Hartmut Berghoff and Berti Kolbow
The purpose of this paper is to understand how Agfa, a division of IG Farben and Germany's leading producer of photographic equipment, adapted its marketing strategy to the new…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how Agfa, a division of IG Farben and Germany's leading producer of photographic equipment, adapted its marketing strategy to the new political environment created by the Nazi regime. This was a time when many consumer goods manufacturers suffered from the state‐driven reallocation of resources favoring the armament industry. Agfa, however, expanded its production well into the war.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study is based on archival records of Agfa's sales department.
Findings
This paper shows that Hitler's armament drive left room for non‐essential consumer goods such as cameras, film, and photographic paper as they fitted the regime's consumption policy, as well as its import and foreign exchange policy. A pioneer in marketing, Agfa was able to secure its growth strategy and its room to maneuver by focusing its product and promotion program on the socioeconomic needs of the “Volksgemeinschaft” and the “Four Year Plan”.
Originality/value
This paper sheds new light on the often‐underestimated role of consumption during the “Third Reich.” Furthermore, it supports the evolutionary – rather than revolutionary – nature of the history of marketing practice in Germany, as Agfa's interwar marketing policy features many sophisticated modern elements prior to the “Marketing Revolution” of the 1960s.
Details
Keywords
This paper seeks to provide a brief overview of what is business history as an academic discipline, with some reflection about its evolutionary patterns and heuristic value in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to provide a brief overview of what is business history as an academic discipline, with some reflection about its evolutionary patterns and heuristic value in other fields, as for instance, management studies. A peculiar and increasingly practised subfield of business history is that of family business studies, which is thus a promising crossroads and meeting point for both business historians, practitioners and scholars in management studies.
Design/methodology/approach
Through an extensive analysis of the literature on family business studies in business history, this article highlights some potential areas of collaboration and suggests some reflections about the way in which the research methods of historians can be beneficial for management scholars.
Findings
Business history has in fact a high potential in providing, through its longitudinal and comparative approach, evidence for building new theories and challenging the existing ones.
Originality/value
This article tries to move a step beyond from the consideration of history as a repository of interesting evidence, to a new role for the discipline as an heuristic tool, and new chances of cooperation between historians and management scholars.