Locating Australian corporate memory

This research note reports on the quantity of business records available in Australia as indicated by a recent survey of the top one hundred firms operating during the twentieth century.1 The archival work was undertaken as part of a large study investigating aspects of corporate leadership in Australia, conducted jointly at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne.2 We found that the surviving records of Australian businesses cover a wide selection of firm types, and that the comprehensiveness of many archives places business history on a sound foundation for the future.