rightly hints, what we
are dealing with here is the spread of consumer culture
in a competitive environment, something that is not an
exclusively American phenomenon.
Hilger’s work raises questions about the viability of
the New Cultural History as an approach to understanding the evolution of West German business. From an economic perspective, her findings would have been easy
to predict. Individuals and firms respond to incentives.
Consequently, when faced with competition, West German companies adjusted their strategies. Yet they also
resisted change, clinging to traditional values. Understanding this resistance can be facilitated by employing
ideas from the New Institutional Economics, most notably the concepts developed by Douglass North, Nobel
Prize winner in economics in 1993.[4] North contends
that social and cultural institutions (not organizations)
evolve very slowly. Consequently, the social institutions
and values with which the actors on the West German
economic scene were equipped in the three decades after
World War II were actually more suitable to an earlier
age. This state of affairs led them to resist or reject new
developments. Hilger’s discussion provides evidence of
this tendency. For example, she mentions that codetermination prevented West German firms from adopting
many American human relations concepts. Codetermination as well as works councils and national labor contracts are forms of collective action. They stem from the
traditional desire for group solidarity and the concomitant aversion to market competition, as pointed out by
Notes
[1]. Volker Berghahn, The Americanization of West
German Industry, 1945-1973 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
[2]. On the M-structure see Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.,
Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the
American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1962), especially chapters 2 and 3.
[3]. On Drucker see Eugene McCarraher, “ ‘An Industrial Marcus Aurelius’: Corporate Humanism, Management Theory, and Social Selfhood, 1908-1956,“ Journal of
the Historical Society 5 (Winter, 2005): pp. 104-109.
[4]. Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas,
The Rise of the Western World. A New Economic History
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981); Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Douglass C. North, Understanding the Process of Economic
Change (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
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Citation: Alfred C. Mierzejewski. Review of Hilger, Susanne, ”Amerikanisierung” deutscher Unternehmen: Wettbewerbsstrategien und Unternehmenspolitik bei Henkel, Siemens und Daimler-Benz (1945/49-1975). H-German, H-Net
Reviews. November, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11253
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