The global expansion of British insurers in the nineteenth century has been a feature of insurance history that has highlighted the strategic nature of the multinational enterprise (MNE). The growth of the Australian colonies from the mid-nineteenth century attracted the interest of these overseas insurers. This article considers the challenges these firms faced and the way in which these trials were overcome. Effective networks were important in establishing a market presence in the Australian colonies. A combination of enterprise, luck, and resilience assisted in building these links. The experience of British insurers in the colonies sheds light on the processes of MNE expansion into markets beyond their range of tacit knowledge and expertise.

This article examines the strategies employed by multinational banks to mitigate political risk following the onset of revolution in their host countries during the early twentieth century. It does so by exploring the activities of multinational banks in China during the Revolution of 1911 and its aftermath. This article first describes the measures that multinational banks took to maintain China's credit on foreign bond markets after the outbreak of revolution. It then examines how these bankers curtailed political instability by first withdrawing financial support from both the Qing government and the revolutionaries and then providing financial assistance to the new Chinese Republican government.

German corporations are characterized as having been adaptable in the face of numerous traumatizing events during the twentieth century. This article explores how firms adapted their accounting information systems during the hyperinflation of the 1920s. It suggests that responses to the crisis focused on system elements identified as key to continuing operations. Initially, firms amended selling and purchasing arrangements, modified financial reporting, and shifted managerial reporting to nonmonetary information. As inflation accelerated, human resources were diverted to maintaining critical functions, especially those related to remunerating labor. While some elements of accounting systems fell into disrepair, there were also examples of innovation.

This article examines the 1968 decision by the French mineral water company Vittel to use PVC packaging for its main product. This was the first time this type of packaging had been used for a mainstream consumer product. By examining the causes, manifestations, and consequences of this business decision, it aims to show how this model has spread and contributed to the creation of an environmentally damaging waste regime by abandoning deposit systems. The article also seeks to show, through this case, the importance of identifying social and institutional contexts to understand the trajectory of consumer products.