French industrial enterprises in the Russian empire: big business in a transnational perspective

Introduction. The article explores the presence of French enterprises in the late Russian Empire in order to better understand the role and weight of French firms in global big business on the eve of World War I. The author argues that the presence of large industrial enterprises operated by French businesses should be taken into consideration when discussing the organizational capabilities of modern French enterprises. This may change the perception of France as a “follower in Western Europe” in the historiography of big industrial businesses. Materials and Methods. Large French enterprises operated in the late Russian Empire are identified based on primary sources (lists of enterprises and joint-stock companies), the RUSCORP database of Russian corporations compiled by Thomas Owen, and with the help of secondary sources. Results. The paper demonstrates that several companies operated in the Russian Empire, and owned or controlled by French businesses meet the criteria of “big business” by international standards. However, because they operated beyond the borders of France, scholars did not include these firms in the lists of French big business. In addition, many companies in the Russian Empire were established on French capital and run by French managers but registered as Russian firms. It seems that French businesses were more successful in establishing and running large industrial enterprises abroad than in the territory of their own country. This might explain why French companies are relatively poorly represented in the global ranks of the largest companies before World War I. Discussion and Conclusions. It was not only French businesses that created large industrial enterprises in Russia. There were also several British, German, Belgian, and American big businesses, so these should all be taken into account when discussing the presence of big foreign businesses in Russia. To have precise evaluations, we need to develop further the global list of the largest enterprises, which would include multinationals and free-standing companies as well. The argument of researchers who placed France to the cohort of the “followers in Western Europe” was that France, in principle, was retarded with creating large industrial enterprises. The transnational approach revealed that while in France, there were few big industrial businesses, French entrepreneurs developed them successfully outside the country. The Russian case demonstrates that French business was able to establish and operate large industrial enterprises. The presence of many large French manufacturing and mining enterprises abroad is the evidence against the thesis that French industrialists were unable to benefit from the scale and scope effect.