Purpose

What are the trade-offs between public and private ownership in the business and how does this impact industries responsible for providing and offering services on critical national infrastructure? The privatisation of British Telecom (BT), the UK telecommunications provider that was initially part of the British Post Office, is used to explore this question. By broadening the business perspective beyond the political goals and economic consequences of privatisation; this study aims to approach management history provides new perspectives of the benefits and challenges offered by both public and private ownership.

Design/methodology/approach

To fulfil its purpose, this paper examines how the UK telecommunications incumbent proactively adapted from being an organisation shaped by its unique position within the public sector, to one embracing the challenges offered by the private sector. The analysis is synthesised by linking an understanding of the customer’s requirements, services and technology with surveys of the secondary literature, supported where applicable by archival material, combining perspectives from authors both within the organisation and external to it. Sources include specialist and more general academic material and contemporary and reflective publications from practising engineers and managers; supplemented by material held at the BT Archives and the Guildhall Library in London. It links the debate on ownership to the evolution of the market under study and provides a balanced view across the business, its market, competition and technology.

Findings

The arguments surrounding public or private ownership, are complex, in particular, it is difficult to separate effects due to liberalisation and privatisation. Whilst the former provided the impetus for beneficial change, the latter reduced the level of detrimental entanglement with government policy and enabled the technology and structural changes that took the market forward.

Originality/value

A new and balanced view of the privatisation of BT is taken, with an emphasis on how the company needed to change to thrive in a liberalised market, noting how technological change both required organisational change and enabled it. In contrast to many studies, the emphasis is on what was driving the organisation rather than the policy of privatisation and its effectiveness.

中文翻译：

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英国的技术、市场变化和通信私有化

目的

企业中公有制和私有制之间的权衡是什么？这对负责在关键国家基础设施上提供和提供服务的行业有何影响？最初隶属于英国邮局的英国电信提供商英国电信 (BT) 的私有化就是用来探讨这个问题的。通过扩大商业视野，超越私有化的政治目标和经济后果；本研究旨在探讨管理历史，为公有制和私有制所带来的好处和挑战提供新的视角。

设计/方法/方法

为实现其目的，本文探讨了英国电信老牌企业如何主动从一个受其在公共部门中的独特地位塑造的组织转变为一个接受私营部门挑战的组织。该分析是通过将对客户需求、服务和技术的理解与对二手文献的调查联系起来进行综合的，在适用的情况下由档案材料提供支持，并结合组织内部和外部作者的观点。来源包括专业和更一般的学术材料以及来自执业工程师和管理人员的当代和反思性出版物；由英国电信档案馆和伦敦市政厅图书馆保存的材料补充。

发现

围绕公有制或私有制的争论很复杂，特别是由于自由化和私有化，很难区分影响。虽然前者为有益的变革提供了动力，但后者减少了与政府政策的有害纠缠程度，并促成了推动市场向前发展的技术和结构变革。

原创性/价值

对英国电信的私有化采取了一种新的、平衡的观点，强调公司需要如何改变才能在自由化的市场中茁壮成长，并指出技术变革如何既需要组织变革又如何促成变革。与许多研究相比，重点是推动组织的因素，而不是私有化政策及其有效性。