Does Privatization Create a ‘New Breed’ of Managers? A Study of the UK Railway Industry

Human Relations · 2003 · Volume 56 · Issue 1

Abstract

The article enquires whether privatization leads to an influx of managers with different characteristics, attitudes, and perspectives from incumbent state enterprise managers, as has been widely suggested in studies of privatization in both economics and sociology. These questions are addressed with reference to an empirical study of managers in several companies in the UK privatized railway industry. The characteristics and views of new entrants are compared with those of incumbents. Clear differences in demographic and career characteristics are observed between the two groups, but there is little difference between them in attitudes and perspectives on management. The main exception is in the area of labour-management relationships. These findings suggest that accounts by scholars and practitioners overstate the differences between the two groups of managers.

Keywords

management characteristics, privatization, railways

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