ABSTRACT
The dramatic shift in the sources of shipbuilding output over the past decade reflects, of course, changes in the structural environment confronting the industry. The structural environment is allembracing, for it includes factors that affect the operational efficiency of individual shipyards, factors that are influential in the decisions of shipbuilding enterprises, and yet other factors that impinge on the economic climate within which the industry has to function. Clearly, the shipyard concern is a micro-consideration hinging on production methods and work practices; the shipbuilding enterprise concern can be regarded as occupying an intermediate or meso-level of structural environment in that it revolves around the behavioural aspects of industrial organisations; while the macro consideration is delegated to the workings of national and international economies which together set the economic milieu that impacts on all business organisations, including shipbuilding. This last concern, the macro structural environment, is the ultimate arbiter of the conditions influencing shipbuilding. Put quite simply, if the economic climate is unfavourable then industrial organisations will be confronted with painful problems which may only be resolvable through closure of their production facilities. It follows then, that an unfavourable economic climate determines the survivability of a shipyard after due allowance is made for the scope of action available to the business enterprise (shipbuilding enterprise) that is attempting to come to terms with macro circumstances. By the same token, a favourable economic climate may work, through the business organisation intermediary, not only to ensure the survival of the shipyard but also to foster the expansion of its capacity or, indeed, to 27oversee the creation of new shipyards.
