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The article presents information on the ways federal courts have approached apex deponents and the apex doctrine. It discusses the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and explains the considerations embedded in apex depositions decisions. It reviews the courts cases including Celerity Inc. v. Ultra Clean Holdings Inc., Baine v. General Motors Corp. and Grateful Dead Productions v. Sagan in which courts have applied and declined the apex doctrine.

In this article, the author considers what it is about the conduct of economics that led so many able economists to choose error rather than truth in the example of General Motors' acquisition of Fisher Body. The events in this example, the author claims, never happened. The author discusses references to opportunism in the relations of Fisher Body and GM, the first of which being in a paper by Benjamin Klein, Robert Crawford, and Armen Aclhian, which claimed GM became unhappy with the price they paid for bodies.

This article about the social responsibility of the large corporation is not a paper about stewardship in general. If it were, it would have to focus primarily on the principle of long-term market accountability and the related principle of fidelity to long-term stockholder interests. Most of management's stewardship responsibilities can be subsumed under those two principles. This paper will deal with areas in which those two principles alone are not adequate to define management's stewardship responsibilities. These areas of social accountability occur chiefly where the interests of employees or the general public are at stake - where their human and social purposes sometimes collide with the more limited commercial purposes of the large corporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of a joint GM/UAW ceremony on changes in the traditional labor-management culture. Ceremonies can help change corporate culture when the actual event is transformed into an organizational story. Stories help motivate change because they provide purpose and clues to new behavior patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Donaldson Brown developed the expanded Return on Investment (ROI) measure, or DuPont formula, in 1914. However ROI was not Brown's only contribution to financial management. His dealer ten-day reporting system was widely and rapidly adopted through-out the auto industry. His ideas to support a variety of forecasting and planning techniques supported decentralized corporate management and his pricing processes were cutting-edge developments that others tried to emulate. Flexible budgeting at General Motors, frequently unrecognized, also was in place during his financial administration in the early 1920s. ROI remains Browns most prominent contribution and the technique achieved status as a dominant approach to financial management in industrial corporations by the 1950s. As a national standard-of-performance measure, it was supported by varying sources including the American Management Association as well as in the teaching materials of academics, especially Robert N. Anthony of the Harvard Business School. The impact of these forms of dissemination led to ROI being adopted eventually at the Ford Motor Company when its previously autocratic centralized style of Ford family management was replaced by a team known as the Whiz Kids, led by Harvard Business School alumnus Robert McNamara and a former GM vice president, Ernest Breech. This paper asserts the significance of the innovations developed by Brown as being among the most important of those initiated in 20th century corporate America, and thus among the most important in the development of 20th century accounting and financial management thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stunning decline of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler over the past decade has rendered the once 'Big Three' US automakers a vulnerable 'Detroit Three'. In their attempts to return to profitability, the Detroit Three have undertaken a series of 'turnarounds' aimed at renewing their competitive edge. Through this corporate restructuring agenda, 250,000 assembly jobs in North America have been lost, upwards of 50 auto plants have been closed, wages and benefits for new hires have been cut substantially and once strong, independent auto unions have been thoroughly overwhelmed. Permanent restructuring, then, represents a crisis strategy on the part of the corporate elite to continually intensify the demands placed on labour in the hopes of creating new conditions for capital accumulation. Working within labour geography, this paper documents the 'regional race to the bottom' in the North American auto industry while reminding labour geographers that capitalist restructuring is a powerful constraint on labour agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we introduce an ACD-ECOGARCH(1,1) model. An exponential autoregressive conditional duration model is used to describe the dependence structure in durations of ultra-high-frequency financial data. The innovation process of the ACD model then defines the interarrival times of a compound Poisson process. We use this compound Poisson process as the background driving Lévy process of an exponential continuous time GARCH(1,1) process. The dynamics of the random time transformed log-price process are then described by the latter process. To estimate its parameters we construct a quasi maximum likelihood estimator under the assumption that all jumps of the log-price process are observable. Finally, the model is fitted for illustrative purpose to General Motors tick-by-tick data of the New York Stock Exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The hot blow forming of magnesium sheet offers significant opportunity for forming complex, lightweight parts for automotive applications. This paper characterizes the elevated-temperature formability of AZ31 magnesium sheet materials and the effect of processing conditions on the performance of these materials. In addition, magnesium sheet application development at General Motors Corporation is reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The aim of this paper is to provide answers to two significant questions. The first question is "what is the comprehensive action for the Big 3 to overtake Toyota Company?" The second question is "Can TOC (Theory of Constraints) really deal with this kind of complicated problem effectively?" Design/methodology/approach — In order to address this question and come out with a reasonable answer, this study uses the Theory of Constraints to discover the root causes and countermeasures for the Big 3 to break through their paradigms. Findings — It is worthwhile to highlight that we have demonstrated that a sophisticated case in global competition of the motor market can provide solutions with only four TOC logic trees. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the four TOC logic trees fit perfectly well with each of the four problem solving steps in two aspects: (1) It provides a shortcut through mirror imaging process and (2) It enhances the clarity of the thinking process. Research limitations/implications — However, there remains some issues open for further exploration: (1) How can we make sure that the appropriate core problem(s) or root cause(s) has been identified in CRT (Current Reality Tree) and it is indeed the most meaningful one? (2) How can we proceed from CRT to FRT (Future Reality Tree) & further from FRT to PT (Prerequisites Tree) more effectively? (3) How can we discover key obstacles from PT and how to develop action plans from TT (Transition Tree) smoothly? (4) How to refine and integrate these feasible solution sets coming out from TT into the optimal solution scheme to be adapted in the real world? Originality/value — This study demonstrates how TOC problem solving can help to solve the core problems and root causes of "can the Big 3 overtake Toyota?" It not only gives managerial insights for the Big 3 to break through their paradigms to fight back Toyota; but also identify how a complex problem beyond production field can be analyzed and dealt with effectively. Paper type–Case study paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last several years, the interest in wireless networking has grown significantly due to the availability of many wireless products, such as cell phones, wireless enabled mice, keyboards, modems, and many other products. Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, personal digital assistance (PDAs), and laptops are becoming common. Wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) products are growing at a rapid rate. Several companies have already started developing WiMax products. The reason for the rapid growth of wireless technology is that it provides the users with additional convenience over the wired technology. General Motors Corporation introduced a Bluetooth network in its 2003 Saab 9–3 model car. Having a wireless personal area network (WPAN) in a vehicle will allow the driver to control the various operations within the vehicle without taking his hands off the steering wheel. For example, the driver will be able to make a phone call through a Bluetooth-enabled headset and a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone using voice-activated dialing features. If the Bluetooth network is connected to the vehicle's wired network through an appropriate gateway device, then the driver will be able to control the lights, windshield wipers, air flow, heat, and various other features of the vehicle through a Bluetooth-enabled headset and voice-activated features. An in-vehicle WPAN will also allow the users to use their PDAs as electronic car keys. Though an in-vehicle WPAN can provide the users with many convenient features, it can also make the vehicle system vulnerable to many types of security attacks unless it is properly designed. In this paper, the authors present a technique for building an in-vehicle secure WPAN (SWPAN). The technique is user friendly and easy to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mexican automotive industry has been undergoing continuous and rapid change over the past two decades. Much of this change has been understood in the context of related processes of firm restructuring and globalization. The paper examines GM's global strategies and describes the profound transformation of Mexican affiliates in re-orientating away from production for the domestic market towards global operations. It also analyses the successful experience of Delphi (GM's former components division) in Ciudad Juarez as an example of how the agglomeration can add value under specific social and institutional conditions by forming a sectoral cluster in which a network of companies accelerate learning, especially among engineers and technicians. Delphi is one of the most conspicuous examples of the process of productive integration within the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as well as a model of technological learning and upgrading in an emerging economy. Finally the paper examines the limited influence of public policy initiatives aimed at building on the upgrading strategies of transnational firms in Mexico to stimulate endogenous regional development by local suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An opportunity to study the technical and organizational impact of management accounting system changes has emerged with companies' adoption of activity based costing (ABC). This paper provides a structured account of experimentation with, and adoption and adaptation of ABC in General Motors Corporation, from 1986 to 1993. From this case, the paper develops a frame- work for evaluating ABC implementation and hypotheses about factors that influence implementation. The search for factors that influence ABC implementation success is guided by the information technology and organizational change literatures, as well as anecdotal evidence of factors that influence ABC implementation success, Data is gathered from interviews, archival records, and direct observation and the primary method of analysis is within case comparison of data sources. The theory of ABC implementation that emerges is one of an evolutionary sequence of implementation stages that are influenced by sociotechnical factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General Motors (GM) came close to disappearing during the recent severe recession. Without the intervention of the Federal Government, this automaker would have been liquidated in bankruptcy proceedings. GM is a very large organization with a long history, a major international presence, and annual revenues that peaked in 2006 in excess of $200 billion. This article examines General Motors to answer two broad questions: What factors led to its near destruction? What changes must the company make in order, not merely to survive, but to reacquire its position as a very successful global enterprise? Theoretical resources for answering such questions come from the study of organizations. This includes the more recent work in the sociology of organizations on private sector entities such as firms and industries as well as the literature on corporate governance. Additional resources are the area of economic sociology and the literature on corporate strategy. Substantive contributions of the paper are in its identification of problem areas for General Motors, with suggestions about needed changes. The problem area that is most emphasized is an organizational structure and an organizational culture that no longer serve the company well, because their actual operation has repeatedly led the firm into trouble. Theoretical outcomes of the paper include the demonstration of the utility, as well as certain limitations, of the sociology of organizations and the literature on corporate governance for this problem area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that an adequate approach to the firm should be able to accommodate the complexities of actual firm development. The latter is conceptualized in terms of three general stages: prime movers or drivers of change, change processes, and change attractors. Furthermore, any 'real-world' firm is both a technical and an institutional unit. To emphasize the importance of 'real firm' analysis, the discussion presented here revolves around an understanding of the much considered case of General Motors and Fisher Body integration has developed over time. Generalization from this case suggests that an integrated view of the firm is necessary that combines the three stages and the two bases (technical and institutional). Six general perspectives on the firm are identified as having technical or institutional bases that are relevant in each of the three stages. This integrated approach to the firm is explored in terms of the general topic of firm development. It is concluded that, without an integrated approach to firm development, a potentially biased or incomplete analysis can result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper seeks to use branding literature to understand the rise and fall of GM's brands. Design/methodology/approach - The approach takes the form of presenting a case analysis using secondary sources covering GM's brands and products, managerial leadership, and market and financial performance throughout its 100-year history. Findings - During much of its first 50 years, GM was led by engineers who pioneered professional brand management, and through intelligent allocation of resources created one of the world's strongest portfolio of brands. Government anti-trust hearings shifted GM to a cost-cutting orientation during its second 50 years that had a negative impact on the GM brands and brought the current financial problems. Research limitations/implications - This is a case study of only one firm, but parallels are drawn with other firms that have had similar brand issues. Practical implications - Firms with multiple brands need top management leadership to ensure that each brand has a unique mission with minimal overlap and adequate resources for product development, innovation, and communications to achieve its mission. If the mission or resources disappear, non-core brands need to be terminated. Governments that wish to support well managed firms with strong brands need to be careful in using anti-trust actions, and should not force firms to make products that are not desired by customers. Originality/value - The paper takes a novel approach to evaluating the current state of General Motors by examining the factors that led to chronic mismanagement of its brands, which in turn has reduced brand equity, market share, and profits, and that have magnified GM's problems with labor and legacy costs, productivity, and product mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over forty years, Henry Jamison Handy (1886-1983) operated one of the leading industrial film studios in the United States, the Jam Handy Organization. Based in Detroit, Handy's studio was conveniently located in America's industrial heartland, and produced hundreds of advertising, training, and informational films for National Cash Register, General Motors, RCA, and other growing industries looking to take advantage of business opportunities afforded by the new media. Until the firm was broken up in 1970, its clients also included local governments, the military, and educational and religious organizations. The paper concentrates on Handy's use of various animation techniques in its films, and the influence on them of theatrical cartoon styles developed by J.R. Bray, the Fleischer brothers, and the UPA studio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of General Motors (GM) ongoing effort in engineering the next generation energy storage systems for future electric vehicles, this paper presents many of the key system and vehicle level issues that GM has found to be relevant or unique to the use of Li-ion batteries in vehicle applications. The issues presented include battery life, thermal management, crash worthiness and electronic monitoring systems. A focused effort on understanding each of these issues is underway at GM, but additionally, work is being done to optimize how these issues interact with each other at the vehicle level. This optimization is a key element to ensuring the vehicle ultimately meets customer expectations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic crisis has affected many areas but the auto industry is perhaps one of the most affected. Renault, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, BMW are just some of the big players caught unprepared. Through this paper we propose an analysis of the automotive market in Romania in order to understand the sales decrease of the last two years. At the same time we aimed at understanding the reasons that led to a decrease in car sales, what were the measures taken by the government to stop this phenomenon and how the economic crisis influenced the automotive field in Romania. An objective image of the situation in the automobile market in Romania at this moment also requires an analysis of the marketing environment and the changes it has undergone over time. Last but not least we will try to find a series of measures to re-launch the car market in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on industrial relations in MNCs remains limited to aggregate concepts and dominant actor groups. Focusing on a case study of the 2004 wildcat strike at GM Bochum, Germany, this paper argues for the inclusion of genuinely local, micro-level perspectives and marginalised actors. It makes use of an extended framework of actor embeddedness, which introduces interests and situations as core variables. The case analysis shows how diverging interests of Opel shop stewards, workers and works council members led to a multiplication of conflict lines and the development of competing rationalities within the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the heels of last year's downgrades of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. to noninvestment grade status, the haircut unwinding of exposed collateralised debt obligations reverberated in mounting regulatory unease about current risk measurement standards of derivatives and their impact on financial stability. Probable knock-on effects of the recent bankruptcies of US auto parts supplier Delphi and two major airlines have fuelled groundswell concern about complex structured finance techniques, such as customised single-tranche and hybrid collateralised debt obligations with overlay structures, against the background of tightening credit spreads and greater dislocation in the correlation market. Subsequent warnings about the resilience of credit risk transfer to systemic crisis, however, hardly extended beyond indistinct assessments of how derivatives might propagate asset shocks across different capital market segments. This brief paper defines structured finance in order to inform a more specific debate about the regulatory challenges posed by the assembly of asset exposures and credit risk transfer in complex structured finance transactions that marry considerations of profitability and diversification alike.Journal of Derivatives & Hedge Funds (2007) 13, 199–213. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jdhf.1850070 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we wish to draw on comparative survey data collected at the GM plant in Ellsemere Port (Britain) and the Fiat plant at Melfi (Italy) to debate the assumption that new forms of work and organisation of the labour process, which have been introduced under the High Performance Work Systems (HPWS), lead to the improvement in employee experience of employment in the automotive industry. Thus, the article aims to critically evaluate the claims made by the literature for HPWS - the heir to lean production - regarding its putative positive impact upon employees. Conclusions are that HPWS can be understood as a distinctive pattern of management strategies developed to confront workplace labour organization. Rather than to empower employees and produce high workers' quality of working life, we suggest they produce unevenness on the latter measured in terms of employee perceptions of the consequences of factory regimes on, work intensification, performance monitoring, stress, work-life balance and employee consultation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses an empirical study of the collaborative business relationships between Opel Portugal as a subsidiary the American automotive manufacturer General Motors and its Portuguese-based direct suppliers (PBDS) as a means of exploring the contributions of the three research traditions of supply chain management, multinational theory and, crucially, the role of the IMP approach. Within this research, the supply chain management concept to partnering is used to provide a bridge between the dyadic and network perspectives. Also, due to its potential in describing complex business networks and in capturing the nature of dyadic business relationships, the analytical tool related to the IMP work, the ARA (activities-resources-actors) model, by Häkansson and Snehota, is a major influence on the development of the conceptual framework presented in this study. The case results indicate the possibility of mapping the constructs of the partnering approach onto the ARA model to understand the dyad within a network context where the MNC's structure and operation exerts on often constraining role on the possible dyadic interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One approach to developing knowledge management systems is to seed the system in key communities of practice and then encourage its customization and spread throughout the enterprise by local (‘grassroots’) initiative. This has the benefit of worker buy-in and adaptation of the local systems to their workflows. The concept is that, in exchange for some loss of control and standardization, the grassroots systems will be used and appreciated and will grow into an enterprise-wide system. In this paper, we discuss this approach and how it is emerging in General Motors' Variation-Reduction Adviser, a manufacturing knowledgesharing and lessons-learned system. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to engage the organization theory community in contemporary debates over the role of the corporation in American society by using the case of the Saturn corporation to develop and illustrate a stakeholder theory of the firm. One normative and three positive questions are posed for a stakeholder theory: The normative question is: Why should stakeholder models be given serious consideration at this moment in history? The positive questions are: (1) Under what conditions is a stakeholder firm likely to emerge in the United States, (2) what are the critical determinants of performance in a stakeholder firm, and (3) what will determine the sustainability and diffusion of this organizational form in the American environment? The history, design features, and dynamics of the labor-management partnership at Saturn are used to illustrate and interpret a specific case of employees as stakeholders. Saturn's original mission, governance structure, and internal processes fit the characteristics of a stakeholder firm. Employees establish themselves as influential, definitive stakeholders by using their knowledge to improve organizational performance. The local union likewise contributes to firm performance by organizing workers into a dense social network that contributes to problem solving, conflict resolution, and quality improvement. However, the legal and political environment in which the firm operates produces considerable uncertainty over the sustainability and diffusion of Saturn's features in particular, and the stakeholder organizational form in general. Additional hypotheses and research questions are proposed to continue theory building around the more general model of the stakeholder firm. Researchers are encouraged to take up the analysis of stakeholder models and thereby contribute to the contemporary and future debates over the role of the corporation in American society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been many studies on teamwork in the car industry but only a few have compared trade union strategies on teamwork in two countries. The two case studies analyze the strategies of a British and a German trade union in their respective plants: General Motors British Vauxhall and the German Opel plant. The analytical framework for the comparison utilizes Miles and Snow's model of prospector, defender, analyzer, and reactor strategy as well as Walton, Cutcher-Gershenfeld and McKersie's concepts of strategic negotiations and institutional security. The paper concludes that British trade unions adopted a defender strategy, while the German union used a prospector strategy and that institutional security supports the development and application of union strategies on teamwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the public interest reports of General Motors from 1971 to 1990 and presented the contents thereof herein. The principal areas disclosed by GM during those years that are discussed in this paper were minorities, women, and employment issues, energy and the environment, international operations, automotive safety, and philanthropic activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the public interest report as a vehicle through which a firm might disclose information in the public interest. We concluded that there were at least three principal forces driving GM's disclosures. They included public attention focused on, potential costs associated with, and the relative subjectivity of an issue. In reading their public interest reports, it became clear that GM is socially responsive in matters of public interest. Whether they are socially responsible is a judgment not within the scope of this study. However, we do not preclude the possibility that the report may serve as a vehicle which would build a certain momentum in public responsibility, and thus partially drive decisions made by management in social issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Production capacity has always been one of the most important strategic variables for the major automobile companies. Decisions by individual companies concerning the overall level of capacity, the type of facility (e.g., the level of flexibility), and the location of that capacity (e.g., in the United States or abroad) are discussed in great detail in the popular business press. In this paper, we describe a model developed for General Motors to aid m making decisions about capacity for four of their auto lines. The model incorporates elements of scenario planning, integer programming, and risk analysis. All the input and output is done using Lotus 1-2-3. Although the presentation is motivated by the particular application in the auto industry, the model represents a general purpose approach that is applicable to a wide variety of decisions under risk. An example in this paper uses actual data, appropriately transformed to ensure confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article announces various events related to the field of operations research in the U.S. The Operations Research Society of America will hold its seventeenth national meeting at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in New York on May 18-20, 1960. A symposium, entitled "The Theory of Traffic Flow," was held by General Motors Corp. at the Research Laboratories in Warren, Michigan on December 7-8, 1959. The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics will publish the first issue of Volume IV of "Theory of Probability and Its Applications," an English translation of the Russian journal "Teoriya Veroyatnostei i ee Primeneniya."

The article presents an update on business enterprises as of October 2007. An agreement have been signed by Alcoa and United Aircraft Corp. (UAC) wherein the former will supply the latter with materials for its future generation civil aircraft. An agreement for the construction of a lead smelter in Juiz de Fora, Brazil have been signed by Ausmelt Ltd. and Votorantim Metais Zinco SA. General Motors has selected Novelis to supply aluminum sheet for the hood of the 2008 Cadillac CTS automobile.

Multinational companies (MNC) are today one of the most important challenges for the trade union movement. Against this backdrop, and given that the growth of MNC has been a long-term historical process, it is rather surprising how little efforts labour historians have devoted to the topic — despite the existence of a relevant and rich sociological and industrial relations literature. The article aims to contribute to fill this gap with a case study analysis of international trade union networks at Ford and General Motors, two firms in which such networks emerged early after the Second World War, and which today, at least in Europe, stand out as 'best practice' cases of international labour cooperation in the guise of European works' councils. The paper inquires into the changes in the motives, forms, and practical results of cross-border cooperation initiatives at Ford and GM in Western Europe during the second half of the twentieth century, and interprets these patterns against the backdrop of the broader development of trade union internationalism during the post-war period, and the more specific challenges organized labour faced in these two multinational firms. I argue that serious attempts for international cooperation were already made during the 1950s and 1960s but were frustrated because of management obstruction and also because of fears among major European unions that international bargaining could weaken national union structures and solidarity notions. It was only during the 1990s that the emergence of European works' councils led to the first tangible results of international cooperation, reflecting above all the much more threatening labour market consequences of MNC development during that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we review the evolution of the Quality Educator Program (QEP), a program sponsored by the United Auto Workers (UAW)/General Motors (GM) that employs school teachers, administrators, and college and university faculty each summer in GM assembly plants. The QEP provides educators and those in industry the unique opportunity to interact and observe one another in a common workplace for a 4-6 week time period. Participation in the QEP allows educators the chance to observe first-hand the UAW/GM's use of "quality networks." We argue that quality networks hold promise for improving the day-to-day operation of public schools by allowing new and better relationships to develop among educational professionals, and between educators and the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the development of Civic Park, an industrial community and neighborhood, in Flint, Michigan, from 1916 to 1919. The city's growing population and housing shortage, the involvement of the Civic Building Association (CBA) and the General Motors Modern Housing Corporation, and the neighborhood's role in developing the city's racial geography are discussed.

Focuses on the political career of Frank Murphy, former governor of Michigan. Information on a legislation he signed to enhance assistance for the unemployed, aged and infirm; Details on his support and the development of the New Deal; Role in managing a conflict between General Motors and its employees who went to strike.

A revealing analysis by John L. Lewis of the great General Motors sit-down strike of 1936-1937 is included among the documents in the recently opened Heber Blankenhorn Papers in the Archives of Labor History and Urban Affairs of Wayne State University. Prepared by Blankenhorn on the basis of a conversation with Lewis on February 25, 1937, only two weeks after the conclusion of the strike, the document is the best available contemporaneous source for Lewis' views concerning the settlement of the strike and the factors that contributed to the victory of the United Automobile Workers. Although initiated by sit-downs at the Atlanta Fisher body plant on November 18, 1936, and the Kansas City Fisher Body plant on December 16, 1936, the GM strike did not take on major proportions until sit- down strikes closed the Fisher Body plant in Cleveland on December 28 and the two Fisher Body plants in Flint on December 30. Governor Frank Murphy of Michigan sent the National Guard into Flint on January 12 following the famous Battle of the Running Bulls, but he used the troops to maintain the status quo rather than to dislodge the sit-down strikers.

This paper analyzes dynamics of production and inventories at the General Motors Corporation during the 1920's and 1930's. We begin by examining anecdotal evidence on the nature of the production control system in force during that period. Motivated by that evidence, we then extend the conventional linear-quadratic model of production behavior to take account of annual shutdown. Finally, we apply the modified model to newly available data on monthly unit production, sales, and inventories during 1924-1940. GM appears to have been aiming to maintain a targeted level of inventory relative to expected sales amid, secondarily, to smooth production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1983 General Motors Inc. and Toyota Inc. formed a joint venture, the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., to assemble autos in the United States. For Toyota, the venture was a first attempt to locate production in America. General Motors viewed the venture as a means of learning how to produce low-cost, high quality, small vehicles. Facing an onslaught of anti-union Japanese firms, the United Auto Workers had so demonstrate that unions would not be an impediment to Japanese production in the United States. By 1986 the venture was termed a success. This paper considers the welfare effects of international joint ventures among competing manufacturers, as applied to the U.S. auto industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General Motors uses large equipment fleets (railcars and trucks) for shipping vehicles from assembly plants to dealers. Mode and routing decisions for product distribution (loaded movement decisions) affect where equipment is needed and where it will become available. This, in turn, affects decisions on allocating empty equipment to reloading points (empty movement decisions). Hence, loaded and empty movement decisions are interrelated. The benefits of coordinating empty equipment allocation decisions over a network are well known. Typically, however, loaded and empty movement decisions are made separately. This research studies the savings potential from coordinating loaded and empty movements in large networks. A tactical planning model is developed to minimize total transportation cost by making loaded and empty movement decisions simultaneously. Tests using actual GM vehicle delivery data compare total costs achieved through coordinating loaded and empty movements to total costs when these decisions are optimized separately, and to total costs when each plant operates independently. Results confirm that systemwide optimization of empty movements is important, but also show that the additional benefits of coordinating loaded and empty movements are very small, reducing total cost by less than 1% for GM's network. Sensitivity analysis shows that savings would be only 3% under conditions most favorable to coordination. This suggests that while system-wide control of empty equipment allocation is important for reducing total costs, operational decisions on loaded and empty movements can be made separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors develop a general model of local-level bargaining in the multi-plant firm. According to this model, when the parent firm has the ability to allocate production differentially across plants, the local union may be motivated to work with local management to reduce production costs and increase profitability, in order to increase plant employment or minimize reductions in plant employment. A case study using data from General Motors' Lansing Grand River Assembly (LGRA) and United Auto Workers Local 652, collected in part from interviews conducted in 2003--2008, shows how the parties established a joint responsibility system of collective bargaining that encouraged the union to reduce production costs and increase profitability by accepting responsibilities traditionally borne by management. The authors also demonstrate that General Motors, consistent with budget, capacity, and political constraints, invested in LGRA and assigned new product to LGRA, thus supporting the hypothesized incentive structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goldberg unconvincingly claims that the General Motors (GM)-Fisher Body contract was in fact legally unenforceable. But even if Goldberg's contract law conclusion were correct, it is economically irrelevant. It is clear from the actions of Fisher and GM and from the testimonial and other contemporaneous evidence that both transactors considered the contract legally binding and behaved accordingly. Therefore, proper economic analysis of the Fisher-GM case should continue to assume contract enforceability, and the economic determinants of organizational structure illustrated by the case remain fully valid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the analysis of vertical integration by contract versus ownership, one event has dominated the discussion--General Motors' (GM) merger with Fisher Body in 1926. The debates have all been premised on the assumption that the 10-year contract between the parties signed in 1919 was a legally enforceable agreement. However, it was not. Because Fisher's promise was illusory the contract lacked consideration. This note suggests that GM's counsel must have known this. It raises a significant question in transactional engineering: what is the function of an agreement that is not legally enforceable? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses innovation and the nature of management theory regarding leadership values and practices in the U.S. Trust-based collaboration and knowledge creation and sharing may be declining in the U.S. due to a lack of emphasis on leadership style and values that support these approaches as a means to innovation. Management theories in the 1960s and 1970s flowed from successful practices of decentralized management and effective delegation at companies such as General Motors and Sears. The author describes a community collaborative theory of management derived from the theories of Douglas McGregor and Rensis Likert.

Although alliances often create valuable learning opportunities, the exploitation of the opportunities is a difficult, frustrating, and often misunderstood process. More often than not, firms learn little from their alliance partners. This article examines General Motors (GM) and its exploitation of the learning opportunity created by NUMMI, its California-based alliance with Toyota. Over the past few decades, GM has steadily and significantly improved its quality and productivity relative to its main rivals. A key factor in this improvement has been knowledge transferred from Toyota to NUMMI and NUMMI to GM. This article describes how GM transferred the "sticky" knowledge of NUMMI to the initially skeptical GM manufacturing community. The learning mechanisms employed included managerial assignments to NUMMI, visits and tours to NUMMI, a technical liaison office for managing learning activities, leadership commitment and involvement in the learning process, and a learning network to articulate and spread the knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The General Motors/UAW strike in June-July 1998 involved a 54-day work stoppage. General Motors and automobile analysts have attempted to quantify the loss from this strike and have come up with varied numbers. The stock market analysts' reactions to the strike, and consequently, the stock market price reaction, vary depending on which estimation method is employed. There is no real consensus among these various sources because their "economic loss" estimates rely on predictions of how many of the vehicles could not be produced and sold as a result of the strike (or recovered in future quarters). Using recent developments in the cost management literature, we determine the cost of unused capacity or the "accounting loss" suffered by General Motors during the second and third quarters of 1998. We show that General Motors may have lost about $2,332.7 million after taxes (excluding Delphi) due to the strike and an additional $1,313.8 million after taxes (excluding Delphi) due to capacity unused for other reasons. More importantly, such "accounting losses," to the extent they are not strike-related, are expected to continue each year unless market conditions improve or the company takes action to reduce its capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from surveys, interviews, direct observation, and records of quality performance, the author examines the system of co-management created through the General Motors--United Auto Workers partnership at the Saturn Corporation. Under this partnership, each department, or module, is jointly managed by union-represented and non-represented advisors. The author credits the union with building a dense communications network throughout Saturn's management system. Compared to non-represented advisors, union advisors showed greater levels of lateral communication and coordination, which had a significant positive impact on quality performance. Also positively associated with quality outcomes at the module level were balanced time use, with each advisor engaging in both production and people management, and alignment between union-represented and non-represented advisors regarding their priorities, responsibilities, practices, and job definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the efforts of General Motors Corp. (GM) in building Saturn Corp. to be the key to GM's long-term competitiveness, survival, and success. Saturn's corporation mission is to market compact vehicles which are developed and manufactured in the U.S., with focus placed on quality, cost, and customer satisfaction. After two years in the market Saturn had proved itself to be one of the strongest brands in the U.S. The author discusses the brand equity held by Saturn. Seven areas of strategy which contributed to Saturn's position as a strong brand are identified including the development of customer relations and retail strategies. INSETS: The 1993 recall.;Gateway 2000..

There has been a great deal of recent discussion and strong advertising claims concerning the extent of the quality gap between American and Japanese auto manufacturers. This article explores developments over the last decade, providing an assessment of the size and nature of the remaining gap. In particular, the author shows how consideration of new product development practices changes the way we should assess measures of quality performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comparative analysis of cooperative industrial relations in two U.S. automobile plants. The General Motors (GM) assembly plant in Van Nuys, California is contrasted with the New United Motor Manufacturing Co. Inc. (NUMMI) in Fremont, California. The NUMMI plant has a well-functioning cooperative labor relations system. The Van Nuys plant suffers from poor labor-management relations. NUMMI has a significantly different record in terms of profitability, product quality, labor-management relations, and worker satisfaction. A team concept is central to the NUMMI production system.

Organizational participants learn that "getting ahead" in organizational life comes from dramatizing a fantasy about the organization's perfection. The fantasy is the return to narcissism, in which the organization and its highest participants are seen as the center of a loving world. Since the return to narcissism is impossible, orienting the organization to the dramatization of this fantasy means that the organization loses touch with reality. The result is organizational decay--a condition of systemic ineffectiveness. Organizational decay is illustrated through the case of General Motors. Specific dimensions considered are; commitment to bad decisions; advancement of participants who detach themselves from reality and discouragement of reality-oriented participants who are committed to their work; creation of the organizational jungle; isolation of management; development of a hostile orientation to the environment; transposition of work and ritual, loss of creativity; dominance of the financial staff; development of cynicism or the loss of reality; and overcentralization. Organizational decay may be compared with the consequences of hubris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of the article argues that corporations should be held accountable for any human rights violations they have been guilty of, and that powerful firms such as General Motors Corp. and Sony Corp. should not be excused of any violations they created. But, the author argues against a point made by professor Kevin Jackson in the "Journal of Business Ethics" when he stated that firms should be treated as individuals in the matter of human rights. The author states that firms should be held accountable for depriving people of the object of a right, and for protecting the right from being deprived, but that nations, states, and individuals are responsible for restoring to people whose rights have been violated the object of the right.