Bachelor of Commerce Best Business Research Papers

The changing nature of the Dutch business system has serious implications for businesses wishing to expand into the Netherlands, and for businesses that already operate within it. This paper attempts to clarify these changes by dissecting the nature of the system into three mutually related components based on Whitley’s business systems approach. These components include the nature of market organization, the political system, and the labour system, and are substantiated with evidence from previous studies, as well as from personal discussions with individuals that have lived in the Netherlands. In general, the basic conclusions of the research suggest that changes in voter preferences in the Netherlands have resulted in more capitalistic political policies, such as increased tax incentives for entrepreneurial start-ups, which have in turn, resulted in lower trade union participation rates, and a less egalitarian corporate atmosphere with more individual incentives for performance. For managers, this means that less emphasis needs to be placed on practices such as collective bargaining and equality, and that more emphasis needs to be placed on sustaining their competitive advantage, knowing that more small to medium sized enterprises will be entering the marketplace. However, despite these changes to a more free-market approach, the Netherlands still remains a corporatist system, where trade unions still play a significant role. Thus, the Dutch business system is not as laissez-faire as in Canada or in the United States, but is more free-market than it used to be in response to the collapse of their traditional welfare state.

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