Abstract
Through case studies of interwar management in Scottish colliery companies and those of the pivotal Highland smelters of the British Aluminium Company Ltd, this chapter explores the complex picture of British management development and firm performance between the two world wars. Coal and aluminium, on the face of it, represented two very different images of industry: the former of the first Industrial Revolution, the heavy industrial mainstays of lowland Scotland, which were struggling with contraction and decline in the interwar period; and the latter an iconic material of the second Industrial Revolution, one powered by hydro-electricity from the Scottish Highlands, and symbolic of modernity in a region long peripheralised by British policymakers. Management behaviour and firm performance across both industries varied, demonstrating the resilience of established practices and proprietorial control and distinctions in managerial praxis. They were also strongly shaped by company and organisational cultures and industry dynamics. This chapter then also demonstrates more broadly the varied influences on management practice, as well as management voice.