IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/bushst/v42y2000i3p89-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Technology Acquisition, Firm Capability and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: A Case Study of Australian Glass Manufacturers Ltd, 1915-39

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Fountain

Abstract

In 1915, Australian Glass Manufacturers Ltd (AGM) adopted a strategy of technology acquisition to ensure its survival and to establish a sustainable competitive advantage. By 1935, AGM was largely vertically integrated and its core container glass business was an Australian monopoly. AGM had also diversified into commercial glass and consumer goods production and was Australia's first manufacturer of flat glass. The analysis adopts the framework of the new institutional theory of the firm and focuses on the sourcing, assessing and securing of appropriate technologies. It is argued that operationalising the strategy crucially depended on developing managerial and technical know-how. It required the development of specialised teams and new effective precedents, and involved an extended period of learning by doing. AGM also comprises a limiting case for the historiographical stereotype of Australian manufacturing firms as inward looking and largely reliant on British technology in the inter-war period.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Fountain, 2000. "Technology Acquisition, Firm Capability and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: A Case Study of Australian Glass Manufacturers Ltd, 1915-39," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 89-108.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:42:y:2000:i:3:p:89-108
    DOI: 10.1080/00076790000000268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00076790000000268
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00076790000000268?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Monica Keneley, 2020. "Reflections on the Business History Tradition: Where has it Come from and Where is it Going to?," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(3), pages 282-300, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:42:y:2000:i:3:p:89-108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FBSH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.