BRITISH MANUFACTURING ORGANIZATION AND WORKPLACE INDUSTRIAL-RELATIONS- SOME ATTRIBUTES OF THE NEW FLEXIBLE FIRM

The characteristics of the largest British manufacturing firms are ana lysed in order to argue that the form of organization adopted at corpo rate and plant level by such firms is distinctive. The first part of t he paper looks at the characteristic kinds and types of productive act ivities that the largest British firms undertake, it is then suggested that there is a distinctive pattern of organization for production at plant level, described as the 'new flexible firm: the features of whi ch are formally set out. The new flexible firm has so,we key features which help to make sense of an emerging pattern of workplace industria l relations in manufacturing. The tray this new form of organization a t plant level utilizes labour contradicts rather than supports the exp ectations of some analysts about the importance of human resource mana gement.