Britain's Manufacturing Industry Research Articles

Continuous Innovations in Production Technology in the Manufacturing Industry in Britain: A Networked Approach?

Drawing its argument from a range of theoretical perspectives, this paper proposes an integrated approach to study the role of user involvement in the continuous innovation of production technology. A framework is developed that outlines several sets of inter-organizational relationships among the organizations related to a given type of production technology. It also draws on data from questionnaire surveys and interviews in the UK to assess the extent to which supplier and user firms as well as their subcontracting firms adopt a network approach to sharing knowledge in the continuous innovation of the production technology to enhance performance.

On Capitalism and Agrestic Unfreedom

The proposition is not new that the freedom of labour is not a necessary accompaniment of the growth of capitalist production; and that conditions of non-market duress upon labour ranging from outright slavery to indenture and restrictions on mobility have been a typical feature of the world-wide growth of capitalism. Indeed the very title of Eric Williams' seminal book Capitalism and Slavery, which explored the interlinkages between the rise of capitalist manufacturing industry in Britain and the exploitation of the slave labour-based plantation system of the West Indies, exemplified this understanding. Ernest Mandel in his Marxist Economic Theory, which in fact dealt as much with historical description as with theory, also analysed the role of duress in the operation of the colonial system, as did P. A. Baran in his Political Economy of Growth. To the present author who shares Williams's perception, in particular that the colonial system and the later working of imperialism were crucially dependent on the imposition of unfree conditions upon Third World labour (particularly wherever labour migration was induced), Tom Brass's general emphasis on the lack of correspondence between capitalism and freedom of labour seems quite unexceptionable.

Reversing the decline in manufacturing industry

This article is based on the 1993 Mountbatten Memorial Lecture. It considers the history of decline in Britain's manufacturing industry, and looks at ways in which that decline might be reversed.

COMPETITIVENESS IN NEW TECHNOLOGY SECTORS

The spectre of declining international competitiveness has haunted Britain since the latter half of the nineteenth century; but the need to improve the market performance of Britain's manufacturing industry in the light of the chronic decline in world market share, the rising penetration of manufactured imports in the domestic market, and a growing increase in the deficit on the balance of UK trade in manufactures, has been particularly stridently stated throughout the post‐war period. Numerous reports and academic studies have been generated that have tended to concentrate for the most part on the reasons for the poor economic performance. A pot pourri of explanations have been offered, ranging from an emphasis on traditional “empire” and hence captive markets, an inadequate educational system, and an over concentration of scarce R&D resources on defence sectors, through to a lack of a sufficiently inspired marketing orientation, a failure to invest in the longer term (because of inter alia the myopia of the UK financial community) and insufficient effort directed towards being technologically innovative. Within these it might be discerned lie the seeds of a range of policy prescriptions and strategies. The problem is that many of these tend to reside in the province of Government or are too general to have any effective relevance for management. What is needed is a more “on the ground” approach founded on a deeper understanding of how individual businesses establish a competitive position in their particular market, and the means that their managers employ to preserve competitiveness. It is also clear that one needs to explore the notion of competitiveness, which has received a glib notoriety, and possibly a variety of confused and probably in some cases meaningless interpretations. We have therefore established a research programme at UMIST aimed at exploring the nature of new technology sectors, the implications for, in particular, strategic management of businesses operating in them, and the competitive strategies such businesses employ. In this way we aimed to draw out some lessons on competitiveness.

Learning the business. Engineering education for the next decade

To assure the future of Britain's manufacturing industry, the education and training of its engineers is of vital importance

The state and the macro-industrial economy: Lessons from the aerospace sector

While the thoughts in this paper, albeit in disorder, have been in my mind for some years, the recent public debate on the Westland Helicopters and Leyland Land Rover issues provided the motivation to try and put them into words. The time to do it, not available to executives in office, became available as a result of my early retirement from the post of Chief Executive of a company trying to defy the very constraints on innovation I identify here. Having written it, I am sufficiently immodest to believe that the matters I have addressed, if not all the conclusions I draw, are central to the wider issues of employment in which the future of the manufacturing industry in Britain is an important element.

Medium-term planning with a multisectoral dynamic model of the U.K. economy

Abstract In this paper a hybrid combination of non-linear programming and econometric modelling techniques is proposed to derive optimal economic plans from largo dynamic econometric models. The required algorithms are discussed and applied to a multi-sectoral dynamic model of the U.K. economy. It is argued that the non-linear programming framework for the formulation of economic policy is superior to the conventional steering approach, since it takes account of asymmetry in preferences and distinguishes between long-term optimality and short-term feasibility considerations. The optimal reflationary mix shows marked improvements in welfare and at the same time ensures feasibility of selected target variables. The results also show that the problems of slow output and productivity growth are located in a few key industries and that the reflationary package does not entirely remove the problems of import penetration and secular decline of Britain's manufacturing industry.

The Sinking of the "Ma Robert": An Excursion into Mid-19th-Century Steelmaking

David Livingstone made a spectacular return to England in December 1856, after fifteen years' work in southern and central Africa under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. During the next year his fame was at its zenith: he lectured across Britain on the horrors of the slave trade, wrote a best seller about his experiences,1 and described Africa's potential as a producer of raw materials to feed Great Britain's manufacturing industry. He was given honorary degrees, fellowships, and the freedom of the cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. Early in 1858, just before he left on the expedition which introduces us to mid-19th-century steelmaking practice, he was granted an audience with the queen, after whom he had thoughtfully named a great waterfall. An important aspect of his missionary travels was to note the climate, the natural productions, the local diseases, the natives and their relation to the rest of the world.2 He was anxious to return to