| Cultural notes | | German companies |
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Shares in an Aktiengesellschaft (AG) have a stock-market listing, whereas shares in a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung (GmbH) are not available for purchase by outside investors. In an AG, the board of management is responsible for running the company and reports to the supervisory board, which is made up of representatives of shareholders and employees. A GmbH is headed by a managing director. GmbH may be represented as mbH if Gesellschaft is part of the company name, as in Messegesellschaft mbH.
Many companies are family businesses and would like to remain so, as it avoids conflict of interest with outside shareholders. Control of large publicly-quoted companies may still be in family hands, and hostile takeovers are often regarded as a foreign concept. This tends to exclude investors from abroad and generates a more patriarchal approach than in a company with non-family management. However, as the post-war generation of entrepreneurs retires, there are sometimes problems of succession.
Company hierarchy in Germany tends to be vertically structured, with closely defined areas of responsibility. Management style has a reputation for being relatively risk-averse.
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