British, Dutch, French, and American oil companies set up a multinational consortium in 1928 with a view to dominating petroleum production in the Middle East. Development of the consortium's first oilfield in northern Iraq depended on the construction of a pipeline to the Mediterranean sea-board, but rival great-power ambitions in the region blocked selection of a suitable route. Walter Teagle, president of Standard Oil of New Jersey, devised a compromise that he successfully pressed on both the French government and the chairman of the consortium, Sir John Cadman. Using company records and state papers now available in France, this article explains how Teagle's intervention arose and why it was crucial to the resolution of the Anglo-French pipeline conflict.

Small firms that operate in manufacturing sectors amenable to economies of scale are faced with particularly challenging strategic problems. This article on the Seiberling Rubber Company, a family–owned minor player in the U.S. tire industry, takes as its starting point the intersection between Michael Porter's typology of competitive strategies and the entrepreneurial theorists' views on the importance of the human factor. Against a detailed analysis of the changing structure of the tire industry over four decades, it examines closely the strategic decisions of one firm and its senior managers.