RUB Research School

Dr. Eva-Maria Roelevink

History

Cartels were up until 1945 a legal and normal form of business cooperation in many countries, which did not just yield regional and national cartels but represented a way to spawn economic strategies and interests. Economic and Business History research has previously only given little attention to the overarching meaning and the cementing function of cartels in national and international competition.

As part of working together with Prof. Dr Schröter, a new methodological frame for the Business History debate of cartels should be discussed, formulated and worked on. From the empirical source findings of my doctoral thesis, which explores the effects of a Syndicate with unique depth in Business History, it can be shown that the methodological approach to cartels can be steered in a new way and with a new line of questioning. Cartels have to be understood by a considerably stronger measure as a Business History and focus on the impact between the cartel body and the strategic considerations of the participating companies. Further, it is essential to characterize cartels in their functional specifics. In the work together with Prof. Schröter, University of Bergen (Norway), we are making a claim for a new, innovative, more methodologically stringent and differentiated approach to the object of investigation, namely cartels and making this known among experts. For the possibility to extent a renewed cartel-research “into the world” I am certainly grateful for the Gateway Fellowship of the Research School PLUS.
After her Gateway Fellowship Eva-Maria Roelevink came back to Bochum and is resuming her position as Assistant at the Chair for Economic History (Lehrstuhl für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensgeschichte) In 2014 Dr. Roelevink was awarded the price for Unternehmensgeschichte (research in business history) by the Gesellschaft für Unternehmensgeschichte e.V. (GUG).