Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 April 2011
The impact of the strategies of multinational companies on the Dutch business system during the twentieth century is described in relation to two fi rms. The fi rst case examines the attitude of the Dutch (in this example, Anglo-Dutch) parent company Royal Dutch Shell toward its international subsidiaries. The second looks at the approach taken by the American company Sara Lee toward its Dutch subsidiary, Douwe Egberts. Until the 1980s, both companies were prepared to adjust their organizations to national traditions and ambitions. However, when these nationally based global fi rms came under pressure during that decade, both changed their organizational structures. Their actions can be seen both as responses to globalization and as attempts to advance that process by simultaneously building international institutions and changing elements of the national business system in the Netherlands.
1 See the introduction by Keetie Sluyterman to this special section on page 737. The authors would like to thank our colleagues from the BINT project, Bram Bouwens, Joost Dankers, Mila Davids, Jacques van Gerwen, Ferry de Goey, Abe de Jong, Erik Nijhof, Jan Peet and Arjan van Rooij, Gerarda Westerhuis, and the anonymous reviewers of BHR for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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