Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Title Page -- Copyright page -- Contents -- Figures -- Tables -- Contributors -- Preface -- 1 Motor vehicle manufacturing: the representative industry -- 2 The world automotive industry intransition -- 3 New horizons? The Third World motor vehicle industry in an international framework -- 4 The transformation of the Japanese motor vehicle industry and its role in the world: industrial restructuring and technical evolution -- 5 The impact of Japanese investment in the United States -- 6 Nothing new about Nissan? -- 7 Motor components: locational issues in an international industry -- 8 Vertical integration or disintegration? The case of the UK car parts industry -- 9 Restructuring the Swedish manufacturing industry - the case of the motor vehicle industry -- 10 Subcontracting in the motor industry: a case study in Coventry -- 11 Industrial restructuring and the labour force: the case of Austin Rover in Longbridge, Birmingham -- 12 Policy implications of trends and changes in the vehicle and components industries: the case of the West Midlands -- Bibliography -- Index

This book assesses the varying ways in which automobile assemblers in several countries of East and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas have sought to enhance their efficiency and flexibility in response to heightened global competition during the 1980s and early 1990s. It then explores the implications of such managerial strategies for workers and trade unions, and the responses of unions in seeking to preserve or enhance worker welfare and voice under industrial restructuring.

The Japanese automotive industry enjoyed spectacular success in the 1980s. This was largely due to the so-called 'Lean Production System' - the combination of an efficient production system, an effective supplier system, and a product development system. In the 1990s the industry fell on hard times because of the Japanese asset price bubble and extreme currency appreciation. In this book, eminent industry specialist Koichi Shimokawa draws on his thirty years of research and fieldwork with Japanese and American firms, to show how the Japanese automotive industry has managed to recover from this difficult period. He shows how firms like Toyota were able to transfer Japanese systems to overseas plants and how they have changed in order to compete in increasingly globalized markets. In addition, the book also addresses the two major challenges to the current industry model: the rise of China and the environmental and energy supply situation.

This book offers a comprehensive look at an industry that plays a growing role in motor vehicle production in the United States.

Analysing developments in digital technologies and institutional changes, this book provides an overview of the current frenetic state of transformation within the global automobile industry. An ongoing transition brought about by the relocation of marketing, design and production centres to emerging economies, and experimentation with new mobility systems such as electrical, autonomous vehicles, this process poses the question as to how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and newcomers can remain competitive and ensure sustainability. With contributions from specialists in the automobile sector, this collection examines the shifts in power and geographical location occurring in the industry, and outlines the key role that public policy has in generating innovation in entrepreneurial states. Offering useful insights into the challenges facing emerging economies in their attempts to grow within the automobile industry, this book will provide valuable reading for those researching internationalization and emerging markets, business strategy and more specifically, the automotive industry.

This book is one of the first critical analyses of the automobile industry in India. It studies the sector in general and the passenger car industry in particular, and provides valuable insights into the operation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) companies in a technology-intensive industry under changing economic regimes. The volume underlines the influence of the changing nature of foreign investment, the impact of economic reforms, technology regimes and industrial policy on growth, structural changes and development. It offers a detailed account of the trade performance of manufacturers in India’s passenger car industry. It also looks at successful cases to draw policy lessons towards encouraging quality FDI and developing India as a base for world production. A useful addition to industry studies in India, this book with its wide coverage and contemporary analyses will interest scholars and researchers of economics, Indian economy and industrial policy, industrial economics, automobile industry and manufacturing sector, development economics and international economics. It will also appeal to policymakers, practitioners and industrial associations.

The essays in this book provide the elements for a new theory of spatial development to explain the new socio-territorial reality produced by global restructuring in the 1970s and 1980s. The contributors all account for the contemporary territorial units by focusing on global economic dynamics and the history of particular places. The book looks at restructuring in the automobile and electronics industries; the significance of migrant labour and the informal economy; the consequences of female proletarianization in Southeast Asia; the implications for regional development of the incorporation of Mexico and Malaysia in the world economy; the internationalization of commercial capital and the development of financial centres;