What is it about?

Wireless! The industry was Born Global in Australia and New Zealand but progressively made more local.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The pioneering Australian wireless company, AWA, was the local affiliate for the London-based Marconi and the Radio Corporation of America [RCA], so this case study of AWA tells us a good deal about the way these global companies did business and how their international strategies and relationships evolved. Marconi’s company was a high-technology enterprise with a multi-skilled,entrepreneurial founder whose international outlook infused the whole organisation, including its overseas subsidiaries and affiliates.

Perspectives

An early-1990s McKinsey study of Australian high-value-added manufacturing firms argued that the prevalence of 'Born Global' firms reflected an historic shift in the significance of small and medium enterprises. This article identifies important historical precedents for the concept of the Born Global enterprise.

Mr Jock Given
Swinburne University of Technology

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Born Global, Made Local: Multinational Enterprise and Australia's Early Wireless Industry, Australian Economic History Review, August 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/aehr.12031.
You can read the full text:

Read

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page