EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Filling a colonial void? German business strategies and development assistance in India, 1947–1974

Julian Faust

Business History, 2022, vol. 64, issue 9, 1684-1708

Abstract: Decolonisation after World War II posed a threat to foreign businesses, when newly independent governments sought more national control over the economy. This article analyses cases of German multinational enterprises (MNE) in India. Focusing on companies from different sectors it analyses how these MNEs dealt with risks associated with tighter regulation of the economy and economic nationalism. German corporate nationality quickly became an asset that was used to position subsidiaries in India against foreign competitors. In the following years ‘Indianisation’ strategies for management and networks of German and Indian employees added security to long-term business interests. Carefully created Indo-German nationality of the companies reduced liabilities of foreignness. Furthermore, aligning with West German development assistance helped to strengthen the position of German private companies. These findings support the existing argument for a multi-faceted view on liabilities of foreignness and their quickly changing nature.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00076791.2020.1802428 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:9:p:1684-1708

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2020.1802428

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:9:p:1684-1708