Trade organisations
Click here for the database Trade organisations
Content: The Trade organisations database consists of names, years of establishment, historical development, NACE industry-codes and other data of more than 1400 trade and employers organisations. For the years 1980, 1991, 2001 and 2005,the mergers, separations and removals of these organisations have been investigated.
The database build on earlier work started as part of the European Organisational Interest database (Mannheim), of which the Netherlands part afterwards has been extended by Arnold Wilts van the Vrije University (VU) in Amsterdam in cooperation with the FMG-UvA. In 2004 and 2005 the database has in part been updated by Anna Dragstra (AIAS), thanks to a grant of NWO/DANS for archiving primary data. In 2007 Tim van der Rijken, PhD student of the Free University of Amsterdam has continued the updating as part of his doctoral thesis.
Start date: 1980
End date: 2005, possibly updated
Funding: The 2005 update was funded from an NWO/DANS grant
Citation of the database: The following or a similar sentence must be used in publications, presentations and all other communications that use data from this database: “The University of Amsterdam /AIAS is responsible for the database Branche-organisations (see http://www.uva-aias.net/83). The database has been initiated and updated by Arnold Wilts (VU), Anna Dragstra (AIAS), Tim van der Rijken (VU), in part thanks to a NWO/DANS grant”.
Representativity: Organisations that were easy to find and their predecessors are overrepresented in the database. Organisations that do not exist anymore, organisations with successors, organisations that are less traceable at the Internet and smaller organisations are underrepresented.
Publications:
- In November 2001 Arnold Wilts published an article based on the database Branche-organisations. The article appeared in the European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 7, iss 3, pp. 269-86:
“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.” - In December 2011 Tim van der Rijken, advisor at Berenschot consultancy, defended his PhD thesis called: ‘Samen sterk of verdeel en heers?’. He investigated the strategies of trade organisations, as well as their efficacy.
Click here to download the cover of the thesis
Click here to download the abstract
