From Defensive to Transformative Business Diplomacy: The British South Africa Company and the End of Chartered Company Rule in Rhodesia, 1910–1925

Abstract

Chartered companies were important tools of European colonialism, but also institutions with a political agenda of their own. In this study, we focus upon one key chartered company, the British South Africa Company, in particular the ending of its charter in 1923/24, in order to study the business diplomacy strategies employed by the company. We show how the company during the period under study moved from a reactive and defensive diplomacy strategy concerning its charter, to a proactive and transformative strategy. In this way, the company managed to renegotiate the terms under which it operated so that it eventually came to accept and even embrace the ending of chartered rule, rather than to oppose it.