Organizational structure, public policy, and technological change: the origins of the dominion steel industries

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article provides a comparative study of the steel industry in Canada, Australia and South Africa in the first half of the twentieth century, in order to determine what key elements existed in these settler states that ensured the successful foundation of an industry seen as a symbols of industrial and national development. Although there is considerable literature containing comparisons of the overall long-term economic development of these settler nations, these comparisons are broad in approach, rather than focusing on the organizational structure and management of individual industries. The study finds that a combination of factors were in ensuring this success important including the development of local markets for steel, financial market development, public policy attitudes and natural resource availability. In doing so it finds that the three industries were similar in that they all had an abundance of raw materials, growing markets for steel and access to British and American capital markets and technical expertise.