Tlach und Keil. Kapitola z historie slezské rodinné firmy éry industrializace (1809-1918)

• Authors: Milan Myška

Title variants

EN

Tlach und Keil. A chapter from the history of one Silesian family firm during the era of industrialization (1809–1918)

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The study focuses on the characteristic features of the history of the Silesian company “Tlach und Keil”, which was established in Opava (Troppau) in 1809 as a family business by the Prussian-Silesian merchants Vinzenz Tlach and Vinzenz Keil, both originally from Ratibor (now Racibórz). The author traces over a hundred years of the company’s history, which began as a small-scale ironworking operation (Ondřejovice, Endersdorf) and became the first producer in the Habsburg monarchy to introduce technology for rolling iron, copper, zinc and galvanized sheet metal (1821). Having achieved considerable success with this type of production, the firm was transformed by its third generation of owners into two joint-stock companies (‘Mährisch-schlesische Aktien-Gesellschaft für Drahtindustrie’ and ‘Aktiengesellschaft der österreichisch-ungarischen Zinkwalzwerke’). The article traces the changing business strategies and mentalities of three generations of the family: the first generation was still strongly influenced by the value systems and principles of traditional family businesses, and it was not until the second and third generations that the company began to orient itself¨ towards the principles of the capitalist market economy based on competition. These aspects of the company are compared with generally formulated and widely accepted observations on the characteristic features of family businesses (J. Kocka and others).

Keywords

EN

family business; Tlach und Keil; iron industry

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Hospodářské dějiny (Economic History)
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 68-90

Contributors

author

Milan Myška

• Centrum pro hospodářské a sociální dějiny Ostravské Univerzity, Reální 5, 701 00 Ostrava 1, Czech Republic