In the 1990s, the nickel refinery in Kristiansand became the largest in the world outside Russia, with a capacity equivalent to 7 per cent of global production. In addition to Falconbridge's own nickel matte, the plant refined raw material for several other producers. From 1980 to year 2000 the output of nickel doubled to 80,000 tonnes.

The path of progress was a bumpy one. Aside from the tragic problems with cancer managers also had to cope with economic difficulties. At the beginning of the 1980s Falconbridge had been struggling to survive and ten years later, a new slump hit the nickel market. The nickel industry had fragmented and previous market power was irrevocably lost. But fragmentation also yielded opportunities, not the least for toll refining. The Kristiansand staff managed to improve refining technology, reorganize production and cut costs to such an extent that the plant remained one of the most competitive in the entire business.

This chapter examines how all the external changes and local responses influenced development at the Kristiansand subsidiary, that is, outside ‘push factors’ and internal ‘pull factors’ if we use Julian Birkinshaw and Neil Hood's terminology. We will review head office–subsidiary relations as well as the efficiency drive at the refinery. As we shall see, local management still had scope for autonomous action. This was indeed one of the keys to the subsidiary's success.