Over the past decade the rate of innovation of managerial theory has apparently been enormous. Buzz words and key phrases have proliferated, we have seen organizations adopt the tenets of flexibility, quality, human resource management, whilst structurally changes have variously involved: outsourcing, downsizing, delayering, strategic partnerships, and lean production. All of these changes are usually related in one way or another to a view of increasing competition in national and international product markets. The stress upon competitive efficiency has effectively rendered the division between private and public organizations redundant, with internal markets and market testing driving changes in the public sector at least as far and fast as, and arguably more so than, in private industry. We are all encouraged to see ourselves as shareholders in Great Britain PLC, where the permanent revolution of managerially inspired change is seen as in no way a process of conflict. Rather the final triumph of private ownership, the apparent collapse of socialism and the perceived irrelevance of trade unionism are seen to bear witness to the culture of ownership.