Firma "Gebrüder Klein" jako příklad rodinného velkopodnikání éry průmyslové revoluce

• Authors: Petr Popelka

Title variants

EN

“Gebrüder Klein Company” as an example of a large-size family enterprise in the Industrial Revolution era

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

The study analyses the economic development and the development in the property rights of a 19th century important Central-European family, “Gebrüder Klein”. It presents strategies of this family enterprise which were from the 1820s focused at all types of building and construction work with a stress on road constructions, and from the 1830s also on a railway construction in the Austrian Empire. After the successful initial accumulation of their capital, the family expanded their business interests in many directions, mainly towards metallurgical industry and coal mining. Before the firm was established officially, the family enterprise consortium had received a very high income of many thousands florins. In 1847 the brothers signed a series of mutual contracts which divided the property and set the rules for the future family enterprise. It was only in 1853 when the so far existing consortium was transformed into a family company, “Gebrüder Klein”, which was registered at the district court in Brno and at trade courts in Vienna and Prague. “Gebrüder Klein” company then – until 1918 – covered a large part of entrepreneurial activities of the family. Based on the existing annual company reports and other archive materials, the author attempted to outline the development stages in the family enterprise, to disclose some micro- economic links and to label the motives leading to the crisis of the formerly successful family enterprise.

Keywords

EN

Habsburg monarchy; family business firm; Gebrüder Klein

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Hospodářské dějiny (Economic History)
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 37-67

Contributors

author

Petr Popelka

• Katedra historie Filozofické fakulty OU a Centrum pro hospodářské a sociální dějiny Ostravské univerzity, Reální 5, 701 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic