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This article examines the responses and strategies developed by business, unions, and governments to the electric turn in the industry in Germany and France, Europe's main car-producing countries. We concentrate on the role of history and institutions in the determination of adjustment paths. Since institutions reflect specific histories, the electric transition in the industry can take on different forms in different countries. In both countries, governments play a supportive role, leading in France, and following in Germany. The strong works councils in German car companies are reluctant to engage in a rapid transition that would devalue the assets of the workforce and endanger past investments in internal combustion-related technology. Trade unions, in contrast, who organise the workforce in the wider industry, are in favour of a faster transition as it will secure future employment. The French EV industry, in contrast, is now a booming sector, after several decades of deep restructuring with massive employment losses. Its key short-term problem is to train enough workers to staff the rapidly expanding car battery industry. Lacking a deeply rooted training system like the German one, the industry has a relatively free hand in selecting and preparing its future workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The main purpose of the paper is to systematize and analyze social responsibility strategies the organizations operating in car industry perform with regard to climate crisis. The paper attempts to determine to what extent the non-financial reports reflect producers’ concern for the environment and what impact it has on their CSR strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The approach applied in the paper is of descriptive-empirical nature. The research methods involved in this paper are: induction, deduction, literature studies, as well as data analysis and case-study. The method of critical and comparative analysis was used in relation to the views presented in the literature. Findings: The paper ends with a brief presentation of research findings which correspond to the formulated research questions on prevailing directions in shaping CSR strategies in car industry today. Research implications: Future research directions should focus on further, expanded research exploration in the area, taking into account other producers worldwide. Additional work is needed to disseminate research findings among managers and to implement them in appropriate strategies. Practical implications: The results of the research discussed in the paper have a theoretical but also some practical implications mainly for the managers but also for potential customers and cooperators of the automotive industry. Social implications: Building awareness of trends in shaping social responsibility strategies in car manufacturing industry. Originality/value The paper has a cognitive value for managers as well cooperators and customers of car manufacturers. The outcomes have theoretical as well as practical implications in search of solutions to improve CSR strategies in the light of ongoing climate crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many consumer goods, the visual appearance is a vital determinant of market success. Although there is an emerging literature on how objective design characteristics drive consumer preferences, this literature has not yet taken into account that product design happens in the context of a brand's equity. This research addresses the question of how to leverage brand equity when designing the visual appearance of a product. Specifically, it investigates the role of two key strategic visual design decisions: brand typicality (similarity within the brand's range) and segment typicality (similarity to the competitive set). Drawing on fluency theory, the authors argue that high-equity brands benefit more from brand typicality but less from segment typicality than low-equity brands. Using data from the U.S. car market tracking market shares of 456 car models of 39 major brands operating in seven market segments across 13 years, the study provides empirical evidence for this conjecture and, thereby, implications for strategic product design and visual design theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the signing of the JCPOA nuclear deal between Iran and the 5+1 countries in June 2015 and the subsequent lifting of international sanctions, many observers predicted that Chinese carmakers would be squeezed out of the Iranian market by European and South Korean manufacturers. In 2018 however, after the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the agreement and reinstated sanctions, the situation moved in favour of the Chinese car industry. China has now become the biggest overseas player in Iran's automobile market. This article argues that the abandonment of the JCPOA by Washington led to the 'China-ization' of the car industry in Iran and shows how Iranian carmakers played an instrumental role in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the 'backward' form of import-substitution industrialisation (ISI) in countries integrated into the global economy as exporters of primary commodities, using the example of the car industry in Uzbekistan. This form of incorporation defines the way in which all manufacturing capitals, regardless of 'nationality', accumulate at the average rate of profit via raw material rents, as mediated by specific state policies. This has been the case of Uzbekistan's state-owned car manufacturer UzAvtoSanoat, in joint-venture with Korean Daewoo Motor Company and American General Motors in the 1992–2016 period. Orthodox ('neoliberal') economists view the Uzbek car industry as inefficient due to state intervention. Heterodox ('developmental state') scholars hail it as an example of export-oriented industrial upgrading. Neither explain, however, why leading MNCs would invest in such an inefficient market (as per the former), given its low scale of production that is mostly purchased domestically (pace the latter). Instead, I contend that all manufacturing capitals in the country could stay profitable only via rent subsidisation, the main reason for leading MNCs to invest in it. As such, 'backward' manufacturing ISI in Uzbekistan epitomises a specific national form taken by the global process of capital accumulation in resource-rich countries of the Global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through decarbonization of the world economy a normative imperative to the realization of a post-fossil age emerged. The global ecosystem is threatened by the current world economic model and fundamental transformations are asked for in all economic sectors. For two decades now, the automotive industry is undergoing a permanent ambidextrous phase, after having been locked in technological routines for nearly a century. The omni-present electrification of the powertrain together with the technological convergence with connected-car and autonomous-driving technology are the key challenges. To process the pressure, new strategies are designed and implemented. Nevertheless, current studies, based on patent analysis show that classic powertrain technology still represents the dominant design. At the same time, patent analysis shows that competition between firms in the field of electric powertrain technology is fierce. We use patent citation analysis to improve our understanding of the underlying industrial learning processes and of their impacts. To analyze the change in the automotive industry and unveil actors’ strategies, we examine the three most essential differentiating features of an automobile: classic powertrain, electric powertrain and autonomous driving. We aim to analyze these main differentiators along three key questions: the geographic dimension, the positioning in the value chain, and the individual company perspective, by developing a new structuring logic– the ambidexterity matrix – and its dynamic representation along the ambidexterity path.

Recent decades have witnessed increased public concern about vehicle emissions and growing frustration with political inaction and business preferences for the status quo. This article provides historical perspective on such regulatory dynamics by analyzing the Swiss and the Swedish cases of vehicle emission governance in the1970s-1980s. Relying on archival documents detailing the policy process in both countries as well as on international regulatory arenas, the analysis focuses on political solutions for reducing the toxicity of vehicle emissions. It uncovers the influence of national as well as international business groups and the existence of the tension between various national ministries, arising from conflicting environmental and trade-related goals. Is also highlights the importance of different institutional settings in creating the expertise to explain the political outcomes. While the Swiss corporatist system gave a great deal of power to a variety of interest groups at each stage of the political process, the Swedish government invested significant resources in the creation of independent expertise and enjoyed a relative autonomy, despite the importance of the Swedish car industry. The analysis also assesses the importance of the Swiss–Swedish collaboration in overcoming certain obstacles and their contribution to the implementation of stricter regulations in Europe that ultimately occurred at the margins of the European Economic Community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's fast paced industrial production requires automation at multiple steps during its process. Involving humans during the quality control inspection provides high degree of confidence that the end products are with the best quality. Workers involved in the control process may have an impact on production capacity by lowering the throughput, depending on the complexity of the control process at the time the control is carried out, during the process which is a time-critical operation, or after the process is completed. Companies are striving to fully automate their quality control stages of production and it comes naturally to focus on using various machine learning methods to help build a quality control pipeline which will offer high throughput and high degree of quality. In this paper we give an overview of applying several machine learning approaches in order to achieve an autonomous quality control pipeline. The applications for these approaches were used to help improve the quality control pipeline of two of the biggest manufacturing companies in Slovenia. One of the most challenging part of the study was that the tests had to be performed only on a small number of defective products, as is in reality. The motivation was to test several methods to find the most promising one for later actual application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to understand the relationship between the sources of innovation and types of innovation in industry. The study was carried out in a multinational car components company and explores the effects of internal and external sources of innovation on the generation of product/process and radical/incremental innovations. Data were obtained via a questionnaire and processed by qualitative and quantitative methods. The characterization of the company and its research and development (R&D) projects disclosed the importance of continuous improvement, where the involvement of senior management, the high percentage of R&D and the number of innovation projects are indicators of a company with a strong innovative culture. The results showed that higher education was the most significant source of innovation in projects where only process innovation was a factor. Furthermore, knowledge generated by collaboration with affiliated companies was associated with the introduction of product-only innovations. As for the degree of novelty, the results indicate that the introduction of radical innovations is not determined at the external level by customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Engineering & Management Sciences (2498-700X) / Műszaki és Menedzsment Tudományi Közlemények is the property of University of Debrecen and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article provides the first in-depth historical case study of Honda's assembly plant in Lincoln, Alabama. Established in 1999, the plant became one of the biggest auto factories in the US, employing over 4,500 workers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including rare interviews with top company and state officials, it argues that the establishment of the plant did not just reflect financial subsidies, the prevailing view in the press (and limited academic literature). Other factors were crucial, including site location, the availability of a willing and qualified workforce, and union avoidance. The personal intervention of state leaders, especially Governor Don Siegelman, is also uncovered here. In a broader context, the article illuminates the globalization of the car industry. In 2018 foreign-owned companies accounted for half of US auto production, and Alabama was a leading producer. Despite this, the burgeoning sector has been overlooked by scholars compared to domestically-owned carmakers. Honda in Alabama has been particularly neglected, yet its story is significant and distinctive. A highly successful plant, Honda Manufacturing of Alabama had one of the highest levels of domestic content in the country, along with more American managers than Honda's better-known factory in Marysville, Ohio, and a more diverse work force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In industry and developed societies, annual work accidents can bring about huge losses. By proper analysis of these events, the development of controlling measures can be the most important action to prevent similar events and enhance the health of the society. Hence, the current study was aimed at analyzing a case of occupational accidents leading to death in one of the car industries. This qualitative case study was conducted in spring, 2018. With the implementation of Systems Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP), the incident statement had been described accurately and, then, a safety control structure has been designed to determine inadequate effective safety control actions in the event of an accident. In the analysis of the incident, various factors were involved at different levels of incident hierarchy where the various components of socio-technical systems interact with each other; the inadequate control action of the safety unit was more prominent. Based on the STAMP technique, unlike traditional methods, does not consider the cause of the accident just a component of failure or malfunction of the system. Therefore, it provides a useful tool in incident analysis, especially in complicated and sensitive systems.

Determining the structure of a market plays an important role for policy makers to adopt efficient policies to enhance social welfare of their societies. This welfare is fulfilled more and more whenever the industry is reached to a competitive framework. The Car maker industry is one of the important industries that create a considerable value added in terms of the pre and post production chains in all the countries. This industry is the second largest industry in Iran that uses about 600 thousands workers. Accordingly, this study first aims to estimate the strategies adopted by the dominant players of the industry, Iran Khodro and Saipa companies, based on a game-information theoretic framework and then measure the market power of them in accordance with the generalized maximum entropy estimator. The results show that the Lerner index value for Iran Khodro and Saipa is 0.67 and 0.49 respectively indicating that the two companies play an important role in the industry and the industry is so far from the competitive environment.

Kragujevac was an industrial town from the earliest period of the modern history of Serbia. Its military industrial complex was situated in the close proximity of the downtown area. The development of industry was given its greatest impetus in the 1960s with the establishment of the automobile industry and the erection of the automobile factory in 1962. In the mid 1970s the „Crvena zastava“ factory contributed by 80% to the economy of Kragujevac and its surroundings. The large investments in the automobile industry in the 1960s and 1970s triggered the speedy development of the town and of the building activities on such a scale that urban planning simply could not keep pace with spontaneous growth of the town dwelling area. The result was illegal building, one of the most characteristic and durable phenomena of the Yugoslav industrialization and modernization. The dwelling areas in the town were spreading fast from 1953 to 1973 (the period of the fastest growth of car industry), by cc.150 ha per annum. Multy-storey residential buildings have changed the traditional townscape. However, they could not be erected soon enough to provide accommodation for a neverending influx of population. The fast growing car industry led to another important feature of the development of Kragujevac – the creation of large urban agglomeration, by merging surrounding villages with the town. Since the 1960s the industry and dwelling zones were predominant in Kragujevac, in comparison with communal municipal infrastructure, which was seriously lagging behind (especially the water supply system and the road network). Kragujevac and its industry (like the Yugoslav economy as a whole) have reached the peak of their development in the 1970s. After the global oil crisis in 1979 the whole process of Yugoslav industrialization was brought to a halt, and the car industry in Kragujevac, as well as the town itself entered the phase of stagnation. However, regardless of the decline of car industry, the influx of population did not stop, but continued in a different form. Instead of workers in search of jobs, the refugees from Bosnia and Croatia, and the internally displaced persons from Kosovo kept coming to the Kragujevac during the 1990s wars in ex-Yugoslavia.

As domestic markets have become saturated, multinational corporations (MNC) are turning their attention to international markets to increase their market share, revenues and their profits. MNCs activities have become increasingly global in scope, whereby going abroad is crucial if they are to succeed. This process is a challenge because the MNCs needs to overcome the barriers which hinder their entry into the targeted markets. They have to map outan entry strategy and choose the right entry mode. The focus of this paper is on how General Motors (GM) as a MNC can launch the Swedish SAAB brand of cars into India. Our analyses, which cover the period up to 2010, suggest that the best way to penetrate the Indian car market was by choosing the mix between exporting and local assembly as their entry mode. This helped GM to successfully penetrate its products, control investments and increase its competitive strength against domestic and foreign firms within the Indian market. Although recently the SAAB is in difficulty and almost bakrupt, the importance of this paper rests on the lesson how car manufacturers can enter foreign markets, especially in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an emergent understanding that humanity has precipitated an ‘Anthropocene’ such that we are now operating in a reduced space for humanity in which urgent action is required. This case study paper links degrowth, technological innovation, business model innovation and corporate governance. The arguments are illustrated with the case of an embryonic vehicle and mobility business called Riversimple. The paper shows that radical technology innovations in the vehicle itself are achieved by underlying principles that focus on mass decompounding, powertrain de-coupling, whole system design, and low-volume production systems. The characteristics of the technologies are fundamental to, and in part derive from, the business model adopted by the case, and the governance structures designed to avoid the primacy usually afforded to returns to financial shareholders. While the case is embryonic, the paper argues that an important possible contribution is the ability to commence a disruptive transition to a degrowth future from within existing legal frameworks, social practices, cultural expectations and physical infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marketing Science & Inspirations is the property of Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Five years ago FIAT car company acquired Zastava Automobili manufacturing plant, by the agreement with the Government of the Republic of Serbia, and established FAS company (FIAT Automobiles Serbia). FIAT-Zastava Automobili acquisition has been the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in Serbian industrial sector. This acquisition is a part of FIAT's going global strategy. In FIAT's global strategy FAS was initially planned to produce C class models for European market. Demand for automobiles in EU reduced dramatically due to debt crisis deepening, so FIAT is seeking alternative markets for FAS vehicles. Penetration into Russian market is considered an alternative, and the possible expansion of the goods list covered by the Free Trade Agreement between Serbia and Russia to automobiles would facilitate its achievement. This paper deals with Russian car market growth trends and how multinational companies (MNC) operate in markets with quiet inefficient institutions. Potential competitive advantages, as well as risks involved in FIAT's expansion into Russian market will be analyzed in this paper. The risks mean that currently FIAT takes a negligible share of Russian market so a deeper penetration would imply additional financial investments and development of the lacking intangible resources essential for doing business in emerging markets with inefficient institutions.

In this study having domestic car supply chain (SC) investigated, a new methodology for determining Critical Success Factors (CSFs) is introduced. This methodology is based on the most important SC enablers at commercial, process, operational, and developmental layers trying to find and explain the critical success factors and subsequently the areas that can be improved. Hence, drawing on the proposed model, 191 questionnaires were distributed among managers of five groups of units in the SC layers. Factor analysis results of the 131 returned questionnaires showed that the CSFs of the car industry supply chain are Employee empowerment, improvement of products and services, customer management, Suppliers’ quality management, ERP implementation and management’s commitment to development of business plans.

Through decarbonization of the world economy a normative imperative to the realization of a post-fossil age emerged. The global ecosystem is threatened by the current world economic model and fundamental transformations are asked for in all economic sectors. For two decades now, the automotive industry is undergoing a permanent ambidextrous phase, after having been locked in technological routines for nearly a century. The omni-present electrification of the powertrain together with the technological convergence with connected-car and autonomous-driving technology are the key challenges. To process the pressure, new strategies are designed and implemented. Nevertheless, current studies, based on patent analysis show that classic powertrain technology still represents the dominant design. At the same time, patent analysis shows that competition between firms in the field of electric powertrain technology is fierce. We use patent citation analysis to improve our understanding of the underlying industrial learning processes and of their impacts. To analyze the change in the automotive industry and unveil actors' strategies, we examine the three most essential differentiating features of an automobile: classic powertrain, electric powertrain and autonomous driving. We aim to analyze these main differentiators along three key questions: the geographic dimension, the positioning in the value chain, and the individual company perspective, by developing a new structuring logic– the ambidexterity matrix – and its dynamic representation along the ambidexterity path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a more ecologically valid way of developing theory-based item questionnaires for measuring user experience. In this novel approach, items were generated using natural and domain-specific language of the research population, what seems to have made the survey much more sensitive to real experiences than theory-based ones. The approach was applied in a survey that measured car experience. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with drivers inside their cars. The resulting transcripts were analysed with the aim of capturing their natural utterances for expressing their car experience. This analysis resulted in 71 categories of answers. For each category, one sentence was selected to serve as a survey-item. In an online platform, 538 respondents answered the survey. Data reliability, tested with Cronbach alpha index, was 0.94, suggesting a survey with highly reliable results to measure drivers' appraisals of their cars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian government has over the past years promulgated a mix of orthodox and heterodox policies for Brazil's economic development. This paper seeks to test whether the existing economic ideas have been prescriptive in formulating the policies, or whether they have been the outcome of the "infusion of private interests" (Katzenstein, 1978) in the policy making process. To this end, the paper charts the origins of the unilateral opening for trade in the agribusiness and contrasts them with the policy process in the car industry, where trade barriers have been erected. The article will identify the channels through which private actors informed the government's interventions and show that the industry bodies have largely prodded the government. The resulting policy maze has left both the representatives of the orthodox as well those of the heterodox approach unsatisfied and has failed to halt Brazil's dwindling manufacturing capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]