Moderne Unternehmen in der vorindustriellen Zeit: Das Beispiel der Porzellanmanufaktur Meißen

Analysis covering the early development of modern companies and the rise of strategies like marketing, pricing and product management has traditionally dated the beginning of modern business activity to the industrial revolution and the second half of the 19th century. Although this research on modern business history has recently received increasing attention, it remains rather unclear what makes a company truly “modern” and what the defining characteristics of such companies are. In addition, there is limited insight into whether the rise of modern companies might have started before the prevailing historical period of the 19th century. The following work tries to close this gap by providing a framework for identifying modern business operations and presenting a set of key elements that can be used as criteria for modern companies. It will be shown that modern companies can be traced back to as early as the beginning of the 18th century. This is achieved by presenting the case of the Meissen porcelain factory, which has been manufacturing porcelain since 1710, adopting a unique blend of modern market strategies.