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This article examines corporate labor and gender relations in transatlantic perspective. It argues that the gendered communication of IBM’s Thomas Watson Sr. shaped labor relations in his company’s West German subsidiary. In the United States, Watson acted as a business progressive, expanding internationally, opening professional careers to young women, and implementing welfare capitalist measures. When IBM took tighter control of its foreign operations after World War II, Watson sought to implement welfare capitalist measures in the subsidiaries abroad. His wife Jeanette by his side, he presented himself as the caring “pater familias.” German IBM employees embraced Watson’s conservative rhetoric of the IBM family but continued to join national unions and formed a works council, thwarting the major welfare capitalist goal of averting labor organization. Against such local labor practices, gendered communication undergirded a loyal workforce even in critical situations, an overlooked factor contributing to the company’s success. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German laboratory of International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) in Boeblingen, founded in 1953, was initially oriented toward research and exploratory development. It turned to full product development capabilities between 1960 and 1964. This article touches on the interactive driving forces of evolving technologies, market opportunities, company policies, and the vision and creativity of many individuals. In this article, the multiple functions needed for building a development laboratory from scratch in the then-new field of computer electronics have been described. The efforts ranged from assembling appropriate engineering and scientific competence to defining a development program that would make a meaningful contribution to IBM's product line. It has also been explained that how it became possible, with nothing to go by historically, in smoothly integrating this product development operation with IBM's overall research and development operations. In view of electronics and computers evolving after 1948, IBM encouraged its major European subsidiaries to build up physics and electronics competences. Thus, IBM Germany started to look for people in those respective disciplines.

Presents the House for the History of International Business Machine (IBM) Data Processing in Sindelfingen, Germany. How the House began; Main attractions of the show; Information on the transistor age and IBM's efforts in electronic data processing shows in the show.