Diss. Jönköping : Internationella handelshögskolan, 2007.

No description available.

Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2005.

Turin has long been a town in which almost all economic activities were finalized to the mass production of cars, while the choices of its economic developments depended on those of the car firm, Fiat. In the 1950s and 1960s, both Turinese industry and labour market were tightly organised by Fiat in a pyramid-like structure, at the top of which were the car company and its workers respectively. Fiat's efforts to 'rationalize' and control the local labour and components market were not accompanied by a similar strategy towards social structure. Fiat limited itself to supporting the conservative political parties in office in Turin, which were able to gain a stable consensus by Tuninese petty bourgeoisis, but were not far-sighted enough to try to integrate the immigrant workers through a policy of reforms and services. This turned out in a very conflictual pattern of industrial relations in the late 1960s. Thus, the economic crisis which hit the mass-production firms worldwide in the mid-1970s had particularly negative effects on Fiat, due to bitter industrial relations within the plants. Elsewhere, as the large mass-production firms did not recover from the crisis, the segmentation of product markets and the availability of the new electronically-based technologies, which allow a greater flexibility together with high levels of productivity, fostered the emergence of a new competitive model of industrial organization: flexible specialization. These very market and technological conditions, interacting with the local social dynamics, also helped a wide reorganization of Turinese industry which ceased to depend strictly on Fiat's choices and orders. At the same time, the social structure of Turin became much more differentiated and the strategies of social actors proved to be no longer as linked to Fiat's decisions as in the past. Instead, throughout the 1970s Fiat was unable to respond to the new conditions of competition and to undertake a deep process of restructuring, due to the unpreparedness of its own management and to the strict unions' control over its moves. Only once the unions had been defeated in 1980, Fiat was able to take the lead among European car makers in a few years in terms of sales, technology and market strategy. My dissertation tries, therefore, to answer to the following questions: how did it happen? And how did the mentioned endogenous and exogenous factors influence Fiat's strategy? How is the Turinese model of industrial organization at the present, and what is Fiat's role in it?

Through increasingly efficient mass-production techniques, car-ownership has been made affordable to a large segment of the world's population, beginning in Europe and North America in the first decades of this century and recently extending rapidly throughout all other continents. The industry, however, is running out of major new opportunities for growth, and automotive markets in the Western World have entered the phase of maturity; this is typified by slowing growth and intensifying competition. These factors are driving fundamental change in the economics of the industry, and are forcing rationalisation and consolidation across the world. In a drive to remain competitive, the major Vehicle Manufacturers are relying more and more on the capabilities of their first-tier suppliers, and are pushing design and development responsibility further down the supply chain; suppliers are taking on a new role within the automotive industry and are increasingly becoming involved in the design and development of new products in collaboration with their major customers. The core theme throughout this research enquiry has been to investigate such practices (which have been termed co development), with particular emphasis placed on the European automotive industry. The literature within the areas of customer-supplier relationships and product development is wide and varying, and both bodies of knowledge are beginning to stress the importance of co-development in a number of industries. However, even though academics and industrialists are suggesting co development is necessary in today's marketplace, research into this area remains scarce and few insights into the improvement of such relationships can be found. This research has begun to close this gap by identifying those factors that can influence the successful transformation of co development. Through a series of focus groups, fifty-two concepts were identified that were seen to influence the success of co-development improvement activity - due to the nature of the focus group methodology, these concepts were wide-ranging and covered all aspects of the cross-company relationship, highlighting many -areas for further investigation. These concepts were reviewed and grouped, and four concepts plus sixteen sub-concepts chosen for additional analysis - these include a preparation phase, in which both organisations recognise the need for improvement and commit to enhance their existing relationship, the nature of communication across organisational boundaries, the alignment of working practices at all levels of the business, and an implementation phase in which actual improvements are realised and further sustained. These have been represented in an initial conceptual model that simply depicts the interdependencies that exist between the four high-level concepts. This conceptual model has been further tested and expanded through seven case studies; six cases were conducted at first-tier suppliers, whilst one was completed within a European-based VM. The major data collection tool used during these studies was the semi-structured interview, providing deep insights into co-development improvement from both sides of the relationship. The case studies only reiterated the importance of the concepts and sub-concepts within a co-development environment, and provided insights into the 'who, what, where, when, and how' of the topics under consideration. Finally. the concepts have been validated through a twelve-month action-research study, involving the actual implementation of the conceptual model in an industrial setting. The researcher gained first hand experience of co-development improvement, and observed an organisation struggling with the complexities of the cross-company environment. The knowledge gained throughout this period has not only emphasised the importance of the concepts and sub-concepts to co-development improvement, but has provided future implementers with insights into how one organisation has successfully transformed forty of their co-development relationships.

The Chinese automotive industry has evolved substantially over the last 55 years, in spite of multiple historical and economic hurdles. The change in the governmental policy during 1980s regarding ownership of private automobiles, from prohibition to encouragement, initiated rapid growth in the Chinese automobile industry. In the last two decades, China progressed from being nearly a truck-only producer to becoming a major producer of passenger and commercial cars. Economists consider the time between 2001 and 2007 to be a period of ‘blowout’ in the Chinese automobile industry. To date, little is known regarding this emerging automobile industry: What are the features of Chinese automobile industry? Has the Chinese automobile industry become a global player in its industry and reached economy of scale? How is the indigenous automobile sector different from international joint ventures in China? Have Chinese companies gained full transfer of technology and come to possess the capacity to develop their own designs? The subject is complicated, with many contradictory facts and interpretations. This thesis intends to address these questions by focusing on the Chinese indigenous automobile sector, through its three stages of development, using it as a model to examine the validity of various interpretations. I hope the historical appraisal of the industry’s initial development, its difficulty in transition and the internal-external factors affecting the later growth will help us understand the industrial and technological development of China’s emerging economy.

This article has as objective, to show and analyzing how the customer satisfaction in function of the Kano Model is used to take a competitive advantage within the car industry. Some results show that the impact of the customer satisfaction surveys account for 8 to 10% of the turnover of the major European car companies. In fact, in the 5 past years, the profitability of the leaders in customer satisfaction have surpassed the laggards. Leaders had a cumulative total return of + 22.5%, the SP 500 experienced a decline of -1.3% during the same period, latecomers lost - 46.3%. Therefore, these figures demonstrate how it’s important to set up a good strategic customer listening in order to take advantage on competition.

This article has as objective, to show and analyzing how the customer satisfaction in function of the Kano Model is used to take a competitive advantage within the car industry. Some results show that the impact of the customer satisfaction surveys account for 8 to 10% of the turnover of the major European car companies. In fact, in the 5 past years, the profitability of the leaders in customer satisfaction have surpassed the laggards. Leaders had a cumulative total return of + 22.5%, the SP 500 experienced a decline of -1.3% during the same period, latecomers lost - 46.3%. Therefore, these figures demonstrate how it’s important to set up a good strategic customer listening in order to take advantage on competition.

No description available.

The thesis identifies and discusses the changing structure of international trade and specialization in the industries of cars and heavy trucks. The main contribution of the thesis is that it discusses the patterns from the perspective of the car industry with the similar but in some aspects different industry of heavy trucks as a contrasting example. This method aims at giving more knowledge about the varying challenges that different industries face in a globalized economy. To authors’ knowledge such a direct comparison has not yet been done. Some results presented in the study is that while car producers compete on a global scale the producers of heavy trucks does it on a regional scale. For the OECD 23 car producing countries, this implies competition from producers in countries with low factor input costs. This is probably one of the reasons why OECD 23 car producers have raised the export value or their goods relatively more than the producers of heavy trucks. The thesis also reveals how the patterns of export and specialization have shifted dramatically in both industries.