ABSTRACT

Modernisation in the British steel industry proceeded differently from that in Japan, in that the timing of investment and the scale and content of modernisation were mainly caused by political conditions and by the lower levels of demand in the declining British manufacturing industry. The similarities in the form of modernisation can be understood as due to a diffusion effect of a common production paradigm. Modernisation and rationalisation have caused unique changes in management and labour, based upon the already-established division of labour and social relations in the British steel industry. It reflects a stage of contrived compatibility and the consequences of modernisation and rationalisation suggest a potential for some convergence towards Japan in the use of the workforce at the workplace.