Spatial Variations in Australian Enterprise: The Case of Large Firms Headquartered in Melbourne and Sydney

Abstract

This paper explores the changing spatial concentration of the headquarters of large companies in Australia by means of indices extracted from lists of the top one hundred public companies in 1953, 1963, 1973, and 1978. Evidence of variations in company performance between Melbourne and Sydney is presented.

Corporate Location, Concentration and Performance: Large Company Headquarters in the Australian Urban System

“…Sydney had also surpassed Melbourne in terms of the total number of headquarters, although the latter retained control of the majority of shareholders' funds and profits. In large part, this was because Melbourne remained the headquarters of large mining companies and a number of banks (see Taylor and Thrift, 1981a). This earlier research also conjectured that the marginal status of Australia's smaller cities, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, was likely to continue, with these centres acting as little more than outposts for specialist mining and manufacturing companies (Taylor and Thrift, 1980).…”

Some Geographical Implications of Foreign Investment in the Semiperiphery: The Case of Australia

“…This greater size of Melbourne's foreigncontrolled, and to a lesser extent domesticallycontrolled, firms is attributable to their sectoral affiliations since Melbourne is the main centre of control of Australia's mining industry. The sectoral affiliations of Sydney's major companies are much more diverse and cover such fields as transport, communications, trading, production and finance to a far greater extent than is the case in Melbourne (Taylor & Thrift 1981a). It might be contended, therefore, that Melbourne has developed as the chief centre of foreign corporate control in the Australian space economy on the basis of foreign organizations operating in the mining industry headquarters there.…”