A Business in Risk: Jardine Matheson and the Hong Kong Trading Industry

Jardine Matheson & Company is perhaps best known through James Clavell’s Taipan. The firm played an important role in the founding of Hong Kong, but its growth in the 20th century, through acquisition and divestiture, has never been adequately explored until now. This is not only the first study of Jardine Matheson to systematically uncover the industrial logic of its growth strategy; it is also among the first studies of the Hong Kong trading industry as an adaptive ecosystem based on trade, equity, and debt relationships that reduced business risk. Understanding the experience of Jardine Matheson will prove valuable to anyone who is eager to learn the lessons of adaptation and survival that marked not only the first period of globalization, but its current incarnation as well.