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Debate over the transfer and adoption of industrial models prompted by the globalization of Japanese manufacturers continues to draw attention. Most discussion has concerned issues of work and employment relations, where the new multinationals have interacted most directly with host societies. Theoretical issues are addressed in a case study of operations, organization and employment relations at the Honda factory at Swindon in southern England, Honda of the UK Manufacturing. The analytical approach adopted in this paper is based on the following proposition. The relationship between Honda's global corporate strategy and the local operating environments of its factories is mediated by a nexus consisting of the production system, the organization of work, hiring and training processes, organizational processes and philosophies, and employment relations frameworks.

The author examines the critical issues facing the British steel industry as its technological basis is transformed. He identifies the need to plan on an international basis if Britain is to meet the Japanese challenge. [This paper was first read at Bradford University's Conference on The Marketing of Advanced Technology, May 1971.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic links between north-east England and Japan go back to the turn of the century, when Japan's first modern battle fleet was built by Armstrongs on Tyneside: no small irony, then, that British Shipbuilders (headquarters in Tyneside) should turn to the Japanese in the 1980s to re-learn how to build ships! Japanese direct manufacturing investment in Britain began in the early 1970s. One of the pioneer entrants, the bearing manufacturers NSK, started operations at Peterlee in mid-Durham in 1976. But the turning point for the north-east was, of course, Nissan's decision in 1984 to locate its British manufacturing operation at Washington New Town, near Sunderland. The number of Japanese companies in the north-east has since grown steadily. By the end of 1988, 20 Japanese companies were operating in the area between Teesside and the Tweed, involving 14 manufacturing plants. North-east England has the largest concentration of Japanese engineering plants in Europe, and a rapidly growing presence in electronics assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]