Brands and Marketing Knowledge in Mergers and Acquisitions in the 20th Century: Testing the Da Silva Lopes Model

In her study Global Brands: The Evolution of Multinationals in Alcoholic Beverages (Cambridge University Press 2007), Teresa da Silva Lopes developed a model to explain the role of brands and marketing knowledge in mergers and acquisition in the alcoholic beverages industry. She based her model on Penrose's concepts on the growth of the firm en Johanson and Vahlne's stages model of internationalization of the firm, and the evidence she collected through her in dept study of 75 companies in the alcoholic beverages industry. The Dutch company Heineken was part of this study, but only as one of 75 companies. For that reason it still makes sense to test her model on the basis of the specific experiences of Heineken. The test will inform us about the strength and weaknesses of the model as well as the company. The information on Heineken will be based on published sources, including literature and annual reports.

Keetie Sluyterman is a specialist in Dutch business history of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Since 1995 she is a senior researcher for the Research Institute for Culture and History (Onderzoekinstituut voor Geschiedenis en Cultuur, OGC) at Utrecht University. In 2004 she was appointed as professor of business history on behalf of the Unger-van Brerofonds. She has written or jointly authored a large number of busines histories, including histories of Océ, Proost en Brandt, CSM, (Moret) Ernst & Young, Rabobank, Hagemeyer, and Royal Dutch/Shell. She has published in international journals on the family firm and the internationalization of Dutch business. In Dutch Enterprise in the twentieth century: business strategies in a small open economy she gave an overview of the history of Dutch business in the twentieth century through the looking glass of business strategies.