“Wholly an Australian Industry”? Establishing British Multinational Manufacture at the Bryant & May Empire Works, 1909–1914
研究布莱恩特与梅公司1909年在墨尔本开设澳大利亚子工厂的案例，揭示伦敦总部与墨尔本分支在英帝国主义和澳大利亚联邦化背景下的紧张关系，以及跨国管理、劳资关系和关税优势如何帮助公司在第一次世界大战前获得竞争优势。
The Bryant & May company is well known for its operations in Britain. Historians have paid less attention to the actions of the company overseas. The opening of a new Australian subsidiary factory in 1909 marked an early venture in multinational manufacturing within the British Empire. This article uses business records and newspapers from both the British and Australian archives to examine the day-to-day operations of this multinational, with a particular focus on the human dimension of the interactions between London and Melbourne. The Bryant & May case study reveals the evolving, sometimes tense, relationship between the “home” and “subsidiary” branches in the context of British imperialism and Australian federation in the years preceding World War I. Business, personal, and imperial relationships intertwined. While business historians have developed theoretical frameworks to understand why companies embark on multinational operations, work remains to be done on the longer-term operations of companies in particular political, social, and cultural contexts. We examine the building of the Empire Works match factory in Melbourne, the nature of transnational management, labor relations, and key production challenges up to the Interstate Commission of 1914. We reveal how Melbourne managers, sometimes against the inclinations of the London directors, were prepared to drive a hard bargain with local politicians and workers. Bryant & May successfully, and sometimes controversially, gained competitive advantage as a “local” company with access to preferential tariffs. This placed the firm in an ideal position to prosper when international trade was disrupted during World War I.