Heren XVII
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Native name
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Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) |
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| Publicly traded company | |
| Industry | Multi-industry |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Predecessor | (Compagnie van Verre, Brabantsche Compagnie, ) |
| Founded | 20 March 1602 |
| Founder | Johan van Oldenbarnevelt |
| Defunct | 31 December 1799 |
| Headquarters | Amsterdam, Dutch Republic (main headquarters) Batavia, Dutch East Indies (overseas administrative center) |
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Area served
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Europe-Asia (Eurasia) Intra-Asia |
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Key people
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Heeren XVII/Gentlemen Seventeen (Dutch Republic, 1602–1799) Governors-General of the Dutch East Indies (Batavia, 1610–1800) |
| Products | Spice, silk, porcelain, metals, , tea, grains (rice, soybeans), sugarcane industry, shipbuilding industry |
The United East India Company or the United East Indian Company, also known as the United East Indies Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; or Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie in modern spelling; VOC), referred to by the British as the Dutch East India Company, or sometimes known as the Dutch East Indies Company, was originally established as a chartered company in 1602, when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade. A pioneering early model of the multinational corporation in its modern sense, the company is also often considered to be the world's first true transnational corporation. In the early 1600s, the VOC became the first company in history to issue bonds and shares of to the general public. In other words, the VOC was the world's first formally listed public company, because it was the first corporation to be ever actually listed on an official (formal) . As the first historical model of the quasi-fictional concept of the megacorporation, the VOC possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike its own coins, and establish colonies.
The VOC played a crucial role in business, financial, socio-politico-economic, military-political, diplomatic, ethnic, and exploratory maritime history of the world. In the early modern period, the VOC was also the driving force behind the rise of corporate-led globalization, corporate power, corporate identity, corporate culture, corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, corporate finance, and financial capitalism. As a transcontinental employer, the company was an early pioneer of outward foreign direct investment at the dawn of modern capitalism. With its pioneering institutional innovations and powerful roles in world history, the company was considered by many to be the first major, first modern, first global, most valuable, and most influential corporation ever. In terms of military-political history, the VOC, along with the Dutch West India Company (WIC/GWIC), was seen as the international arm of the Dutch Republic and the symbolic power of the Dutch Empire. The VOC was historically a military-political-economic complex rather than a pure trading company (or shipping company). In terms of exploratory maritime history of the world, as a major force behind the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and discovery (ca. 1590s–1720s), the VOC-funded exploratory voyages such as those led by Willem Janszoon (Duyfken), Henry Hudson (Halve Maen) and Abel Tasman revealed largely unknown landmasses to the western world. In the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography, the VOC navigators and cartographers helped shape geographical knowledge of the modern world as we know them today. The commercial networks of Dutch transnational companies, like the VOC and GWIC, provided an infrastructure which was accessible to people with a scholarly interest in the exotic world.
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Wikipedia