Assembling Work Remaking Factory Regimes in Japanese Multinationals in Britain

by Elger, Tony; Smith, Chris

• ISBN13: 9780199241514
• ISBN10: 0199241511
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Japanese manufacturing firms established in Britain have often been portrayed as carriers of Japanese corporate best practice for work and employment. In this book, the authors challenge these views through case study research, undertaken at several Japanese manufacturing plants in Britainduring the 1990s.The authors argue that in actual fact production and employment regimes are adapted and 're-made' in a number of ways, responding to specific corporate and local contexts. In particular, they focus upon the ways in which Japanese and British managers have sought to construct distinctive work regimesin the light of their particular branch plant mandates and competencies, the evolving character of management-worker relations within factories and the varied product and labour market conditions they face. The book highlights the constraints as well as the opportunities facing managers of thesegreenfield workplaces, and the uncertainties that continued to characterize the development of management strategies. Ultimately the authors show how arguments about the role of overseas branch plants in the dissemination of management practices must take more careful account of the varied ways in which such factories are implicated in wider corporate strategies. The operations of international firms are embeddedwithin intractable features of capitalist employment relations, especially as they are 're-made' in specific local and national settings.This book is an important intervention in contemporary debate about international firms and globalization, and will be of interest to teachers, researchers, and advanced students of this subject from disciplines including Business Studies, Organization Studies, Industrial Relations, Sociology,Political Economy, and Economic and Social Geography.

Author Biography

Chris Smith is currently Professor of Organisation Studies and Research Director in the School of Management of Royal Holloway, University of London, and Co-Director in two research centres: Health Experts in Call Centres; and Centre for Workplace Research in Asia Pacific Societies.

Table of Contents

Theoretical Issues

Transplants, Transfer, and Work Transformation

The Japanese Model and its Implications for International Transfer and Work Transformation

The Internationalization of Japanese Manufacturing

A Model for Understanding Work Organization in the Transnational Company

Research Methods: The Strategy of Multiple Case-Study Research

Manufacturing Transplants: Cluster and Company

The Arena of Transplant Capital: Space and Locality Studies

Work and Employment Relations in the Large Assembly Transplants

Work and Employment Relations in the Smaller Component Sub-Contractors

Upgrading Production Regimes: R&D--The Apricot/Mitsubishi Electric Drama

Remaking Work Lives: The Scope and Limits of Collective and Individual Action

Remaking Working Lives: The Scope and Limits of Collective and Individual Action

Managers and Workers: Collective and Individual Forms of Resistance and Acquiescence

Conclusions: Transfer and Hybridization of Production Models: Lessons from Japanese Transplant Research

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.