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Christina Lubinski wins 2009 Prize for Business History Print E-mail

Christina Lubinski, GHI Fellow in Economic and Social History, won the "Prize for Business History" 2009 awarded by the German Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. for her dissertation on German family businesses from the 1960s to the present. The annual prize honors excellent Ph.D. theses or postdoctoral research in the field of business history.

The Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. (GUG) is an internationally recognized academic institution for the promotion of research in business history. It is represented in the council of the European Business History Association (EBHA) and is an affiliated member of the International Economic History Association (IEHA). The annual prize will be awarded to Lubinski on the occasion of the GUG's public lecture on March 11, 2010 in Munich.

Lubinski's dissertation analyzes corporate governance changes in German family firms after World War II and identifies the last third of the 20th century as a special turning point for family firms in Germany. The dissertation is comprises two steps of analysis, combining a quantitative and a qualitative approach. Building on a regionally focused sample of over 300 businesses and a comparison of three qualitative case studies, Lubinski investigates the changing relationship between the family and the firm in different categories: (1) the ownership structure and the relationship between (managing and non-managing as well as male and female) shareholders; (2) the dynastic motive of the family and its changes; (3) management and succession issues; and (4) continuities and discontinuities in labor relations and corporate culture. Through her interdisciplinary approach of economics, history and cultural studies the author explains how and why many German families have retreated from their traditional business, while others have explored new and more flexible forms of family influence. This new type of family business finds a way to integrate external capital and knowledge and displays more openness and international orientation than its predecessor.