Competition as a vocation. The social and cultural history of West German managers after the postwar boom

这个研究项目涉及竞争和竞争力的社会文化习惯的基本要素，在西德公司的中层和上层从1960年代到1980年代的管理人员。结合社会，文化和商业历史的方法，本研究探讨了不断变化的工作文化的管理人员在一个时代的快速转型：当欧洲战后的繁荣在20世纪60年代末，70年代初结束，德国模式的协调市场经济与其强大的传统的社团主义，等级制度，并与公司的终身认同受到压力。“1968年”的文化剧变，以及“后现代主义”多元化、个性化、全球化和日益增加的不安全感的基本趋势，大概也影响了德国管理者的职业模式、价值观和日常实践。这项研究开始研究的假设，德国公司和他们的高管在这一时期的变化经历了一个过程中，越来越多的“竞争力”方面的招聘政策，内部组织，职业发展，薪酬计划和工作习惯。一方面，我们将分析职业指南，管理文献和自传文本中的竞争语义，另一方面，我们将使用来自两家公司（拜耳股份公司和巴伐利亚摩托车厂）的案例研究来调查，如何以及在何种程度上组织的基础设施和公司内的日常竞争做法确实发生了变化。

This research project deals with competition and competitiveness as essential elements of the sociocultural habit of managers in the middle and upper strata of West German companies from the 1960s to the 1980s. Combining methods of social, cultural, and business history this study investigates the changing job culture of managers in an age of rapid transformation: When the European post-war boom came to an end in the late 1960s, early 1970s, the German model of a coordinated market economy with its strong tradition of corporatism, hierarchy, and lifelong identification with the company came under pressure. The cultural upheaval of '1968' as well as the basic trend towards 'postmodernist' pluralization, individualization, globalization, and increasing insecurity presumably also affected the career patterns, values, and everyday practices of German managers. The study sets out to examine the hypothesis that German companies and their executives during this period of change underwent a process of increasing 'competitivization' with respect to recruitment policy, internal organization, career advancement, salary schemes, and working habits. On the one hand we will analyze the semantics of competition in career guides, management literature, and autobiographical texts written by managers, and on the other hand we will use case studies from two companies (Bayer AG and Bayerische Motoren Werke) to investigate, how and to what degree the organizational infrastructure and everyday practices of competition within the companies did change.