The economic policy agenda of the SED has often been described as extremely orthodox in nature and—with the exception of a short period in the 1960s—hostile to reform. It is often overlooked that the GDR entertained the largest private sector of any of the CMEA economies up till the early 1980s. Besides the official propaganda, the SED leadership at no point abolished private entrepreneurship completely in the GDR. In this article, I analyze the ambiguous relationship between the state party and private entrepreneurship. I focus particularly on the late 1980s and the role private entrepreneurs were supposed to play in reforming and saving socialism in East Germany.

The paper investigates the Stephenson Company’s contribution to genesis of the railway industry by exploring its business model in its formative years. The Company capitalised on a well-developed business and technological infrastructure in the North-east of England that provided the building blocks for the creation of a new industry. It gained from its linkages with two social networks which provided it with a financial safety-net during the locomotive development phase and the mechanical expertise it required: the closed Quaker network and the regional network of colliery and mechanical engineers. Whilst bridging between and across these social networks facilitated the Company’s development, it was not central to its strategic decision-making. This was shaped by the externalities of market conditions, which the Com­pany sought to influence by producing a viable product that would convince customers of its utility, and investors of the potential gains to be had through investing in railway construction.

This paper examines a transformation in the corporate control of London’s transport between 1977 and 1987. We offer a detailed case study explaining how a corporatist consensus broke down, what replaced it, and why. By 1977, London Transport was a centralised monopoly captured by its producer groups while passengers were treated as passive recipients. Two alternatives presented themselves: a utility maximising perspective, empowering passengers as citizens, or a cost-minimising perspective construing passengers as customers. After a period of conflict, central government intervened to disaggregate London Transport as an organisation while keeping its monopoly of provision intact. We assess this complicated transformation, arguing that there was a pivot from enterprise-level to product-level orientated logics visible in the day-to-day operations, interactions, and reporting systems. Using techniques later characterised as New Public Management, senior officials re-configured London Transport’s dynamic capabilities towards commercial imperatives, successfully transforming its business model.

While the literature on business internationalisation has tended to focus on the outward movement of companies, internationalisation in business history may also be inwardly oriented. This paper studies the metamorphosis of China’s automotive industry from 1953 to 2001 as a long process of inward internationalisation. The main argument is that the internationalisation of this industry started before automotive enterprises were encouraged to take dynamic actions abroad. This process relied on technology transfers to develop indigenous capacity and accumulate learning, while government policies regulated the entry of foreigners and the market conditions. The interactions of national and foreign players are examined during the Maoist period and the first two decades of the reform to determine when and how foreign automotive manufacturers were given access to China. The results confirm that inward internationalisation laid the basis for China’s industrial modernisation and market development.

By 1800, the city of London had developed into a major hub for the art trade and numerous auction houses vied for market share in this competitive environment. Combining data from the Getty Provenance Index® and a unique set of journals preserved at the Christie’s archives in London which contain presale evaluations for paintings during the 1820s, this paper explores the business strategy of the auction house. We gauge the relationship between the estimates and the hammer price or highest bid in the subsequent public auction, and the reserve price when available. We argue that Christie’s developed the expertise and engendered the trust among sellers to secure consignments of desirable works of art, which were estimated at realistic and attractive levels that gave the company a competitive advantage in the booming London art market.