The Novelist as Labour Force Manager: Nevil Shute

Abstract

Nevil Shute was a best-selling novelist, aeronautical engineer and managing director of an important aircraft manufacturer in Britain in the 1930s. This paper looks at his role and the attitudes he had toward labour force management, while working as the managing director of Airspeed Limited. In this role his actions and attitudes to work relations were influenced greatly by the market, labour force composition, and technological aspects of the industry. These in turn influenced the nature of the way he presented work relations in his literature.