Family businesses and their roots in Central European society in the 19th century

This study is the first attempt in Czech historiography at outlining certain methodical and methodological bases for research into the history of family businesses. It focuses on illuminating certain methodological options for defining family companies and their typology according to internal distribution of power and mutual (not just family) relations within the businesses. It expands this typology with a proposal for an external materially chronological framework for enterprise within Central Europe over the last hundred and fifty years. The linked appendix endeavours to apply this typology to four family businesses which operated within the Czech lands and Czechoslovakia. Specifically, it looks at four major ‘family’ businesses in the Czech lands whose operations encompassed the whole of the Habsburg Empire’s territory: ‘Lederer’ – producers of branded molasses-based alcohol; ‘Lanna’ – road, railway and water transport planning and construction; ‘Klein’ – road and railway planning and construction; and ‘Ringhoffer’ – railway vehicles (carriages for personal and freight transport).