Beck Germann - Managerial power in the German model - pre-proof version.pdf (299.37 kB)
Managerial power in the German model: the case of Bertelsmann and the antecedents of neoliberalism
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 13:01 authored by Julian GermannJulian Germann, Mareike BeckOur article extends the research on authoritarian neoliberalism to Germany, through a history of the Bertelsmann media corporation – sponsor and namesake of Germany’s most influential neoliberal think-tank. Our article makes three conceptual moves. Firstly, we argue that conceptualizing German neoliberalism in terms of an ‘ordoliberal paradigm’ is of limited use in explaining the rise and fall of Germany’s distinctive socio-economic model (Modell Deutschland). Instead, we locate the origins of authoritarian tendencies in the corporate power exercised by managers rather than in the power of state-backed markets imagined by ordoliberals. Secondly, we focus on the managerial innovations of Bertelsmann as a key actor enmeshed with Modell Deutschland. We show that the adaptation of business management practices of an endogenous ‘Cologne School’ empowered Bertelsmann’s postwar managers to overcome existential crises and financial constraints despite being excluded from Germany’s corporate support network. Thirdly, we argue that their further development in the 1970s also enabled Bertelsmann to curtail and circumvent the forms of labour representation associated with Modell Deutschland. Inspired by cybernetic management theories that it used to limit and control rather than revive market competition among its workforce, Bertelsmann began to act and think outside the postwar settlement between capital and labour before the settlement’s hotly-debated demise since the 1990s.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
GlobalizationsISSN
1474-7731Publisher
Taylor & FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
3Volume
16Page range
260-273Department affiliated with
- International Relations Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-04-24First Open Access (FOA) Date
2020-02-09First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-04-23Usage metrics
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