Memory and learning: Selecting users in the port of Rotterdam, 1883–1900

Abstract

During the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the port of Rotterdam experienced very strong growth. Changing views and concrete experiences induced the port to widen the initially limited circle of regular users of berths. We study this case in order to increase our understanding of the dynamic interrelationship between organisational memory and learning. While organisational memory guides the application of routines, this practical experience may also question underlying beliefs. Our study of deliberations by the Rotterdam government – to a significant degree representing the preferences of the local business elite – demonstrates how so-called lower order learning on the level of routines induces a so-called higher order learning on the level of beliefs. Finally, our case-study suggests that the traumatic nature of initial experiences that are part of organisational memory may hinder the deliberation of beliefs and thus retard higher order learning.

Keywords:

• organisational memory
• learning
• local government
• ports

Notes

1. The two articles combining learning and memory are the only ones of this kind yielded by electronic search through the volumes of Business History, Business History Review (from 1991 onwards), Business and Economic History (1962–1999; titles only), and Enterprise and Society. More papers referring to learning and organisational memory have been published in Industrial and Corporate Change; an example is Becker et al. (2005). Only after finishing this article, our attention was drawn to the recent contribution of Keneley (2009) on organisational change at the largest Australian life insurer, AMP. Like us, Keneley takes into account several levels of routines (see further in the text), but she still does not provide a step-by-step analysis of the process of learning.

2. Preferences or values are conceptually distinct from beliefs (Schein, 1985), but for reasons of convenience, we consider them as part of the same level as beliefs.

3. An exception to this were the sheds belonging to a dedicated freight and passenger station at the waterside east from the city centre, opened by Nederlandsche Rhijnspoorweg-Maatschappij (Dutch Rhine Railway Company) in 1860.

4. MRC, 19 December 1872, pp. 122–124; MRC, 27 December 1872, pp. 127–140; MRC, 28 December 1872, pp. 141–150; Oosterwijk, 1979.

5. MRC, 9 November 1882, pp. 154–164; PD, 1882, no. 40.

6. PD, 1883, no. 24b, Advice Chamber of Commerce, 19 July 1883.

7. PD, 1883, no. 24e, p. 179.

8. MRC, 27 September 1883, pp. 103–107. The translations of the quotes presented in this article, all originally in Dutch, are ours.

9. Available data are neither very reliable nor compatible, but at least Rotterdam's incoming cargo flow (http://www.fhk.eur.nl/ws/ra/sheets.html, sheet 3) seems to have been higher than that of its main competitors Antwerp by 1900 (Loyen, 2008, p. 454) and Hamburg in all but one year between 1903 and 1913 (HHS, 1903–1911/1912, 1913, 1920–1923).

10. Shares by approximation, calculated from http://www.fhk.eur.nl/ws/ra/sheets.html, sheet 3.

11. RMAR, inventory number (inv. no.) 936, nos. 2456 and 2457 (31 December 1883); inv. no. 937, nos. 25 and 26 (4 January 1884).

12. RMAF, inv. no. 319 (1884), no. 361.

13. RMAF, inv. no. 366 (1891), nos. 742 and 743.

14. MRC, 26 November 1891, pp. 132–136.

15. The three destinations involved – Aberdeen, Bilbao and Gloucester – appear for the first time in the annual overview of permanent shipping connections between Rotterdam and foreign ports in ARCoC annual report, 1890.

16. MRC, 26 November 1891, p. 134.

17. MRC, 26 November 1891, p. 134.

18. RMAF, inv. no. 366 (1891), no. 766b, 30 November 1891.

19. MRC, 10 December 1891, p. 143.

20. MRC, 10 December 1891, p. 145 (emphasis added).

21. RMAF, inv. no. 355 (1890), no. 75, and inv. no. 359 (1890), no. 575.

22. RMAF, inv. no. 384 (1894), no. 588 and inv. no. 386 (1894), no. 910; PD 1894, nos. 25 and 28.

23. MRC, 6 September 1894, p.110.

24. PD, 1894, no. 25a, Mayor and Alderman to City Council, 8 August 1894, p. 223.

25. MRC, 3 January 1895, p. 6.

26. MRC, 4 September 1894, p. 107.

27. MRC, 6 September 1894, p. 110.

28. MRC, 3 January 1895, pp. 6–7.

29. PD, 1894, no. 40c, 8 November 1894, pp. 319–322.

30. MRC, 6 September 1894, p. 113.

31. MRC, 4 January 1895, p. 19.

32. MRC, 3 January 1895, p. 9.

33. MRC, 4 January 1895, p. 18. Burgomaster s’ Jacob added to this that, compared to Rio Tinto Company, Union Steamship certainly was to be considered a liner service (MRC, 4 January 1895, p.24). Rio Tinto was granted a terrain in lease and a permanent berth at Feijenoord as early as 1884/85, without discussion by the council (MRC, 21 May 1884, p. 66; RMAR, inv. no. 940, no. 190 [6 February 1885]). The company shipped ore from its own Spanish mines from the port of Huelva to Rotterdam and therefore indeed could hardly be called a liner service. Huelva was not included in the annual overviews of Rotterdam's permanent shipping connections mentioned in note 15.

34. PD, 1894, no. 40a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 27 November 1894, p. 315.

35. RMAF, inv. no. 384 (1894), no. 588i, letter of 9 April 1894.

36. PD, 1894, no. 40b, 18 September, pp. 318–319.

37. PD, 1894, no. 40c, Advice of the subcommittee on the Feijenoord Port Installations, 8 November 1894, p. 320; MRC, 3 January 1895, p. 6 and 4 January 1895, p. 21.

38. PD, 1894, no. 40a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 27 November 1894, pp. 311–317.

39. PD, 1894, no. 40a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 27 November 1894, p. 313. In fact, RHV had only received deep water quay space in long lease for a term of 99 years. The use of the term ‘ownership’ illustrates how emotionally loaded the memory of ceding control of quay space to RHV still was.

40. MRC, 4 September 1894, p. 107.

41. PD, 1894, no. 40d, 5 October 1894, pp. 322–326.

42. MRC, 6 September 1894, p. 115.

43. PD, 1894, no. 40c, p. 320.

44. MRC, 3 January 1895, p. 13.

45. PD, 1895, no. 55a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 17 September 1895, p. 547. In this letter, the executive let it be known that it had decided not to take up the suggestion raised by one council subcommittee back in 1892 – that is, after the Müller debate – to incorporate the quayage in lease contracts in the case of combined requests. It considered public law as an indispensable instrument for keeping control over the waterside. See also PD, 1894, no. 40a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 27 November 1894, p. 313.

46. PD, 1897, no. 4g, pp. 51–52.

47. PD, 1897, no. 4l, 26 July 1897, pp. 59–62.

48. RMAI, inv. no. 2937, no. 3706.

49. RMAI, inv. no. 2943, no. 5465, 10 June 1898; inv. no. 2957, no. 9734 attachment, 24 October 1898, inv. no. 2965, no. 159 attachment, 3 January 1899.

50. PD, 1900, no. 70c, 12 October 1900, pp. 485–486.

51. PD, 1900, no. 70d, pp. 487–489.

52. RMAI, inv. no. 2957, no. 9734 attachment, 24 October 1898.

53. PD, 1900, no. 70a, Mayor and Aldermen to City Council, 16 October 1900, p. 483.