4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST select the events which deserve the status of decisive breaking points among a great number of alternatives, because its history is actually a smooth and uninterrupted one, unfolding a process comparable with natural growth. Assessments of company history following ithe "great men" hypothesis originate from the company leadership, its ghost writers and public relations men, from the advocates of private ownership of industry, and the tales are then circulated outside. So, Gerard Philips, who founded the company in 1891, has been given a place in the Dutch industrial history as a brilliant inventor. He never was, actually; he was a good craftsman though and used the absence of patent laws in the Netherlands upto 1911 as an excuse to copy the products and processes of his competitors. After 1912 his role has been waning. He remained a general director and was more eager to be praised and honoured as the Dutch equivalent of a von Siemens or Edison. Anton Philips, his brother and commercial director, was, for a time, successful in acquiring access to foreign markets. After 1930, when the market for incandescent lamps was choked, he seemed to have lost his commerial assertiveness and had no idea of how to overcome the economic crisis. He was actually set aside by a "coup" in his senior management and research siaff. They were responsible for the diversification into the radio business, the most successful decision in the company's history, resulting in a leading position for the company in the world market. But even when his personal contribution to the firm was declining he was heralded as the native Emil Rathenau, the builder of the AEG industrial and financial empire, and finally, even the radio success was attributed to him. Anton's son, Frits Philips, was not instrumental in the postwar expansion, but he remained at the top as a great social leader, which may have inspired him to describe himself in Who's Who as a "company social worker". Actually he was an advocate of the "human relations" approach in industry in 1946, and the financier of the Moral Rearmament Movement. The "great man" approach tends to attribute the company successes to the purposeful behaviour of a clairvoyant captain of industry, and failures to the unpredictable, uncontrollable turbulences of the environment or to fate of time. Once in use, this myth becomes a functional prerequisite for the viability of the company as a private enterprise. Moreover, the decisive personality trait, making up for the success of the company, is selected