Strategische besluitvorming in een neergaande bedrijfstak : onderzoek naar de strategische maatregelen in de krl textiel-industrie in de periode 1950-2000

With the macroeconomic development of the Netherlands from 1950 until 2000 as a background, it can be established that the manufacturing industry as a whole has become a less important facet of the economy in this country together with the employment thereof. The textile industry, as one of the larger branches of industry, has been a forerunner in this process of deindustrialisation as a result of which only a few companies have managed to survive. On the one hand this study is researching which external and internal factors have been predominant in causing the structural decline of the textile industry and on the other hand how this decline has run its course. Besides, through research within the textile industry, a quantified insight has been acquired as well in the various strategic measures taken by individual companies in order to escape the oncoming decline. As a result it has become clear which strategic measures have been successful in the short term and in the long term and which ones have not. Due to the fact that this study is covering the whole of the textile industry, a truthful picture can be obtained based on experiences of the past, of the success and failure of the different types of strategic measures in a structurally declining industry. A remarkable factor emerging from this research is that the measures involving high risks have proven to be more successful than the measures involving low risks, this in contradiction to the current conception that measures involving high risks are less successful than measures involving low risks. This apparent contradiction will be explained later on. Under the device that “He who is not prepared to learn from past mistakes is doomed to repeat them”, this research intends to be a contribution to the topical subject Strategic Management, in particular in relation to structurally declining industries.