Interfirm cooperation and structural change in the European automobile industry

The past quarter-century has seen the rapid growth of interfirm cooperative arrangements, on a global scale. In the automobile industry, the forms of cooperation have ranged from mergers and acquisitions, with each partner firm retaining its corporate identity and brand name, to very informal strategic partnerships. Because of its past fragmentation, the consolidation of the European industry into “producer groups” has been a main feature of structural change. Arguably, this development and the formation of rent-seeking coalitions within the European Union were of greater significance than companies' purely technology-oriented cooperative ventures. As a result of the industry members' individual and collective rent-seeking, at the national and EU levels respectively, large price disparities among national markets have persisted. Regulatory barriers as well as the noncompetitive behavior of firms continue greatly to influence the automotive sector, despite the Union's ambitious vision of “Europe 92” as the final stage in the development of an open market for products and factors. Whatever benefits automobile producers may have derived from integration, it has done little so far to enhance consumer welfare.     

The role of the process plant contracting industry in technological change

The function of process plant contractors is to design and engineer plants, supply process technology, procure plant equipment and supervise the construction and commissioning of plant for producers in various process industries such as chemicals, gas and steel. As such they play a major part in the process of capital formation and are one of the major inputs for facilitating technological change.
This paper describes recent attempts to identify the factors which determine contractor involvement and use this information as a basis for analysing the part contractors will play in developing trchnologies such as coal conversion and biotechnology.     

Teamwork in factories within the French automobile industry

This article analyses teamwork in French car manufacturing plants and those of their suppliers. During the 1990s, the introduction of 'autonomous production units' was aimed at reducing costs, increasing quality and shortening delivery deadlines. Teamwork in a unit involved delegating responsibilities to workers and led to an increased workload.     

Parallel sourcing and supplier performance in the Japanese automobile industry

Japanese auto makers are reported to enjoy high supplier performance through long-term relationships, specific investments, and sole sourcing. Quality management consultants in the U.S. have been strongly advocating adoption of these practices. But economic and management theorists would predict that the combination of a high level of relationship-specific investments and sole sourcing will lead to problems with supplier performance. In fact the Japanese auto makers use a hybrid form of organization we term parallel sourcing. We present a transaction costs model that shows how parallel sourcing provides incentives for supplier performance associated with multiple sourcing while preserving claimed benefits of sole sourcing.     

Indicators of discontinuous technological change: an exploratory study of two discontinuities in the machine tool industry

The objective of this paper is to explore the extent to which a set of indicators of technological and industrial change can act as warning signals for technical change. A particular kind of technical change can give a new substitute such price/performance attributes that it is taken into the reach of mass market segments. Two processes of discontinuous technical change in the machine tool industry are analysed using patent data, bibliometrics, data on new entrants, relative price changes and diffusion data. In the first case (the transition from conventional to CNC machine tools) relative prices and new entrants were the first indicators to react whilst patents and bibliometrics increased in activity in parallel with the large scale diffusion of CNC machine tools. In the second case (the transition from CNC machine tools to flexible manufacturing systems) new entrants and publishing preceded the large scale diffusion by some years. The different patterns between the two cases and between these and what can be found in the literature, suggest that more work needs to be done to understand the conditions under which changes in each of the indicators can be used as a warning signal. The paper is concluded by a brief discussion which may form the basis for some further work in that direction.     

ICT-specific technological change and economic growth in Korea

This study investigates the role of information and communication technology-specific technological change in Korea's past and future. The contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to past economic growth through embodied technology in intermediate inputs and investment goods is revealed by the growth accounting methodology, which considers quality adjustment. Relative prices between ICT-related products and other goods provide an indirect measure for identifying embodied technologies. Meanwhile, ICT's contribution to future economic growth is examined via policy simulations using the computable general equilibrium model. The results imply that ICT has grown Korea's economy and that policy measures for increasing ICT investment are required for continued sustainable growth.     

Legal responses to technological change in Canada

Canadian labour laws ban lawful work stoppages while collective agreements are in force. Managerial prerogative generally governs technological change. Employees lawfully enjoy varying, but limited job security. Current laws may not deal adequately with the next wave of technology. Significantly, four jurisdictions provide midcontract arbitration.     

The diffusion of technological innovation in the commercial banking industry

This paper examines the propensity of organizations to adopt technological innovations. Technological innovations evolve from the stock of skills which organizations have accumulated over time. Linkages with extramural sources of technology are presumed to be important as well. Hypotheses are tested on a sample of commercial banks. Findings show that prior experience in information technology, in tandem with a variety of interfirm linkages, will affect the banks' decision to adopt this innovation.     

中国润滑油行业技术创新探析

近年来,国际石油公司加大了润滑油产品的技术升级换代力度,对世界润滑油行业的影响越来越大。面对强大的竞争压力,我国润滑油企业应加大技术创新力度,实现技术强企。我国润滑油企业主要通过模仿创新、合作创新、自主创新三种主要途径来提高技术整合能力。技术引进除考虑技术的先进性外,应更加注重技术的适用性。成功的技术引进遵循引进→消化吸收→再创新的过程。引进技术的二次创新存在一定的风险,应通过二次创新尽快形成具有自主知识产权的专有技术和核心产品。     

Innovation in product architecture—A study of the Chinese automobile industry

The purpose of this paper is to put forward the hypothesis that a transformation from closed integral architecture to quasi-open modular architecture contributes to the achievement of a low-cost competitive strategy by Chinese carmakers. The question, “What is quasi-open architecture in Chinese industry?” is addressed in the theoretical section, followed by the Geely case in the passenger car sector. Two perspectives form the basis of the analysis: that of the carmaker and that of its relationship with suppliers. The findings offer an insight into the competitive strategy of firms in emerging economies and some valuable observations concerning the “catching up” trajectory of Chinese firms.     

Construction robotics: technological change and work organization

Attempts to develop robots for use on construction sites are following different paths in Britain and Japan. Japanese construction firms have invested heavily in modification of existing equipment to improve productivity and quality by making good use of machine operators' skills. In contrast, British researchers are attempting to make 'quantum leaps' in construction technologies by developing automated machinery which requires minimal human intervention and operator skills. The article assesses the viability of these two contrasting approaches.     

Neo-corporatism and technological change in Australia: an international perspective

Industrialised nations have responded to the recent impact of new technology either by planning within a corporatist framework, or by reacting to changes determined by 'market forces'. Australia is moving from the second to the first strategy because of a combination of political and legal changes, building upon traditional institutions     

Analyzing an industry in change: the Irish software manual printing industry

This article is concerned with the application in a case study of three inter-related theoretical issues: new perspectives on technological change, learning organizations, and the question of market versus hierarchy in the relationships between firms. The case study is of the software manual printing industry in Ireland, and its relationship with the major, international software companies.     

When the mirror gets misted up: Modularity and technological change

This study investigates how component technological change affects the relationship between product modularity and organizational modularity (the across‐firm mirroring hypothesis). Studying the air conditioning industry, we show that the across‐firm mirroring hypothesis does not hold for technologically dynamic components and the associated supply relationships. In this case, the mirror gets “misted up” with buyers and suppliers having recourse to information sharing even in the presence of highly modular components. Our study contributes to the debate on the organizational implications of modularity and its ramifications for the theory of the firm. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Local versus global mimetism: the dynamics of alliance formation in the automobile industry

The alliance dynamics among the 35 largest firms in the worldwide automobile industry indicates that the likelihood of an alliance between any two firms depends on the local density of alliances among the members of their strategic groups, rather than on the global density of alliances in the industry. These results suggest that firms most closely observe and imitate the strategic behavior of firms who occupy the same strategic niche rather than the behavior of firms in their industry defined more broadly. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quality of working life in the automobile industry: A Canada-UK comparative study

The paper examines the impact of lean production on indicators of the quality of life at work in the automotive industry and finds that it varies across companies and to a lesser extent between countries. The paper explains this by arguing that lean production seeks to impose new employment standards. This is a contested process where management's capacity to shift to new standards and labour's ability to protect its interests vary across workplaces.     

Stock of downstream complementary assets as a catalyst for product innovation during technological change in the U.S. machine tool industry

Research summary : We investigate the effect of incumbents' stock of downstream complementary assets on their product innovation during a disruptive technological change. We theorize that a firm's stock of downstream complementary assets, by providing critical information about shifting demand conditions, will play a catalytic role in firm adaptation during such a change. Using the advent of disruptive computer numerical control machine tools in the U.S. machine tool industry during the 1970s and 1980s as the context, we find that firms with greater stocks of downstream complementary assets are likely to be product innovation leaders during such a change. Managerial summary : Disruptive changes are challenging firms across industries. We concentrate on the U.S. machine tool industry during the 1970s and 1980s when Japanese manufacturers with disruptive computer numerical control systems challenged the U.S. manufacturers. We find that, under the threat of disruption, the greater the stock of downstream complementary assets a U.S. machine tool manufacturer has, the more likely it is to be the product innovation leader with the disruptive technology. Our findings provide novel insights for managers in companies that face disruptive changes and can help them avoid the consequences of such changes as predicted by prior research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.