The management of people at work has always been a central problem and challenge for employers. It is a universal problem, but it has been tackled in different ways, at different times, in different countries. As the first industrial nation, Britain occupies a distinctive position with a long legacy of traditions and practices which still influence the way labour is managed in the modern business enterprise. The management, and mismanagement, of labour has had profound consequences for British society and national competitiveness.

This book investigates the development of labour management in Britain. It begins with the inheritance from the nineteenth century and traces continuities and change in the twentieth-century business enterprise. It concentrates mainly on the management of manual workers in industrial enterprises since it was here that the historically predominant pattern of labour management was established. A major theme is that, at an early stage during the process of industrialisation, British employers made certain critical choices about the ways in which labour should be managed. Though at the time these choices had a certain rationality, in the longer term they proved short-sighted and less appropriate. Yet they set a pattern which persisted and profoundly influenced the management of labour in the twentieth-century business enterprise. It is the argument of this book that the outcome of these choices contributed significantly to Britain's relatively poor economic performance from the late nineteenth century onwards.

The book seeks to bridge the gap between traditional business history and labour history. In addition it draws upon contemporary studies of business management, industrial relations, and personnel management.