Technikatörténeti szemle 11. (1979)
TANULMÁNYOK - Valentiny Pál: A gazdaság és a technika problémái a XIX. századi elektromosiparban
ducts. The leaders of the firm showed interest to the potentialities of using electricity and welcomed experiments as a result of which a system of transformers capable of transmitting electrical energy was developed. The leadership of the firm that showed such interest towards novelties would not have been sufficient in itself to achieve the above mentioned technological success. Another necessary factor was such a minimal production capacity which warranted the possibility for organizing production, and the technological applicability of the novelties. In this time period presumably the Austro-Hungarian monarchy represented the southern and eastern boundaries in Europe for such a producing ability, or technological culture. The independence from the economic factors is borne out also by the observation that when the first steps are taken by an industry that has no significant past experience in this branch of production, the time and place of the emergence of technical novelties are almost random. In a later phase when that branch of industry gains territory, by which time the sequence of leading and following firms are established, the hierarchy among the firms determines largely the location where innovations are born. In an anomalous way in the case of the Ganz firm and Hungary it was the revolutionary new innovation that made the restrictive nature of the economic factors evident. The firm possessed a modern product but was unable to capitalize upon its advantages. The restricted capitals and the limited internal market inhibited that the innovation be realized in the modern form of the time, in the independent establishment and financing of electrical power supplying companies. No possibilities existed either for carrying out the freshly started product structure diversification to a depth similar to that of other large companies of the like nature, to introduce large-scale production and to supply consumer goods. As a result of all these by the beginning of the 1900’s it was decided that the Ganz Electrical Works, that had in the meantime been transformed into an independent share company, belongs to medium sized firms. From this time on the main question posed for the Ganz Works was to survive as a factory whose development was at many points different from the traditional development trends of its own branch of industry. The lack of capital, the very early competition, the limited home market and the insufficient industrial background finally overtook the potential advantage that was created by the significant innovations of the Ganz Works. 132
