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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.