Johann Friedrich Schär

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johann Friedrich Schär

Johann Friedrich Schär (born March 21, 1846 in Ursellen ; † September 15, 1924 in Muttenz ) was a Swiss educator and economist . He was one of the “founding fathers” and pioneer of business administration, founder of its ethical-normative direction and discoverer of the break-even point . He is considered a pioneer of the Swiss cooperative movement .

Life

Schär was born as the oldest of three siblings in the Emmental hamlet of Ursellen . His father was a cheese maker . After primary school, he attended secondary school in Zollbrück and then the teachers' seminar in Münchenbuchsee . At the age of 19 he became a teacher in Wattenwil . In 1867 he obtained the patent exam for secondary and high school teachers at the University of Bern and began teaching physics, chemistry, mathematics and gymnastics as a seminar teacher. In 1869 he became the main teacher of physics and chemistry at the Bern teachers' college in Münchenbuchsee.

From the beginning I saw the teaching profession from a higher point of view; my effectiveness should not be limited to the confined space of the classroom; I wanted to spread my ideals to the people. A wonderful book gave me the decisive impetus for this; Zschokke's «Goldmacherdorf», which fell into my hands from the newly founded school library.

- Johann Friedrich Schär, 1920

From 1870 to 1874 he worked as a manager of a cheese export company, he also worked as a hotelier and landlord and for a short time as a factory director. He later went to Bischofszell as a secondary teacher , where he became rector in 1875. From 1880 to 1882 he was director of the girls' secondary school in Biel . From 1882 to 1903 Schär had a position as a teacher for commercial science at the upper secondary school and later at the cantonal commercial school in Basel .

In the same year he became a member of the Basler Allgemeine Consumverein and soon became its president. Between 1892 and 1903 he was President of the Association of Swiss Consumers , now Coop . In 1889, at his suggestion, the Swiss Open Country Society was founded. From 1891 to 1893 and from 1896 to 1903 he sat as an FDP member in the Basel Grand Council. He was a co-founder of the Basler Kantonalbank and a member of the bank council.

In 1903 Schär was appointed to the University of Zurich , where he took over the first professorship for commercial science established at a university . In 1906 he moved to Berlin , where he taught until 1919 as a full professor for bookkeeping, organization and payment transactions at the newly established Berlin School of Commerce . After his retirement he returned to Switzerland and settled in the Freidorf cooperative settlement in Muttenz.

As the first scientist in his discipline, Schär sought to establish a closed system of business administration. He saw business administration as closely related to economics . With Rudolf Dietrich (1896–1974) and Heinrich Nicklisch he was a representative of the ethical-normative direction of business administration. Important works by Schär were general commercial management and bookkeeping and balance sheet . Both publications are still receiving attention today (2018). The German Society for Business Administration , founded in 1905, awarded the Johann Friedrich Schär plaque until the 1970s.

plant

Since 1888, Schär wrote around 50 publications, including the standard work General Commercial Operations . His publications and textbooks deal primarily with questions of bookkeeping and their didactic-descriptive attempts at explanation (two-account theory, bookkeeping and balance sheet 1911). Numerous articles deal with the cooperative system.

The general commercial business theory of 1911 was the first textbook that aimed at solidarism in the economic system and led to general business management. According to Schär, the leitmotif in trade should not be the pursuit of profit, but the economic principle of mediating between producers and consumers at the lowest possible cost. To this end, Schär propagated the calculation of the so-called “dead point” (break-even point), that is, the production volume at which the proceeds cover the costs for the first time. Based on this ethical-normative requirement, according to him, private business theory should be anchored in economics.

Awards

Dr. rer pol. hc from the University of Zurich in 1904 and the University of Cologne in 1923.

Fonts

  • Freiland, the real causes of social hardship, from the standpoint of landowners. Basel 1892
  • Huber-Schär: Handbook of Kontorpraxis. Berlin 1895.
  • The bank in the service of the merchant. 1904
  • General commercial management . Publishing house GA Glöckner, Leipzig 1911
  • Bookkeeping and balance sheet . 1911
  • The cooperative in the light of today's economic and social struggles . Book printing of the Association of Swiss Consumers, Basel 1912
  • with Stanisław Marciniak: Success in calculation and statistics in large cooperative companies . 1912
  • From war to peace, 3. Cashless traffic, part of our armament , 1917
  • Cooperative speeches and writings, pioneers and theorists of the cooperative system . Volume 1, Association of Swiss Consumer Associations, Basel 1920
  • The Freidorf settlement cooperative. In: Land reform . Organ der Deutschen Bodenreformer 33, 1922, pages 167-171.
  • Reorganization of the monetary and currency relations of the international payments and the exchange rates through the war . Publishing house Simon, Berlin 1920
  • Life memories. First volume: From the Emmentaler Sennhütte to the catheter and office . Publishing house of the Association of Swiss Consumers, Basel 1924.
  • Factory accounting. Verlag für Sprach- und Handelswissenschaft S. Simon, Berlin 1929, completely revised edition by Adolf Ziegler
  • Double bookkeeping. Verlag für Sprach- u. Handelswissenschaft, Berlin 1928, 8th completely revised edition by Adolf Ziegler
  • Commercial lessons. Schär-Langenscheidt system. Complete course for self-teaching. Berlin 1927.
  • Single and double bookkeeping. 8th edition, Berlin 1928.
  • Bookkeeping and balance sheet. On an economic, legal and mathematical basis for lawyers, engineers, businesspeople and students of business administration. 6th edition, Berlin 1932.
  • The social and economic role of the consumer cooperatives . Bookstore of the Association of Swiss Consumers, Basel 1934, 2nd edition
  • Bookkeeping and balance sheet. VDM, Müller, Saarbrücken 2007, reprint

literature

  • Dieter Schneider:  Schär, Johann Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 526 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Karl Käfer: Johann Friedrich Schär and the development of business administration . Inaugural address, delivered on November 24, 1945 at the University of Zurich, special print from: Swiss Journal for Commercial Education, 1946.
  • Henry Faucherre: Johann Friedrich Schär as a member of the cooperative . In: Schweizer Konsum-Verein , 46th year 1946, issue 12, pages 174–177.
  • F. Klein-Blenkers et al .: Complete overview of university lecturers in business administration in the period from 1898-1955
  • Hanns-Günther Otto: Johann Friedrich Schär and modern German-speaking business administration , Basel 1957.
  • Edmund Sudhoff: Johann Friedrich Schär. In: Dreihund Jahre Handelswissenschaften , 1979, pp. 161–195
  • Susanne Burren: Pioneer in commercial science - on the autobiography of Johann Friedrich Schär . In: The obstinacy of the material. Exploring social reality, Frankfurt am Main 2007.
  • Susanne Burren: The knowledge culture of business administration: the rise and dilemma of a hybrid discipline. Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1330-8 .

Web links

Commons : Johann Friedrich Schär  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  1. ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden: Economists at a glance
  2. ^ Family history Schär and Bocola
  3. ↑ In April 1891, the Swiss Society of Open Land submitted a petition to the Federal Assembly to prepare an article in the constitution so that all of Switzerland's unused hydropower would become the property of the federal government.
  4. ↑ Susanne Burren: The knowledge culture of business administration: Rise and dilemma of a hybrid discipline.
  5. ^ Humboldt University Berlin: Johann Friedrich Schär
  6. ^ Family history Schär and Bocola 1846–1947
  7. ↑ Person encyclopedia of the canton of Basel-Landschaft: Johann Friedrich Schär
  8. ^ Johann Friedrich Schär: The land reform, online text
  9. ↑ Susanne Burren: Pioneer of commercial science - On the autobiography of Johann Friedrich Schär
personal data
SURNAME Schär, Johann Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss business economist
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Ursellen
DATE OF DEATH September 15, 1924
Place of death Muttenz