Abstract
The world auto industry is currently experiencing the gradual diffusion of new organizing principles for manufacturing work, linked to a model of the overall production system — often called ″lean production″ (Womack, Jones, and Roos, 1990) or ″flexible production″ (MacDuffie, 1995) — that has significant productivity and quality advantages over traditional mass production. These organizing principles are increasingly likely to become the dominant model for automotive manufacturing. This provides an important opportunity to assess the extent and nature of the diffusion process, particularly across national borders, in light of past theories about the transfer of this kind of knowledge.
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MacDuffie, J.P. (1999). The Transfer of Organizing Principles in the World Auto Industry: Cross-Cultural Influences on Replication at Opel Eisenach. In: Comacchio, A., Volpato, G., Camuffo, A. (eds) Automation in Automotive Industries. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59864-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-59864-7_9
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