ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the thesis that change has occurred towards a network pattern of organization will be assessed through a discussion of the manufacturing sector in the UK as it has developed in recent decades. It argues that the ownership of many manufacturing firms by large businesses allowed the flexible organization at the level of the firm. In Britain, as is well-known, there was only a slow and incomplete realization of the system of mass production that is now almost universally known as Fordism in the early 20th century. The Hanson Trust was a true conglomerate, and retained within its portfolio a diverse range of businesses until it was voluntarily disaggregated into three more focused businesses in 1996. Similarly, a bureaucracy or any other kind of formal organization, can be considered as a set of positions and ties, and so is also a particular form of network.
