Abstract: The article is focused on actual and future importance of collective bargaining at plant and company level in the German automotive industry. The impacts of restructuring of business processes, which are connected with trends towards globalisation and financialisation, are described and analysed. Empirical evidence is based on case studies in German based automobile companies. It is argued, that globalisation and financialisation are changing the balance of power within enterprises, the issues over which bargaining is taking place and the significance of certain arenas for negotiation. The paper concludes that collective bargaining still matter, and the locally embedded collective skills and cooperation play an important role in strategic choices of corporate management towards restructuring and globalisation and thereby give room to maneuver for employees' representation.

Abstract: This article has two objectives: First, it attempts to provide a framework for understanding capitalism’s resilient adaptability through analysing the roles of liberal democracy and ecological environmentalism. Both are conceptualised as capitalism’s passive revolutions in response to emerging crises – processes of constituting and reconstituting conditions for production and reproduction. Liberal democracy is seen as a political restructuring strategy aimed at producing social control with less coercive measures as well as depolitising social contradictions and economic crises. Ecological environmentalism is argued to be capitalism’s ecological restructuring attempt at the economic level in order to rescue an economic system at an impasse and to resolve the contradictions between production relations=forces and the externalities of production. Second, the article aims to conduct a critical analysis of what are considered to be passive revolutions taking place within capitalism in order to uncover their hidden mystifications, contradictions and distortions in the promotion of certain policies, practices, values, cognitions and symbols which are considered to be supportive of the existing capitalist political and economic system. The working assumption is that, due to capitalism’s modus operandi which is primarily based on capital accumulation, democratic principles and environmental concerns will eventually have to submit to this inherent imperative.

Abstract: One of the greatest points of controversy in the recent literature in political economy is the extent to which "shareholder value" oriented institutional investors are drivers of change in national systems of corporate governance. This article argues that the key question is how management cultures shape managerial responses to pressures for change from capital markets. Empirical evidence for this argument is provided through an examination of changes since the mid-1990s at the "Big Three" German integrated chemical/pharmaceutical companies: Hoechst, Bayer and BASF. Despite facing similar demands from shareholder-value oriented investors, management at the three companies have pursued quite different strategies. The end result, however, may be the same from a production regime perspective, that is, the long-run withdrawal of "Big Pharma" from Germany as a location for R&D due to a more favorable institutional framework in the US.

Abstract: The paper deals with the implications of the increasing influence of financial markets or financial agents on the automotive industry, focusing on the field of operations. It is argued that, while the power of finance and the requirements of financial investors increase, car companies have to deal with persistent or even increasing productionist requirements at the same time. This argument is based on the distinction between external and internal financialisation and on the concept of product strategies, defined by qualitatively different markets and production requirements. The paper is developed with reference to case study material from German automotive companies and concludes that, although there is no smooth financialisation of automotive operations, there is the need to find a new balance between financial and productionist logics. The alternative would be a destabilisation of car companies and the increasing disconnection between top-management and operational management can be taken as an indicat...

Abstract: This paper helps to develop the social aspect of a new agenda for automobile research through focusing on motoring expenditure in the UK by poor households. It moves the social exclusion debate on by going back to Rowntree's 1901 survey, which established that poverty entailed not having enough resources to meet the needs of the household. Rowntree's analysis of primary and secondary poverty is updated here through the focus on the resources and choices of poor households, which incur significant motoring costs as the price of participation. Statistical sources and interviews in Inner and Outer London are used to explore these issues and the analysis shows that the story is one of constraint, sacrifice and precariousness. Car ownership imposes large costs on poor households, which limit other consumption opportunities. Labour market participation may depend on such sacrifices where public transport and local employment opportunities are limited. This locks poor households into a precarious cycle whereby t...

Abstract: The paper deals with changes in the corporate governance systems of major European flagship companies in the car industry - Fiat, PSA, Renault and Volkswagen. While all four companies are protected from immediate capital market pressures either by family or state ownership, they have clearly opened up to shareholder value principles in recent years. The central questions of the paper are: to what extent traditional characteristics of corporate governance have converged under the pressure of capital markets; the different approaches companies take to governance and how this affects their performance. To answer these questions, the paper discusses the recent developments of a shareholder value policy and the corresponding changes of targets and controls, as well as of incentive systems, in these companies. The paper also assesses what these companies use the capital markets for: do companies need the stock market to finance their operations? Or does the importance of the stock market rather lie in its funct...

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to highlight how re-posing the question of car usage in broader terms than usually tends to be the case, repositions the debate both practically and ideologically. The European Union's (EU) problem of obtaining cheaper cars for the consumer in such a context thus becomes a more nuanced question of understanding how the consumption patterns of richer consumers are being cross-subsidised by those of poorer consumers. Empirical data concerning household expenditure in France and trade data from car distributors are used to highlight this cross-subsidisation effect, which is insufficiently represented in the current EU debate.

Abstract: This review article introduces a journal special issue on new agendas for auto research. It argues that old 1990s research agenda about factories, process and product has been rendered obsolete by developments in present day capitalism. The new research agendas for the 2000s are about financial issues: first, the nature and extent of capital market pressure on the assemblers for higher profits; second, multiple conflicts and cost passing behaviour involving government and consumers as much as corporate players. This review article surveys recent literature on these themes and explains how the articles in this special issue make distinctive contributions to our empirical understanding and conceptualisation of these developments.

Abstract: The paper argues that for the discourse of shareholder value to be significant and effective, there needs to be an institutional structure which supports it. This institutional matrix consists of the interaction of the following features: firstly, the dominance of forms of collective investment in equities and bonds, managed by institutional investors competing for funds from savers; secondly, the existence of liquid markets in shares and bonds which enables institutional investors to exercise choice; thirdly, the provision of information to outsiders enabling choice to be exercised on the basis of existing performance as reflected (and constructed) in financial accounting data; fourthly, the power of managers to exercise choice over patterns of merger, acquisition and organizational restructuring in order to meet shareholder requirements; finally, the development of senior management compensation schemes and career hierarchies which links incentives to share prices. The paper examines how this institutio...

Abstract: The focus of this paper is on foreign direct investment (FDI) and 'human capital enhancement' in developing countries While there are of course vast literatures on both FDI and human capital enhancement, the specific issue of how, if at all, the behaviour of multinational enterprises (MNEs) impacts on human capital enhancement in developing countries has not as yet been explicitly researched at a micro-level in any great detail The major impact of FDI on human capital enhancement appears not to have been through any action on the part of MNEs but rather from governments seeking to attract FDI via enhanced human capital One policy question is how to encourage MNEs to invest in human capital enhancement The key mechanisms, it is suggested, are those already being pursued, not all of which are obviously connected with human capital Thus public education is vital But so too are policies to enhance technological diffusion Firstly such policies will inevitably lead to further intervention from government and other public agencies to enhance human capital, as requirements and opportunities become uncovered Secondly, technological diffusion will increase the incentives for companies to take advantage of the new technologies, which will in turn require human capital enhancement And thirdly it will be an attractor not only to further FDI, but to FDI going into relatively high value added areas

Abstract: Can a strong convergence process be set in motion which will give hope that transition countries begin to catch up with the Western world? The collapse of Soviet control in Eastern Europe in 1989, and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, led everywhere to a re-evaluation of the past and a more optimistic appreciation of the pre-1945 potential of this part of the European economy. Specifically, what has been suggested is that before 1945 the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were already well into the process of modern economic growth and towards convergence with the advanced West, and that the subsequent imposition of centralised planning did long term harm to the region's prospects. Envious comparisons have been made with near neighbours such as Austria or more distant examples such as Spain and Italy. This historical revisionism has been used to support the view that, once they were freed from state control in the 1990s, these new market economies would have bright prospects....

Abstract: This paper analyses the role of institutional investors in the car industry using original data on their investments in the world's top 16 companies in this sector. It reveals the limitations of the notion of "globalised finance" in this industry and the permanence of national proximity in the context of capital markets. The paper then details the activities of institutional investors and a typology is proposed to measure their concentration and to characterise their dualistic nature. The importance of institutional investors in the ownership structure of car assemblers is then considered, along with a discussion of their possible impact on industrial strategies.

Abstract: The article sets out a controversial task of looking at the Russian and East Asian episodes of the 1997-98 international financial upheaval. It argues that despite the palpable differences in the economic structures of the two regions, the similarity in the circumstances and aftermaths of the crashes requires a re-conceptualisation of the role of financial capital in framing dependent development patterns in global capitalism. The paper looks at the following issues. First, it discusses the role of domestic monetary policies, external financial openness and export-oriented development strategies in contributing to the crises. Second, the analysis discloses the nature and role of financial indebtedness in the two cases, pointing to the fundamental problem of the finance-real economy disjuncture that had been at the centre of the two crises. Third, the paper reveals the importance and similarity of national politico-economic structures, their links to the world ruling elites in shaping the countries' models of dependent capitalism. The article argues that through a complex multi-level fusion, these factors render current plans to eliminate world inequality and restore world financial stability, largely futile.

Abstract: In the early 1990s, the Brazilian car industry gradually began to be regarded, in both Brazil and abroad, as a "promising emerging market". Heavy cross subsidy and subvention were involved in the attempt to realise what was perceived as a "market opportunity" for the Brazilian car industry. Massive income transfers occurred among consumers, producers, workers and government in Brazil, as well as between local actors and companies and, rentiers abroad. In short, the process of market creation involved heavy social costs. This paper maps several dimensions of the process of market creation as well as the social costs and the paradoxes involved. It raises issues of policy design for market creation, particularly in developing countries, and underlines the need to include market creation mechanisms in the research agenda of the automobile industry.

Abstract: This paper presents data on the financial results achieved in the 1990s by 12 major car assemblers from the USA, Europe and Japan. While some assemblers have defensible records of share price appreciation, their return on capital employed is generally mediocre and well below the level that US and UK stock markets require. This under-performance reflects ubiquitous product market constraints and, specifically, spreading direct competition, which leaves many assemblers precariously dependent on the few segments where indirect competition prevails and where profits are divided between two or three incumbents. Financial under-performance persists into the 2000s because a variety of conditions, including family control and national differences in the valuation of car companies, inhibit a global restructuring that would raise profitability. Insofar as financial under-performance by assemblers has major consequences, the end result is to increase the messy and unresolved character of present day capitalism.

Abstract: This paper traces the process whereby competition has come to be valued in our economies. Taking a step back in history, we show how it all started not with competition but with cooperation in fact...

Abstract: This paper deals with the diffusion and adoption of an organisational innovation, 'Patient Focused Care', at a British Hospital Trust. We will be discussing how PFC emerged in the U.S. context, was propagated by policy-makers, and judged worth adopting by organisational decision-makers. In providing an analysis of the case, we are attempting to bridge the gap between the policy context on the one hand, the organisational context on the other hand. The paper shows the importance of the 'local' context in shaping the adoption of a 'global' organisational innovation. The 'appropriation process' will play out in context-specific ways in terms of conflicts between managers and expert professionals; the way the 'foreignness' of the innovation plays out; and the way public policy-makers can influence the appropriation process. Most importantly, the paper intends to show how the cognitive boundaries of the N.H.S. as an 'organisational field' are beginning to move beyond national borders.