NINO STAFFA of poor quality was built by the industialists for migrant workers who had been driven to the growth areas for work in order to survive. For a certain amount of time the industries which had established themselves in the industria! areas of Britain continued to provide stable employment and the local population also became well established. As these firms amalgamated into larger units to form trusts and then multinational corporations new forms of investment in other localities became necessary. Leslie Hannah describes how the firms which developed in the period of the industria! revolution differ from the firms in the pr~sent century and what effect this transition has had socially, politically and economically. « It is a commonplace that in the course of the present century British industry has witnessed a transformation from a disaggregated structure of predominantly small, competing firms to a concentrated structure dominated by large, and often monopolistic corporations... In qualitative terms also the firms of today, and particularly the larger ones, differ significantly from their Victorian forebears: they are more diversified, they have more complex organization structures, they spend more on research, they are more likely to acquire contro} of rivals, and they are now themselves more frequently the subject of takeover bids. Many of their products are also very different from those of Victorian firms, for the development of large corporations is closely bound up with the « second industria! revolution », with twentieth century economie growth based on electricity, the motor car and chemicals, rather than steam, railways and textiles ... The significance of this organisational transformation extends beyond the economie sphere; there are profound politica! and sociologica! implications also. It has facilitated, and perhaps induced, substantial changes in the relationship between government and industry. lt has brought an increasing number of workers into the employment of large organisations. lt has extended to the wealthier middle class what the industriai revolution accomplished for the working class, by breaking the links between family and work, which survived in the Victorian family business but are increasingly rare today. In making this break, it has divorced the role of saving and investing from that of 10
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