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Managing a “People Business” in Times of Uncertainty: Human Resources Strategy at Ocean Transport & Trading in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2018

NIELS P. PETERSSON
NIELS P. PETERSSON*
Affiliation:
Niels P. Petersson is a professor of History at Sheffield Hallam University, Owen Building, Howard Street, Sheffield, United Kingdom, S1 1WB. E-mail: n.p.petersson@shu.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This article examines the role of human resources in the business strategy of Ocean Steam Ship Company (later Ocean Transport & Trading), one of the United Kingdom’s leading shipping firms. The time under review is the 1970s, a period of rapid and disruptive change for the shipping industry and of considerable difficulties for the UK economy. As a result of uncertainty over the development of the shipping industry in general, and Ocean’s business in particular, managing staff numbers and career opportunities became key elements of the company’s overall business strategy during these years. The article also examines the changing objectives of that strategy, the means by which these objectives were pursued, and the external constraints under which these objectives had to take place. It argues that Ocean found itself privileging the requirements of running a “people business” over other strategic concerns and that external constraints prevented the firm from pursuing theoretically more appropriate strategies, such as increased use of outsourcing and extricating itself from its UK-based, human resource intensive business.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 88 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2018. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved. 

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Shore, Philip. Sunset over the Red Ensign: The Decline of British Deep Sea Shipping, 1945–1989. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kent, Canterbury, 1990.Google Scholar
Tenold, Stig, and Nordvik, Helge W.. “Coping with the International Shipping Crisis of the 1970s: A Study of Management Responses in Norwegian Oil Tanker Companies.” International Journal of Maritime History 8, no. 2 (1996): 33–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, Steve, and Wright, Mike. “Corporate Governance, Strategy and Structure in British Business History, 1950–2000.” Business History 44, no. 3 (2002): 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ussishkin, Daniel. “Morale and the Postwar Politics of Consensus.” Journal of British Studies 52, no. 3 (2013): 722–743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manager Magazin Google Scholar
The Economist Google Scholar
Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool Google Scholar
Broeze, Frank. The Globalisation of the Oceans: Containerisation from the 1950s to the Present. St. John’s, NL: International Maritime Economic History Association, 2002.Google Scholar
Davies, Peter N. The Trade Makers: Elder Dempster in West Africa, 1852–1972, 1973–1989, 2nd ed. St John’s, NL: International Maritime Economic History Association, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doyle, Colum, and Smith, Adam, eds. Riding the Waves: BP Shipping 1915–2015. BP Shipping, 2015.Google Scholar
Edwards, John, Leek, Chris, Loveridge, Ray, Lumley, Roger, Mangan, John, and Silver, Mick, eds. Manpower Planning: Strategy and Techniques in an Organizational Context. Chichester, UK: Wiley, 1983.Google Scholar
Falkus, Malcolm. The Blue Funnel Legend: A History of the Ocean Steam Ship Company, 1865–1973. London: Macmillan, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fieldhouse, David K. Merchant Capital and Economic Decolonisation. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fusaro, Maria, and Polónia, Amélia, eds. Maritime History as Global History. St John’s, NL: International Maritime Economic History Association, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hapag-Lloyd AG. Geschäftsbericht 1974. Hamburg: Hapag-Lloyd, 1975.Google Scholar
Hope, Ronald. A New History of British Merchant Shipping. London: John Murray, 1990.Google Scholar
House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities. Liner Conferences. London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1978.Google Scholar
Jamieson, A. G. Ebb Tide in the British Maritime Industries: Change and Adaptation 1918–1990. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, George. A Love of Ships. Emsworth, UK: Mason, 1991.Google Scholar
Lane, Tony. Grey Dawn Breaking: British Seafarers in the Late Twentieth Century. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Levinson, Mark. The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Meek, Marshall. There Go the Ships. County Durham, UK: Memoir Club, 2008.Google Scholar
Miller, Michael B. Europe and the Maritime World: A Twentieth Century History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mostert, Noël. Supership. London: Macmillan, 1974.Google Scholar
Osterhammel, Jürgen, and Petersson, Niels P.. Globalization: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Shipping (Rochdale Report). London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1970.Google Scholar
Stainer, Gareth. Manpower Planning: The Management of Human Resources. London: Heinemann, 1971.Google Scholar
Sturmey, S. G. British Shipping and World Competition. London: Athlone, 1962.Google Scholar
Tenold, Stig. Tankers in Trouble: Norwegian Shipping and the Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. St John’s, NL: International Maritime Economic History Association, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Burg, G. Containerisation: A Modern Transport System. London: Hutchinson, 1969.Google Scholar
Wilson, John F., and Thomson, Andrew. The Making of Modern Management: British Management in Historical Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Bernard. “The Container Revolution and Its Effects on the Structure of Traditional UK Liner Shipping Companies.” Maritime Policy & Management 12, no. 3 (1985): 195–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goss, R. O. “Rochdale Remembered: A Personal Memoir.” Maritime Policy & Management 25, no. 3 (1998): 213–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goss, R. O. “Strategies in British Shipping 1945–1970.” Mariner’s Mirror 97, no. 1 (2011): 243–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaukiainen, Yrjö. “Journey Costs, Terminal Costs and Ocean Tramp Freights: How the Price of Distance Declined from the 1870s to 2000.” International Journal of Maritime History 18, no. 12 (2006): 17–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaukiainen, Yrjö. “The Role of Shipping in the ‘Second Stage of Globalisation.’” International Journal of Maritime History 26, no. 1 (2014): 64–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, John. “Technology and the Seafarer.” Journal for Maritime Research 2, no. 1 (2000): 48–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meek, M., and Adams, R.. “‘Priam’ Class Cargo Liners – Design and Operation.” Royal Institution of Naval Architects: Quarterly Transactions 111, no. 3 (1969): 271–298.Google Scholar
Meek, Marshall. “Glenlyon Class: Design and Operation of High-Powered Cargo Liners.” Royal Institution of Naval Architects: Quarterly Transactions 106, no. 3 (1964): 241–285.Google Scholar
Meek, Marshall. “Taking Stock—Marine Technology and UK Maritime Performance.” Transactions of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects (1985): 69–94.Google Scholar
Palmer, Sarah. “Government and the British Shipping Industry in the Later Twentieth Century.” In The World’s Key Industry: History and Economics of International Shipping, edited by Harlaftis, Gelina, Tenold, Stig, and Valdaliso, Jesús M., 124–143. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petersson, Niels P. “Arbeit und Globalisierung.” In Globalgeschichten. Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven, edited by Barth, Boris, Gänger, Stefanie, and Petersson, Niels P., 259–288. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2014.Google Scholar
Rees, John D. A Study of Management and Organization Development in a UK Shipping Transport and Trading Company, 1972–80, 2 vols. MA thesis, Durham University, 1987.Google Scholar
Shore, Philip. Sunset over the Red Ensign: The Decline of British Deep Sea Shipping, 1945–1989. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kent, Canterbury, 1990.Google Scholar
Tenold, Stig, and Nordvik, Helge W.. “Coping with the International Shipping Crisis of the 1970s: A Study of Management Responses in Norwegian Oil Tanker Companies.” International Journal of Maritime History 8, no. 2 (1996): 33–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toms, Steve, and Wright, Mike. “Corporate Governance, Strategy and Structure in British Business History, 1950–2000.” Business History 44, no. 3 (2002): 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ussishkin, Daniel. “Morale and the Postwar Politics of Consensus.” Journal of British Studies 52, no. 3 (2013): 722–743.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manager Magazin Google Scholar
The Economist Google Scholar
Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool Google Scholar