Path Dependence in Ports: The Persistence of Cooperative Forms
研究了荷兰和安特卫普港口运输仓储企业从1500年到1900年后长期采用合作治理形式的现象，发现早期现代行会信条和路径依赖导致这种形式持续存在，适合对制度变迁和组织演化感兴趣的学者。
The concept of path dependence is used to compare the evolution of the organizational forms of two groups of transportation and warehousing firms, the Dutch vemen and the Antwerp naties , that operated in seaports between c.1500 and 1900 and beyond. Their adoption of cooperative forms reflected the corporative guild creed that prevailed in early modern European cities. After 1815, when their businesses were no longer regulated by local governments, the vemen and naties remained locked into the cooperative form of governance that had prevailed for so long. This organizational form gradually adapted to changing circumstances, but its egalitarian structure remained intact until the late nineteenth century (vemen), and even into the twentieth century (naties). The two groups of firms’ organizational forms evolved differently under the impact of the legacy of the early modern period and the weight of their own later distinctive experiences.