عنوان

Coal, coal mining and the enterprise culture :

Number

TLets640932

Title Proper

Coal, coal mining and the enterprise culture :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Beresford, Richard

Title Proper by Another Author

a study of Doncaster

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Warwick

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2013

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Warwick

Text preceding or following the note

2013

Text of Note

This study adopts an historical approach to explore the impact of coalmining on the town of Doncaster. It finds that although Doncaster was not a typical mining town nevertheless coal's impact was widespread, and extended beyond direct employment to impact on socio-political factors including the town's external image. Whilst the study explores the impact over the entire one hundred years of mining around Doncaster, the rationale and focus of the study is an assessment of the legacy of the local mining industry, and the extent to which it has inhibited the town's economic competitiveness in what is today called an enterprise economy. In this regard the study contributes to a wider understanding of the nature of change in old industrial regions as well as considering the efficacy of current regional enterprise policy. In particular the study has explored the extent to which path contingency captures the transition from growth to decline in former industrial regions, more adequately than does that of path dependency (Hudson, 2005). The key distinction drawn between the two concepts is human agency which is identified as operating at a range of decision-making levels. Analysis comes through two related case studies which show that the coal industry provided the basis for diversification in to new products and markets offering the possibility to extend the industry's lifecycle and that of towns such as Doncaster which had come to depend on it. It is shown the fact that these opportunities were not taken was due to institutional failure associated with cognitive lock-in. This rather than any specifically industry or place-based factor explains the nature of Doncaster's decline.

HD Industries. Land use. Labor

Beresford, Richard

University of Warwick

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y