Sector firm and management performance in The Netherlands : the role of national governance and institutions

Paper presented to the fourth EMOT-workshop, theme 1, Economic performance outco- 1 mes in Europe, Berlin, January 30-February 1, 1997 This paper discusses performance characteristics and differences at three levels: at sector, firm and top management level. First, it explores the extent to which the particularities of the Dutch business system history influence the economic performance of different types of firms and sectors in the Netherlands. Elaborating on earlier work on the Dutch business system (Iterson and Olie, 1992; van Dijk and Punch, 1993: Sorge and Iterson, 1995, Iterson, 1997), it will be hypothesised which sectors and types of firms will prosper in the socio-institutional context and which sectors and types of firms will not. For instance, it will be brought forward that the agricultural sector, the mineral fuels and chemicals sector, the foods and detergents sector, the transport and transshipment sector and the financial services sector have emerged in a favourable socio-institutional context whereas the steel and the car sector have not. As to different types of firms, it will be brought forward that family-owned and state-owned companies are much less dominant in the Netherlands than public limited liability companies. At firm level, special attention will be given to the large multinational corporations, such as the Royal Dutch Shell Group, Unilever, AKZO, DSM and Philips. Secondly, the socially constructed managerial capabilities and discretion - again, related to economic performance - will be explored in this paper. They are to be understood as an outcome of the idiosyncratic formation of social groups in the Netherlands and the related emergent governance principles (Cf. Kristensen, 1995), which is known as `pillarisation''.management and organization theory ;

Breaking the Silence: The role of gossip in organizational culture

From the early 1980s, the number of studies pertaining to organizational culture expanded considerably to the point where it could reasonably be argued that the field had reached a level of maturity. Perhaps indicative of this maturity was the publication of the first handbook of organizational culture and climate (Ashkanasy et al. 2000). The commencement of academic interest in the topic of organizational culture generally coincided with the publication of two books mainly aimed at practitioners—Peters and Waterman’s, In search of excellence (1982) and Deal and Kennedy’s, Corporate cultures: the rites and rituals of corporate life (1982). This is not to suggest that these books account exclusively for the intellectual curiosity generated in the function and purpose of culture for an organization as there were well-known examples which had earlier sought to address the issue of organizational cultures (e.g. Pettigrew 1979). Nonetheless, these tomes were influential in raising interest in, and scope for, research on organizational culture

Corruption Exposure Mechanisms of the EU Assessing the European Anti-Fraud Office

Currently four out of five EU citizens assume corruption as a grave issue in their own member state (Special Eurobarometer 374, 2012, p. 4). Furthermore, it is estimated that 120 billion euros a year are lost to corruption, which amounts to one per cent of the EU’s GDP (ibid.). These numbers are quite worrying, and corruption is rightly assumed to be one of the most serious social problems facing the EU and Europe today. Corruption is such an important issue, because it distorts competition of the free market, negatively affects budgets and undermines political institutions as well as democratically elected politicians (Della Porta & Vannucci, 1999). The scope of corruption is very broad and therefore difficult to define. This is due to the fact that the financial and ethical impact varies greatly and already smaller criminal offences encounter as corruption. In the context of the financial crisis, the negative effect of financial crime have been noted to be of even bigger consequence on already tight budgets and thus influences individuals directly. Thus, it becomes of considerable importance that taxpayers’ money is spent to revitalizing the European economy and not lost in the realm of criminality. Sadly enough “the European budget attracts both organised economic criminals, and opportunistic entrepreneurs who resort to fraud as means of supporting a failing enterprise or helping a company or organisation in financial difficulties” (Quirke, 2009, p. 531). It is very important to recover as much as possible of the funds that have been lost to fraud, in order to build trust in the EU institutions

The national specificity of top management teams

The authors examine top management performance in modern corporations operating in market economies. They analyse the national differences between institutions of formal company management, the value and competence systems of top managers as well as prevailing decision making practices. In their view, there is a clear difference in the power and strategies of managerial teams, reflecting the market and company differences between countries