Abstract
IN a survey of modern industry from any point of view, four tendencies are easily discerned as characteristic of conditions to-day in contrast with those of a couple of decades ago. The first of these tendencies is the growing scale of industrial enterprise and particularly the growth in size of the industrial unit. It is true that the number of small firms in British industry remains surprisingly large, but the growth in size of the leading firms is unmistakable, particularly in chemical industry. Although chemists are employed in such an immense range of industries, those employed by really large firms represent a very considerable proportion of the numbers of the profession who are engaged in industry. The second tendency is the growing complexity of modern industry. Not only is competition, whether in national or international markets, generally more severe, but also the complexity of manufacturing problems has increased. The range of products produced by an individual firm will frequently be found to have multiplied several fold and the reactions involved in the displacement of old by new products frequently present those responsible for the direction of industry with some of their most difficult problems.
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Professional Organisations and Modern Industry. Nature 133, 589–591 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133589a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133589a0