Managing a “People Business†in Times of Uncertainty: Human Resources Strategy at Ocean Transport & Trading in the 1970s

This article examines the role of human resources in the business strategy of Ocean Steam Ship Company (later Ocean Transport & Trading), one of the United Kingdom’s leading shipping firms. The time under review is the 1970s, a period of rapid and disruptive change for the shipping industry and of considerable difficulties for the UK economy. As a result of uncertainty over the development of the shipping industry in general, and Ocean’s business in particular, managing staff numbers and career opportunities became key elements of the company’s overall business strategy during these years. The article also examines the changing objectives of that strategy, the means by which these objectives were pursued, and the external constraints under which these objectives had to take place. It argues that Ocean found itself privileging the requirements of running a “people business†over other strategic concerns and that external constraints prevented the firm from pursuing theoretically more appropriate strategies, such as increased use of outsourcing and extricating itself from its UK-based, human resource intensive business.