The future of the defence firm: the case of the UK aerospace industry

Ian Jackson

Defence and Peace Economics, 2004, vol. 15, issue 6, 519-534

Abstract: The focus of this paper is the future of the defence firm within the context of the UK aerospace industry and its supply chain. The analysis considers aerospace markets and the aerospace industry in the UK before assessing the future of the defence/aerospace firm as a case study. The paper concludes that its future in terms of the strategic and important aerospace industry is uncertain. The corporate governance of the defence firm will have to change to reflect the hollowing-out of the firm as the industry experiences significantly less vertical integration. The emphasis of the future defence/aerospace firm will be on 'buy' and not necessarily 'make'. There will also be fewer independent defence aerospace firms as horizontal integration will occur across air, land and sea platforms as well as civil and defence aerospace firms. Indeed, conglomerate integration may even occur with cost pressures and market forces ensuring that merger activity goes beyond defence and aerospace into wider manufacturing industries and, in some cases, service industries in global markets.

Keywords: Aerospace industry; Supply chain; Defence firm; Aerospace markets; Horizontal integration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1024269042000246675 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:defpea:v:15:y:2004:i:6:p:519-534

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/GDPE20

DOI: 10.1080/1024269042000246675

Access Statistics for this article

Defence and Peace Economics is currently edited by Professor Keith Hartley

More articles in Defence and Peace Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().