Heineken's 150th anniversary in 2014 offers an excellent opportunity to reflect on its corporate history form a twenty-first century perspective. Because Heineken is one of the world's leading breweries, its history has a significance that goes beyong the company itself, potentially contrinbuting to a better understand of this branch of industry. One theme in particular is central to the history: expansion through acquisitions and joint ventures. Strikingly, despite its many partnerships and takeovers, heineken has established and maintained a strong firm identity both as a business and as a brand. Other themes to be studied are marketing, internationalisation, technology, human capital and the pros and cons of the family firm. Results of this project will be presented as papers to the academic colleagues and the final product is a book to commemorate the 150th aniversary of the company.

• dr. Bram Bouwens

• dr. Joost Dankers
• dr. Bram Bouwens

The research aims at contributing to the important societal debate from an economic-historical perspective, on the basis of a study of the long-term performance of the Dutch business system during the 20th century. It consists of four projects. The first three projects investigate corporate governance characteristics: (i) protective devices or takeover defenses; (ii) executives, supervisors and their networks; and (iii) dividend policy and financing. The fourth project is a synthesis in two respects, as it both describes the relations between governance characteristics in the previous projects and relates governance to performance. The synthesis will offer a chronological and thematic account of the development of the governance structure of Dutch business during the 20th century. It will incorporate the results of the other three projects dealing with different aspects of corporate governance, and analyze a number of case studies to show in more detail how the governance mechanisms operated in practice (or in some cases: failed to operate effectively), what the consequences were for performance of those companies and the role played by the different stakeholders. The themes of this project will be dealt with in detail, including the societal discussion about corporate governance and its impact on the actual management structure of Dutch companies.

• prof. dr. Jan Luiten van Zanden

• Abe de Jong (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

This study aims to describe and analyze the way Dutch businessmen tried to eliminate the risks of doing business during the 20th century. The study looks at different kinds of collusion, ranging from business interest associations and cartel-agreements to full mergers and acquisitions. Both quantitave and qualitative data will be used and the development of the concentration process will be illustrated by case studies. The firm is the focal point. The way Dutch businessmen cooperated will be compared to the daily practices in this field in US, UK and Germany. The theoretical approach of this project is derived from the literature on the 'business system' and 'the varieties of capitalism'.

• dr. Joost Dankers
• prof. dr. Jan Luiten van Zanden
• dr. Bram Bouwens

On 5 July 2007, exactly 100 years after the merger which created Royal Dutch Shell, this study into the history of Royal Dutch Shell at Shell headquarters was presented. In this study (that appeared in four volumes), it is explained how Royal Dutch Shell was among the handful of oil companies that acquired a significant part of the global markets in the First decades of the Twentieth Century. 

• dr. Joost Dankers
• prof. dr. Jan Luiten van Zanden

The national research project Dutch business in the 20th century (Bedrijfsgeschiedenis in Nederland in de Twintigste Eeuw (BINT)) had the competitiveness and changing characteristics of the Dutch business system during the twentieth century as its main focus. The goal was to make an in-depth analysis of the most important elements of the Dutch business system and their adaptation over time to the major economic, social and technological developments of the 20th century. The analysis is internationally comparative because only in this way, the typical Dutch characteristics can be highlighted. The analysis is formed by relevant social theories, particularly, though not exclusively, drawn from institutional economics.

The BINT Projectwas initiated by the Business History Research Group of Utrecht University and its Research Institute. The Netherlands Economic History Archive (NEHA), the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Foundation for the History of Technology at Eindhoven University also participated.

For more information, have a look at the project website.

• dr. Joost Dankers
• prof. dr. Jan Luiten van Zanden
• dr. Bram Bouwens
• dr. Annette van den Berg