On December 10, Maximiliaan Menten, research assistant with the University of Amsterdam, gave a presentation as part of our SEICA Open Seminar Series, titled: History of Dutch Water Management: Lessons for Societal Challenges.

He introduced his research on 17th-century Dutch water management, linking stakeholder theory with participation and representation. With examples of dike projects in Bunschoten and along the Lek River, he examines cooperation in Dutch water boards by identifying the different stakeholders and stakeholder relationships.

Water management in the Netherlands knows a long-standing tradition of dealing with the environment, which dates back as far as 500 BC, when people in Friesland built terpen and wierden to protect themselves against water surges. Through time, water management in the Netherlands became more structured and mainly involved building and regulating safeguards against the water with dikes, river embankments, and the creation of polders by draining lakes and fenland. This so called ‘Dutch amphibious society’ can be seen as a long-standing collective tradition of protecting the land against a constant threat from water, and therefore has plenty of examples that can be analyzed to provide new perspectives and insights on social entrepreneurship and (corporate) social responsibility.

In his research on Dutch water management, Maximiliaan Menten explores the link between stakeholder theory and participation and representation within seventeenth century Dutch water management. During his presentation, he discussed how cooperation in Dutch water boards can be explained by identifying the different stakeholders and stakeholder relationships. He used the examples of a sea dike in the polder Bunschoten and a dike along the Lek River (between Amerongen and Vreeswijk). By discussing the historiography on participation and representation in Dutch waterboards in the pre-democratic era through the lens of stakeholder theory, Maximiliaan Menten hopes to provide a new angle, for current historiography, that can potentially give additional insights on how water boards were managed, as well as contribute to a surging interest in management literature in the research of societal challenges, such as from the perspective of social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility.