From Machinery Manufacturers to Plantmakers: Tracing European Leadership in Steel Production Technologies, 1945–2000

This article examines the recovery, resilience, and global consolidation of European steelmaking equipment manufacturers from 1945 to 2000. It explains how these firms wrested global technological and market leadership from American counterparts during the 1960s and 1970s, consolidating dominance during subsequent decades of globalization. Reconstructing micro-level firm strategies, the study challenges Chandlerian assumptions of vertical integration and the institutional predictability of the Varieties of Capitalism framework. Postwar European manufacturers capitalized on localized bottlenecks and regional market dynamism to pioneer breakthroughs like basic oxygen steelmaking and continuous casting. Facing the 1970s structural crisis, European firms navigated market volatility through three strategic pillars: flexible technological innovation (such as compact steelworks), aggressive international expansion, and corporate consolidation via mergers and acquisitions that transformed specialized manufacturers into comprehensive, operationally autonomous “plant makers.”