For two centuries, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have arrived in waves on Australia’s shores. Highly visible and influential household names among them – Ford, IBM, Kodak, Electrolux, ANZ – but also many smaller, lesser-known enterprises. Foreign MNEs in Australia today account for almost half of our top 2,000 firms and control over A$1.4 trillion of assets. There is much we do not understand about these important institutions, why they chose to invest here, how they entered, and why so...

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 ma...

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 manufa...

In a recent study of 61 hospitals, it was found that they bought 21 different types of A4 paper, 652 different kinds of surgical gloves and 1751 different cannulas.Police forces could cut the cost of their uniforms by over 30 per cent if they all bought the same one. But they disagree on how many pockets they need.Having committed to buy two new aircraft carriers, the MOD realised it didn't have the funds to buy them. The delayed de...

Jim Sillars argues convincingly that the referendum gives the Scottish people the power to create a better country, helps renew our belief in socialism as the answer to the economic and social crisis facing the country, and challenges the idea in the Yes campaign that independence means “change but no change” and that a Yes voter endorses Alex Salmond and the SNP. There is a far more radical road, with better policies than those Salmond is offering in the first independence elections in 20...

Co-operatives, owned and controlled by the people who use their services, represent a radically different way of running the businesses of the world, a strategy that is engaging the active commitment and creativity of more and more people world-wide. This book explores the co-operative way of doing business across a wide spectrum of activities and needs, ranging from basic needs for food, water, housing, finance, jobs, health care and transportation, to needs for entertaining leisure activ...

In the two and a half years since the first edition appeared (April 2005), events have unfolded as predicted. Then the consensus among forecasters was that the boom in house prices would cool to an annual 2 or 3% rise over the following years. In fact, in keeping with the ‘winner’s curse’ phase of the cycle described by the author, prices rose by more than 10% per annum in Britain. Harrison’s first book, The Power in the Land, predicted the early 1990s recession. Boom Bust, warned that inv...

Should Scotland be an independent country? Choosing an answer to that question, as Scotland's electors will on 18 September 2014, is a choice of huge significance. So how will we come to a decision? Many voters know more or less by instinct. Plenty of us are convinced that being independent is right and good for our country and not being independent is wrong. Plenty of others believe the opposite: that what is right and good is staying as part of the UK. But there are more still - probably...

If you thought being middle-class meant your own home, something set aside for the kids and a comfortable retirement – think again.For the first time ever, today’s middle classes will struggle to enjoy the same privileges of security and comfort that their grandparents did. How did this situation come about? What can be done about it?In this beautifully shaped inquiry, David Boyle questions why the middle classes are diminishing and how their status, independence and values...

Britain is in the midst of a fierce battle over government spending. With debts mounting rapidly, the ?700 billion annual bill is no longer sustainable. But cuts face a wall of opposition, with dire warnings that they will ravage our society: hospital waiting lists will grow, schools will close and the poor will tumble into a new Dickensian abyss. Yet much of what the government currently spends is wasted, and public sector performance is often woeful. In Burning Our Money, Mike Denham cas...

An engaging account of the rise and dominance of the City of London, arguably the most important phenomenon of British history in the last 300 years. 'The City today is the most dynamic and world-beating sector of the British economy. Increasingly, it is the City that calls the shots. More than ever, governments and industry are constrained in their conduct by the fear of the judgement of the financial markets. This book looks back over the past 20 years and examines the extraordinary rise...

Key Facts is the essential series for anyone studying law, including LLB, ILEX and post-graduate conversion courses.Key Facts provides the simplest and most effective way for you to memorise and absorb the essential facts needed to pass your exams.Key Features:* User-friendly layout and style* Diagrams, charts and tables to illustrate key points* Summary charts at a basic level, followed by more detailed explanations to aid revision at every level