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Being Local Worldwide
Fortune called Asea Brown Boveri, the giant multinational corporation created in 1987, "the most successful cross-border merger since Royal Dutch linked up with Britain's Shell in 1907." The coming together of two longtime national champions in the electrotechnical industry, Sweden's ASEA and Switzerland's Brown Boveri, marked the birth of a company with truly global aspirations, one whose apparent genius for combining strong central planning with local autonomy for its plants has made it a trendsetter.An international team of researchers assesses the dynamic interplay of the forces of convergence and diversity present in ABB. Together they examine the actual workings of this multinational—in order to learn to what degree the corporate strategies are achieved in its plants. Based on a multilevel organizational study, their book compares seven plants in six countries on three continents.
Capability Development in Support of Comprehensive Approaches
"This book includes papers presented at the Second International Transformation (ITX2) Conference, held in Rome, Italy, at the NATO Defense College (NDC) June 21-23, 2011, as well as a summary of the conference discussions. Co-hosted by NDC, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), and the International Transformation (ITX) Chairs Network, the conference brought together academics, policymakers, and practitioners from 13 nations to discuss the topic of 'Capability Development in Support of Comprehensive Approaches : Transforming International Civil-Military Interactions'."--P. vii
Industrial Relations: Labour markets, labour process and trade unionism
This set is designed to capture both the complexity of the field of industrial relations globally, as well as bringing out the continuing relevance of competing theoretical approaches to the subject.
Alternatives to Lean Production
The Swedish auto industry has developed a distinct production design and work organization, exploring alternatives to the assembly line and to the traditional shop-floor hierarchy, with a model of teamwork that increases independent decision making and elicits strong union commitment. Berggren evaluates in detail the reorganization of work within the Swedish auto industry from 1970 to 1990. In his introduction to the new edition, he explores the significance of Volvo's decision to close its two most innovative plants.
Confronting Change
Autoworkers find themselves in a rapidly changing world as transnational corporations seek new forms of work organization and new boundaries for a North American auto industry. Inside the factory, management pursues new models of "lean production" that require workers to produce more with less—less time, less support, less material—in an atmosphere of accelerated and intensified labor. Outside the factory, "freetrade" policies and regional investment strategies widen the reach of transnational corporations, creating new opportunities in Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. for pitting worker against worker in a mutually destructive competition for jobs. In Confronting Change, researchers from a diverse range of universities and unions explore the impact of these changes on work and workers. The case studies and analyses show the wide range of potential outcomes as workers struggle to become actors, rather than victims, in the emerging North American auto industry.
What Machines Can't Do
Virtually every manufacturing company has plans for an automated "factory of the future." But Robert J. Thomas argues that smart machines may not hold the key to an industrial renaissance. In this provocative and enlightening book, he takes us inside four successful manufacturing enterprises to reveal the social and political dynamics that are an integral part of new production technology. His interviews with nearly 300 individuals, from top corporate executives to engineers to workers and union representatives, give his study particular credibility and offer surprising insights into the organizational power struggles that determine the form and performance of new technologies. Thomas urges managers not to put blind hopes into smarter machines but to find smarter ways to organize people. As U.S. companies battle for survival in an era of growing global competition, What Machines Can't Do is an invaluable treatise on the ways we organize work. While its call for change is likely to be controversial, it will also attract anyone who wishes to understand the full impact of new technology on jobs, organizations, and the future of the industrial enterprise.
Just Another Car Factory?
This study of CAMI Automotive, a unionized joint venture between General Motors and Suzuki, is the most comprehensive ever undertaken of a lean production plant. James Rinehart, Christopher Huxley, and David Robertson address a topic that has inspired fierce debate in industrial relations, sociology, labor studies, and human resource management. Heralded as a model of lean production when it opened in 1989, CAMI promised workers something different from traditional plants—a humane environment, empowerment, and cooperative labor-management relations. However, the enthusiasm workers felt during the orientation and early phases of production steadily declined, as did their involvement in participatory activities. Workers came to describe CAMI as "just another car factory." Union challenges and shopfloor resistance to key elements of the lean system grew, capped by a five-week strike in 1992. The authors attribute workers' disillusionment to lean production itself rather than to North American managers' inadequate implementation.
The Social Direction of the Public Sciences
This volume of the Sociology of the Sciences Yearbooks stems from our experience that collaborations between non-scientists and scientists, often initiated by scientists seeking greater social relevance for science, can be of major importance for cognitive development. It seemed to us that it would be useful to explore the conditions under which such collaborations affect scientific change and the nature of the processes involved. This book therefore focuses on a number of instances in which scientists and non-scientists were jointly involved in the genera tion of scientific results at the "interface" of science and society. Despite the considerable variety of cases reported here, a number o...
Japanese Auto Transplants in the Heartland
The idea for this book was formed during the early 1980s when the author was studying the impact of plant closings on displaced workers and communities. In one community, workers who were displaced by a plant closing expected to receive retraining funds through the Job Training and Partnership Act (JTPA), only to find that the state had committed all the JTPA funds to train new workers for a Japanese transplant. Soon it became apparent that deindustrialization, job loss, and economically depressed communities were linked with the escalating interstate competition to provide multi-million dollar incentive packages for businesses to settle in their state. When Japanese automobile companies considered coming to the United States, they fueled the interstate competition for these large projects, which promised thousands of jobs and economic growth.
Global Redefining of Working Life
Comprises nine papers. Discusses globalization, competence and flexibility, participation and pay setting. In particular, compares the effect of the EC Works Council Directive with the results of voluntary arrangements.
