Harm Schroter – författare

This book originated from the idea that performance is what really matters in business and thus in business history. Yet, surprisingly, the analysis of performances has been neglected by economic and business historians. This book is a first attempt to fill this gap and in doing so provides a totally new approach to European business history.Rather than bringing together national studies, it is based on a single database, measuring performance in eight European countries according to identical criteria. The study spans the entire twentieth century, with particular attention to five benchmark moments: the height of the first globalisation on the eve of the First World War; the late 1920s boom preceding the Great Depression; the European reconstruction of the mid-1950s; the end of ''Golden Age'' in the early 1970s; and the height ofthe second globalisation at the turn of the twenty-first century. The analysis is based on a sample of 1,225 companies, belonging to the three major European economies, Britain, France and Germany; two large south European latecomers, Italy and Spain; two smaller north western countries, Belgium andSweden, and one small Nordic country, Finland. Performance has been measured using two ratios of profitability: return on equity (ROE) and holding return (HR), thus providing a complementary measure of profitability, the former as seen from the firm''s perspective, the latter form the investor''s perspective.The book''s findings, at times surprising, at once confirm and infirm widely held assumptions regarding business performance - regarding strategy and structure, ownership and control, old and new industries, emerging and advanced economies.

This book originated from the idea that performance is what really matters in business and thus in business history. Yet, surprisingly, the analysis of performances has been neglected by economic and business historians. This book is a first attempt to fill this gap and in doing so provides a totally new approach to European business history.Rather than bringing together national studies, it is based on a single database, measuring performance in eight European countries according to identical criteria. The study spans the entire twentieth century, with particular attention to five benchmark moments: the height of the first globalisation on the eve of the First World War; the late 1920s boom preceding the Great Depression; the European reconstruction of the mid-1950s; the end of ''Golden Age'' in the early 1970s; and the height of the second globalisation at the turn of the twenty-first century. The analysis is based on a sample of 1,225 companies, belonging to the three major European economies, Britain, France and Germany; two large south European latecomers, Italy and Spain; two smaller north western countries, Belgium and Sweden, and one small Nordic country, Finland. Performance has been measured using two ratios of profitability: return on equity (ROE) and holding return (HR), thus providing a complementary measure of profitability, the former as seen from the firm''s perspective, the latter form the investor''s perspective. The book''s findings, at times surprising, at once confirm and infirm widely held assumptions regarding business performance - regarding strategy and structure, ownership and control, old and new industries, emerging and advanced economies.

Free-standing companies are a special type of multinational enterprise that proliferated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; some persisted into later years; few remain today. Many were headquartered in the United Kingdom, but important free-standing companies had headquarters in the other capital-rich nations. This book explores the history of the free-standing company, the theoretical implications of the concept, comparisons with the `American model' multinational enterprise, the validity of the concept, and its contribution to the understanding of modern economic history. Leading international scholars - economists and historians - provide evidence on and analysis of the operations of free-standing companies in different parts of the world. This is the first book on the much-discussed topic of free-standing companies. The volume will provide a rich quarry for those interested in world economic history, regional and national economic histories, in the spread of international business, and in the different forms that multinational enterprises take through time.