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.