This book challenges conventional wisdom by revealing an extensive and heterogeneous community of foreign businesses in Australia before 1914. Multinational enterprise arrived predominantly from Britain, but other sender nations included the USA, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Japan. Their firms spread out across Australia from mining and pastoral communities, to portside industries and CBD precincts, and they operated broadly across mining, trading, shipping, insurance, finance, and manufacturing. They were a remarkably diverse population of firms by size, organisational form, and longevity. This is a rare study of the impact of multinationals on a host nation, particularly before World War One, and that focuses on a successful resource-based economy. Deploying a database of more than 600 firms, supported by contemporary archives and publications, the work reveals how multinational influence was contested by domestic enterprise, other foreign firms, and the strategic investments of governments in network industries. Nonetheless, foreign agency - particularly investment, knowledge and entrepreneurship - mattered in the economic development of Australia in the nineteenth as well as the twentieth centuries. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in Australian and international economic and business history, the history of economic growth and scholars of international business.

This study of Australian business institutions and practices places the rise of big business in Australia in a comparative context through a study of its 100 largest firms in the first six and a half decades of the 20th century.
Unlike many of the wealthy economies of the northern hemisphere, Australia's lists of the 100 largest firms were dominated up to World War II by those from the resource and service industries. The high levels of foreign direct investment in the resources and manufacturing industries is also highlighted. Other chapters employ 21st-century theories of the firm to explore business behaviour in more depth.

Never before had a book been published which provides such a comprehensive study of Australian corporate leadership over the past 100 years. Written by a team of economic historians The Big End of Town, first published in 2004, is a proper business history of twentieth-century Australia. This book traces the evolution of large business enterprises in Australia, from the giants of the nineteenth century - such as Dalgety's, CSR and BHP - to the contemporary leaders in Newscorp and Qantas. It delves into why the market leaders became the major players, examines what was crucial to their success, and their roles in leading the Australian economy. By investigating their evolution this book provides a useful evaluation of the factors that have led to their competitive success and provides an essential guide for all businesses in Australia and beyond.

Never before has a book been published which provides such a comprehensive study of Australian corporate life over the past 150 years. Written by a team of economic historians Corporate Leadership in Australia is the first proper business history of Australia. This book traces the evolution of large business enterprises in Australia, from the giants of the nineteenth century – such as Dalgety’s, CSR and BHP – to the contemporary leaders in Newscorp and Telstra. It delves into why the market leaders became the major players, examines what was crucial to their success, and their roles in leading the Australian economy. By investigating their evolution this book provides a useful evaluation of the factors that have led to their competitive success and provides an essential guide for all businesses in Australia and beyond.