Total quality management in the auto industry: Feminine values in a man\u27s world?

The objective of this paper was to determine how much of the Total Quality Management (TQM) principles have been adopted by the U.S. carmakers up to now which is about fifteen to twenty years after the race to quality started, how the position of women in that industry has evolved over the same period of time, and if more female presence at top executive positions would better promote TQM principles

The U.S. Motor Vehicle Industry: Confronting a New Dynamic in the Global Economy

[Excerpt] This report provides an in-depth analysis of the 2009 crisis in the U.S. auto industry and its prospects for regaining domestic and global competitiveness. It also analyzes business and policy issues arising from the unprecedented restructurings that occurred within the industry. The starting point for this analysis is June-July 2009, with General Motors Company (GM or new GM) and Chrysler Group LLC (or new Chrysler) incorporated as new companies, having selectively acquired many, but not all, assets from their predecessor companies. The year 2009 was marked by recession and a crisis in global credit markets; the bankruptcy of General Motors Corporation and Chrysler LLC; the incorporation of successor companies under the auspices of the U.S. Treasury; hundreds of parts supplier bankruptcies; plant closings and worker buyouts; the cash-for-clunkers program; and increasing production and sales at year’s end. This report also examines the relative successes of the Ford Motor Company and the increasing presence of foreign-owned original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), foreign-owned parts manufacturers, competition from imported vehicles, and a serious buildup of global overcapacity that potentially threatens the recovery of the major U.S. domestic producers. This report, which establishes a context for examining the industry and analyzes a unique but highly specific period in the U.S. automobile industry’s history, will not be updated

Who Really Made Your Car?: Restructuring and Geographic Change in the Auto Industry

The authors present the key characteristics of the vast network of auto parts suppliers and describe the changing geography of U.S. motor vehicle production at the local, regional, national, and international levels.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1011/thumbnail.jp

Ownership concentration in Russian industry

Using a unique dataset built for the World Bank’s Country Economic Memorandum, we find that a relatively small number of tycoons ('oligarchs') control a substantial share of Russia’s economy. Oligarchs seem to run their empires more efficiently than other Russian owners. While the relative weight of their firms in Russian economy is huge, they do not seem to be excessively large by the standards of the global economy where most of them are operating. However, a majority of the Russian population deems their property rights illegitimate, which creates a fundamental problem for building a democratic and prosperous Russia.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan: Case Studies of the Automobile, Finance, and Health Care Industries

Having historically received very little foreign direct investment, Japan has experienced a substantial increase in such inflows in recent years. This paper analyzes the impact of the growing presence of foreign firms on the Japanese economy through detailed case studies on the automobile, finance, and health care industries. The wholesale & retail and the telecommunications sector are also briefly examined. The case studies show that in the sectors considered, foreign firms in one way or another are contributing to a greater degree of competition, are exposing domestic firms to global best practice, and are increasing the range of products and services available in Japan. In many of the sectors, they are also contributing to changes in industry structure and employment practices. The case studies thus illustrate that foreign direct investment - even at its present levels, which, although large by Japanese standards, are still low in international comparison - can be an important catalyst for change and hence help to reinvigorate the Japanese economy.

Traveling the Road to Redemption: Toyota Motor Corporation's Rhetoric of Atonement As Response to the 2010 Recall Crisis

Abstract This dissertation is a case study of Toyota Motor Corporation's movement from communicative failure to communicative success during the massive 2010 auto recall. It is the author's contention that the movement to success was accomplished through a sub-genre of apologia known as atonement. Atonement not only provided a way for the automaker to repent and take actions to address the needs of its audience of Toyota owners but also provided a way for Toyota to return to the narratives, ideology and values that are part of the Toyota Way

(Not) knowing about pay: managerial control over the understanding of pay in chinese auto parts factories

This research investigates the processes which determine how Chinese workers develop their understanding of the pay system under which they are governed at the workplace. By introducing a labour process perspective which is complementary to existing economic and organisational behavioural approaches, I examine the influence of management-labour relations in China in the shaping of workers’ pay understanding, which is fundamental to their capacity to formulate pay demands and contribute to pay determination in the workplace. In particular, I look at the role of managerial control on the shop floor in constraining workers’ access to pay information, as well as the workers’ capacity to contest pay under the social contexts of urbanisation and industrial development. Data was collected in a number of auto parts factories in Town S, southern China in 2016-2017 by interviewing workers and factory management; by undertaking participant observations in an auto part factory and a consultancy firm; and by conducting document reviews on pay-related statistics, labour laws and regulations on pay and the local context of Town S. It is found that workers’ perplexity over the pay system was an outcome of managerial control, and their compliance with managerial interests regarding reward management. Managerial control was manifested in different forms across factories with different types of production regimes. This resulted in varying processes in which workers were obscured from pay and developed responses to pay opacity in different factories. This research has, in empirical terms, contributed to deepening the understanding of the variety of pay systems in Chinese companies with various capital sources, and pay communication practices in China. It has also contributed to the re-examination of the existing literature on the social and political dimensions of pay determination which tend to take collective actors in unionised contexts for granted