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structural crises of 
A t-brfTcT major factor concerns 'the structure of industry. 
There is a suspicion that behind the^_ 
basic industries - steel, basic chemicals, plastics 
and some saturated consumption goods/ industries -motor cars - 
there is something more fundamental,ja crisis of the big 
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concern. There are two symptoms of this: one is the 
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weakening of imvestment and the growing involvement in 
take-over deals; the other is the preference of labour 
and especially of highly skilled personelh. f or medium sized 
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firms^ in the technological industries. 
Some of the biggest concerns in U.S. have been remarkably 
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slow in responding to technical and economic developments. 
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Examples are the american steel industry in relation to 
oxygen steel and continuous casting: the motor car industry 
in relation to the small car. 
In Europe, especially Germany and BRitain^ investment has 
weakended since the late 60 1 s. As in U.S. the concerns 
are preoccupied with take-over deals, with the aim of 
securing greater market power. From a technological point of 
view the results of the take-overs are said to be very bad 
The best skilled people of the firm taken over are usually 
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leaving and the R&D capacity is going to pieces. 
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1 William C.Norris (founder of Control Data Corporation) 
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interviewed by Business Week t Dec 6, 1982. 
While the big concerns try to increase market domination 
they are, in the technological industries, loosing staff 
to upstart firms and new entrants who offer a more attractive 
milieu for the R&D engineer and scientist. The distribution 
of the qualified manpower seems to have become a most 
important factor in industry. The upstart small firms 
are able to carry out development much more quickly than 
large companies with their cumbersome committee work etc.