The fragmentation of a railway: A study of organisational change in British Rail *David Tyrrall

Privatisation has received much attention from economists and political scientists, but surprisingly little from management academics. This paper considers British Rail from strategic and organisational perspectives, in the context of a long period of commercialisation of the corporation leading up to privatisation. The changes involved are analysed using the Laughlin (1991) and Parker (1995a) frameworks. The resulting analytical framework is used reflexively and the model of organisational change is augmented to include change pathways termed 'fragmentation' and 'imposed evolution'. It is intended that this model should be of wider applicability not only to the study of public sector organisations that have undergone or are undergoing commercialisation and privatisation, but to other forms of major organisational change.