Publications
Publications
- June 1991 (Revised June 1993)
- HBS Case Collection
The Decline of the British Cotton Industry (Abridged)
Abstract
Supplements the general argument concerning the decline of the British economy by showing how vertical specialization, horizontal competition, and entrenched job control combined to create incentives for management to adapt to changing international conditions by relying on traditional technologies. The main teaching objective of the case is to demonstrate how organizational structures determine the choice of technique, to clarify the distinctions between low-throughput and high-throughput production strategies and between external and internal economies, and to show both the productivity limits of the low-throughput strategy and the difficulty that enterprise participants will have in moving away from this strategy.
Keywords
Citation
McCraw, Thomas K. "The Decline of the British Cotton Industry (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Background Note 391-253, June 1991. (Revised June 1993.)