Organizational Restructuring and the New Insecurity

Under the guise of the mantras of ‘enterprise’ and ‘flexibility’, the typical large British manufacturing firm became subject to considerable restructuring during the final two decades of the last century. The new environment of globalization, characterized by significant increases in capital mobility, international trade and market competition, along with industrial deregulation and privatization, provided the impetus for firms to continuously improve production processes and outputs. Organizational responses were also facilitated by advances in information and communication technologies. These enabled employers to put into practice the notion that ‘smaller is beautiful’ or as some have put it, that firms could operate as both ‘lean and mean’.