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Home · Data · Trade organisations

Trade organisations

This file came about thanks to the NWO (The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research) subsidy for the archiving of primary data. There are more than 400 industry and employers organizations included. Using a systematic coding the “life” of these organizations can be followed regarding mergers, name changes and separations.

General project information

The file Trade Organizations is part of the Companies-Employer Organizations file. The Companies-Employer Organizations file consists of five share files with names, creation years, SIC codes and other data of over 1400 employers organizations and 400 companies. Part of the collection is launched from the European Organizational Interest database (Mannheim) of which the Dutch part in a project of the FMG-UvA has been expanded greatly. Another part is started from the Social Annual project of the University of Amsterdam.

The project was made possible thanks to the NWO subsidy for the archiving of primary data. Also in the Dues file, the DUCADAM file and the Loonwijzer/ WageIndicator file have been archived thanks to the NWO grant Primary Data.
The archiving of this primary data is useful for several reasons. First, there is a growing interest in longitudinal data, whether or not with a panel character. For research about the labour market people are already working with panel data, especially OSA and SEP. Increasingly, this is now also used in the areas of labour content, industrial relations and working conditions. Secondly, there is growing interest in contextual or torque comparable data for use in primary data files. The third argument is ‘conservation data – heritage’ as the time passes non-registered data files are harder to register as the primary collector could withdraw, datasets are stored on media that cannot be used, or is lost. With the growing need for longitudinal data that argument gets extra significance.

The two databases

The project ‘Trade organizations’ comprises a total of two databases and two accompanying texts with code books. One of these databases is suitable for research and with accompanying text and code book to find on this website. The other database with the accompanying text was not created for research but is only useful as an aid for those who want to extend and / or update the file that is made for research. This “help file” is placed under NWO.
The file that can be downloaded here, is based on the files that were transferred to the NWO. This database contains more than 1400 trade organizations. The history of 400 of these organizations is traced and encrypted. They are the contents of the file available here Associations 2005 database 1 and its code book.

This approach has the consequence that organizations included are not representative of all trade organizations of the Netherlands. The organizations which were relatively easy to find and his predecessors are over-represented in the file. Organizations that no longer exist, organizations without legal successors, organizations that are less present on the Internet and smaller organizations are under-represented.

Publications

Arnold Wilts has published an article on the basis of the Trade Organizations Database in November 2001. It is published in the European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 7, iss 3, pp. 269-86. Below is the summary of the article as an example of the possibilities the Trade Organizations Database offers researchers.

“European integration has profound effects on national systems of industrial relations. To date, most empirical research has addressed the role of unions and organized labour; there has been far less attention paid to the impact of Europeanization on the strategic outlook and representational activities of organized business interests. This article draws on a survey of Dutch trade and employers’ associations to argue that such organizations are in the process of adjusting their external affiliations to the demands of effective agitation in a multilevel governance system. However, the national level remains the most important focal point in the representational strategies of business associations.”

Would you also like to use the Trade Organizations file for scientific research? Please contact Ms Kea Tijdens, AIAS Research coordinator.