Britain and New Technology:The Responses from Industrial Management and the Trade Unions
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057443 |
| Published date | 01 May 1986 |
| Date | 01 May 1986 |
| Pages | 18-20 |
| Author | Christopher J. Rowe |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
Britain and New
Technology:
The Responses from
Industrial Management
and the Trade Unions
by Christopher J. Rowe
School of Information and Computing
Studies, Humberside College
of Higher Education
Introduction
It is fairly apparent from the spate of reports on the subject
that new information technology — incorporating
developments in computing and telecommunications — is
having an increasing impact on industrialised countries and
that Britain is falling behind as regards adoption and innova-
tion.
For all the Government's efforts — particularly between
1980 and 1984 — the take-up at company level has remain-
ed erratic and patchy, and much of the blame for this has
been placed at the door of management and the trade
unions. This article aims to consider these accusations by
drawing on the various studies that have been done on new
technology innovation, and to examine the work-place
responses from both sides of industry.
Industrial Management
There is no doubt that some of the blame for our slow take-
uri can justifiably be lain at the door of management. At
the culmination of Information Technology Year 1982, the
Government announced that around 100 companies were
approaching the Department of Industry each month for
assistance with applications, but expressed concern that
a good 50 per cent of British firms were still making no use
of new technology at all.
This pattern has since continued, and a report from the
Policy Studies Institute (PSD in 1985 confirmed the wide
gap that is emerging between those (mainly larger) firms
that are developing sophisticated applications, and those
that are making little progress at all. The report noted op-
position from top, middle and even technical management,
and a common problem was inadequate awareness of
opportunities.
A report from the European School of Management in 1985
also found that only 25 per cent of 109 top executives
thought that information technology was a matter of major
concern,
and only in the financial field did there appear to
be significant advances in automation.
Britain's industrial managers are continually accused of
being conservative and showing resistance to new
tech-
niques and ideas, and there is no doubt that compared with
their counterparts in other countries they are remarkably
non-technological. Many do not have degrees or profes-
sional training at all, and of those that do, the majority ap-
pear to be in arts subjects. More graduates are found in
larger firms, but even here the number of science and
technology graduates has not significantly increased. This
is largely due to the nature of our educational system which
encourages young people to aim for the professions and
the media before industry, and promotes arts and pure
science at the expense of applied science and engineering.
In the field of pure science, Britain's record is a fine one,
Oxford and Cambridge having produced more Nobel Prize
winners since the war than any other country, but we
con-
tinually fail to implement the ideas we produce.
A study by the Japanese Government in 1985 found that
among major products successfully developed since 1945,
six per cent originated in Japan, '22 per cent in the US, and
52 per cent in the UK, but this situation is rapidly changing
as Japan improves her inventiveness and many of Britain's
best brains are attracted overseas. Britain is now losing
scientists in some of the most important developing areas;
for instance, the failure of British firms to capitalise on
biotechnology has led to the departure of as many as 250
key researchers since the mid-1970s — mainly to countries
such as Switzerland and the US — for better commercial
opportunities. An American Government report in 1984 gave
high praise to the quality of Britain's research, but dismis-
sed us as a serious commercial threat because of our in-
ability to convert laboratory genius into marketable products.
We are good at invention, but poor at innovation; brilliant
in the laboratory, but ineffective in the workshop and market
place.
Linked with this is our apparent inability to integrate univer-
sity research and industrial innovation. In 1985, the Butcher
Committee (under the chairmanship of junior Industry
Minister John Butcher) called for a great multi-disciplinary
emphasis in higher education, and closer collaboration bet-
ween education and industry. The report saw too many div-
isions — between departments within colleges and univer-
sities,
and between education and the industrial world —
but these points have often been made in various reports
over the past 20 years, and nothing has been done about
them.
A similar report from the Advisory Council for Applied
18 IMDS · MAY/JUNE · 1986
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