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This chapter presents theoretical insights that can be gained from other fields and disciplines that can be useful for the study of the migration of institutions and particularly trade organizations. It analyzes more complex, and somewhat more socially and culturally embedded, organizational forms, such as the sea loan, the funduq and caravanserai, and the commenda. The chapter also describes three key organizational forms rather than offering a comprehensive survey of all migratory organizational forms. Some organizational forms, such as the general partnership or the joint ownership of ships, are more complex than typical endogenous institutions and are likely to be migratory. It explains how an objection to an institution could lead to mutations and efforts to hide the foreign or objectionable origins, as well as to fit the institution into pre-existing institutional configurations.

This chapter surveys institutional and organizational theories that are used for studying the statics and dynamics of the development of institutions in interaction with their environment. It outlines the theoretical frameworks on the development of institutions and particularly of trade organizations. The chapter also discusses theories that are useful for static analysis. It examines theories that can be deployed for the dynamic development of institutions within their environment and assert that the theoretical framework for the study of institutional migration is lacking. The chapter talks about the proliferation of academic research activity over the last half a century in areas including transaction-cost economics, theories of the firm, property-rights theories, and contract and agency theory.

This chapter provides theoretical insights that can assist in understanding the resistance to the migration of institutions. It offers an initial framework for the study of non-migration, the embeddedness of institutions, and the resistance to migration. The chapter explains why the business corporations did not migrate from Europe to the Middle East, India, and China in the three centuries between their first introduction in Europe, around 1600, and their eventual colonial forced introduction in Asia in the late nineteenth century. It also discusses why business corporations did not develop indigenously in the rest of Eurasia. The chapter uses contexts such as technology and mathematics to identify the causes of resistance to migration.

This chapter talks about the interplay between family, religion, and ruler—three key components of every premodern society, which was the major factor in shaping the pattern of migration of the various organizational forms. The interplay determined the resistance of regions and civilizations outside Europe to the importation and transplantation of the business corporation. It argues that sixteenth-century Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, did not design a good institutional framework for conducting Cape Route trade with Asia. Seventeenth-century Europeans, led by the Dutch and the English, designed an institutional framework that suited their environmental challenges well and facilitated long-distance trade between Europe and Asia. The chapter emphasizes that organizational factors determined the rise of English and Dutch Eurasian trade dominance in the seventeenth century—asserting instead that technology and violence had more determinative weight.

This chapter analyses and explains the dynamics of labour migration policies in the Netherlands and reflects on the evolution of Dutch labour migration policies from a European comparative perspective. It starts with a general overview of trends in labour migration policies throughout Europe and identifies key issues regarding the responsiveness of labour migration policies. It then analyses the Dutch case in detail. It offers a comprehensive overview of the development of the policies, the public preferences, socio-economic and societal dynamics and their interplay. Finally the chapter compares the responsiveness of the Dutch case with developments in other European countries and tries to explain the differences and similarities.