ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that for organizational structures, size does matter. These things are cyclical, sometimes related to fashions in management theory, but often driven by organizational dynamics, according to principles which transcend the public/private divide. In the 1960s and 1970s in British Government, mega departments of state like the DHSS and DOE developed through accretion and merger to create powerful Whitehall monoliths with strong ministerial voices in Cabinet. In the 1980s and 1990s they have been fragmented, particularly through the development of Executive Agencies, leaving very much smaller Whitehall cores. This has parallels in the private sector where 1970S/1980S acquisitive conglomerates such as BTR and Hanson started to unbundle themselves in the mid-1990s. Many others such as Racal, and ICI have also been in divestment mode. Mergers that have continued to occur have tended to be within single industrial disciplines, such as in pharmaceuticals with the fusing of Glaxo and Wellcome or SmithKline and Beecham - mainly to gain competitive muscle in a cut-throat international business. Groups such as Tomkins who have followed the mixed industrial portfolio acquisition trail into the 1990s are seen to be counter-cultural.
