Abstract
Jardine Matheson & Company, a 200-year-old Hong Kong trading company that began as a house of agency, has evolved to become a contemporary Asian multinational. This article focuses on the entrepreneurial ambition of founders William Jardine and James Matheson, the importance of reputation both to legitimacy and the survival and growth of the firm, with emphasis on the role played by the founders in shaping the legal environment for trade with China. The study uses Edith Penrose's Theory of the Growth of the Firm as a principal interpretive framework and draws its evidence from the founders' original letters and a previously unexamined resource, the free trade treatise of James Matheson called Present Position and Prospects of the British Trade with China.
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