Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte

«Customers are no inheritance but must be earned»:Commercial travellers in modern practical guide literature,1880 to 1960 In the 19th and 20th centuries, practical guides played a significant role both in providing knowledge and in shaping the...

This paper reviews the available evidence on the history of travelling salesmen in France and offers more general hypotheses about the role of this profession in the «Great Transformation». Based on literary evidence as well as diverse archival...

This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of the root causes for the competitiveness of the Japanese camera industry on the world market before the electronics revolution. It takes the example of the company Canon, one of the main...

During the second half of the 19th century, a German business community of about 100 merchants and commercial clerks developed in Glasgow. Their trade networks extended not only to Germany but also to other countries. The main arguments and findings...

In late December 1880 the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij N.V. (Netherlands Trading Company Ltd. hereafter: NHM) closed its last remaining sales office in Japan. The NHM was probably one of the largest and most successful Dutch trading houses from...

Direct Line Insurance was born out of the diversification strategies of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Within ten years of its foundation it had become the first retail financial institution to establish a clear competitive advantage based on...