Organization:
Pierre Eichenberger, The New School for Social Research, eichenbp@newschool.edu
Neil Rollings, University of Glasgow, Neil.Rollings@glasgow.ac.uk
Chair:
Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, University of Lausanne, janickmarina.schaufelbuehl@unil.ch
Papers:
• Pierre Eichenberger, Neil Rollings, Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl, The International Brokers of the Wealthy: an Introduction to the special Issue
• Neil Rollings, Exploring the Motivations for Transnational Business Associations: The Case of Europe from 1945
• Sabine Pitteloud, Let's socialize! The European Business Elite and Their Informal Meetings, 1978-1988
Comments :
Mary O'Sullivan, University of Geneva, Mary.Osullivan@unige.ch
Presentation of the panel:
“People of the same trade seldom meet together,” wrote Adam Smith in 1776, “Even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” The literature on cartels, both at national and international levels, has been prolix in showing that Smith was often right. Conspiracy and cartels are not, however, the only possible motivation for or the only possible result of national or transnational encounters among business leaders. Sectoral collaboration, political lobbying or collective reaction against labor militancy pushed businesspeople to create and maintain long-standing associations, some of them existing for more than a century. These associations represent a central form of collaboration between company managers.
Unlike their national counterparts, international business associations long remained a sort of terra incognita; important associations such as the International Chamber of Commerce and the International Organization of Industrial Employers (both founded in the aftermath of World War I and still active today) have not been studied extensively. New scholarship is now shedding light on these associations as well as on others, such as the Council of European Industrial Federations, the European Roundtable of Industrialists, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee of the OECD or on the way different domestically organized business communities collaborate on an international level.
The panel we propose intends to contribute to this growing field of research. It investigates the forms of collaboration that are nurtured within international business associations and will address such questions as: What were the dynamics of international business associations or more informal kinds of international business collaborations? How did competing interests collaborate in these associations? What was the impact of specific events, such as wars, revolutions, and globalization on these associations? Why and how did firms and managers engage in these associations?
The panel gathers contributiors from a forthcoming special issue in the journal Business History entitled “The Brokers of Globalization. A Business History of Transnational Business Associations”. The panel will consist of three papers and one comment. Pierre Eichenberger, will present the introduction to the Special Issue, written by Neil Rollings, Janick Marina Schaufelbuehl and himselfs. This paper argues that while the literature in business history recognizes the relevance of these associations, they have mainly been investigated by political scientists. Those publications that do exist in the field of business history mainly consist of isolated case studies on specific sectors, firms or associations. As a consequence of this, the available general surveys on transnational business focus on questions of lobbying, often in the context of European integration. There is no overall synopsis available in the field of business history. This paper aims at filling this void by discussing how firms and their representatives, national and sectoral business federations and national peak associations, have cooperated at an international level, thereby striking a balance between collaboration and problems of competition. In a second paper, Neil Rollings questions available explanations of the existence of European business federations. Conventionally, economic historians have emphasised the role of cartels while political scientists have focussed on lobbying of EEC/EU institutions. Both are at best partial explanations and there has been a tendency to underplay the role of information exchange. A third paper, by Sabine Pitteloud, focuses on informal meetings among European business federations in the 1970s. The paper questions how business associations representing different “varieties of capitalism” – institutional regimes of industrial relations, inter-firm relations, corporate governance and government-business relations – do collaborate at international level. It shows that the business federations from Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands gathered in these “Interlaken meetings” shared common conceptions in this respect. The author also highlights the types of interpersonal relations these members of the European business elite developed and nurtured and the range of issues they addressed. Mary O'Sullivan has accepted to act as a discussant.