| La lettre du GERPISA | no 111 (mars 1997) |
Editorial - Michel Freyssenet
Two recent events cast some interesting light on the current recomposition of the world economic environment and its interactions with the internationalization of the automobile industry. The first event was the industrial dispute which has been shaking up Korea in general and HyundaÔ in particular since the beginning of the year, following the governmentís decision to modify certain work related laws, salaries and working hours, so as to reestablish international competition for Korean industry, which it considers threatened. Direct and indirect international pressure, especially by means of exchange rates, is beginning to destabilize a type of national growth which consists in redistributing the profits made from the competitive exportation of common goods by guaranteeing employment and spending power. This redistribution has been all the more important and general in so far as the trade union movement has succeeded in organizing itself quickly and in getting substantial pay rises since the liberalization of the political regime, ten years ago. Our colleague Myeong-Kee Chung, the University of Han Nam, explains the origins and the conditions of the current wave of strikes, in the rubric ´†News from the Companies†ª.
The second event is the threat made by Toyota to leave The United Kingdom if it does not adopt the European single currency in the appointed time. So, here is a manufacturer, and not the least important, who points out that he has set up in a member country of the European Union to be able sell on the European market in the same competitive conditions as other manufacturers already set up, and who demonstrates with his threat that he has more faith in this regional ensemble in the process of formation, than in the general liberalization of worldwide exchanges in the automobile sector. In fact the Toyota industrial model, more than any other, needs monetary stability to assure the stability of work relationships, which characterizes it. This example also shows us how a firm can try to have an influence on the current recomposition of the world economic environment, to try to make the type environment which is compatible with its own industrial model prevail.
The next GERPISA France workday (14 March) will bring more clarification with the speech of David Sadler (Durham University, UK) ´†Changing Inter-Firm Relations in the Automotive Industry and their Implications for European Components Producers, 1987-1995. Increased Independence or Enhanced Autonomy?†ª, And John Humphreyís exposÈ in the group ´†new automobile spaces†ª, which will meet up in the morning to deal with the automobile industry in India.
Taking into consideration the proliferation of books on ´†globalization†ª and the fact that this theme is becoming so commonplace in public debate, one could wonder about the originality of GERPISAís second programme and what contribution it could make. At least we are assured of having chosen a research question which is a major issue of the current period, unless we consider that it is a mode that covers up the real problems, which does not seem to be the case, as the above mentioned events still show. It is highly likely that the books on globalization will not lose the general or generalizing character which they have. The strength of the GERPISA method is that while focusing on one branch of economic activity it is able to describe and finely analyze the changes firms experience, in our case, their actual internationalization movements and their reasons, it is able to make a link between micro and macro, and finally it is able to situate the current increase in internationalization in the dynamic of industrial models which emerged during the 1980ís and in the confrontation of the modes of growth of the world poles. If we stick to this point of view in the long term, we have a good chance of achieving an original result from a theoretic and practical point of view.
Certain GERPISA members are still having difficulty making a link between their personal subject of research and the theme ´†possible paths for the internationalization of the automobile industry†ª, chosen for the second programme, and therefore to see how it could be useful for them or for the network, to participate. The second programme at least offers them the opportunity to compare their results with those obtained on the same subject in other firms or countries, especially in the groups ´†productive organization and worker relationships†ª and ´†automobile markets and their determining factors†ª and therefore to better understand the specificity or the generality of the processes at the origin of the phenomena they are observing. But more important still: if it is true that current internationalization is the manifestation of a major issue for automobile firms, it necessarily entails important modifications in all sectors of their organization including those which seem remote at first sight. Therefore we invite everyone to be attentive to the current interaction ´† internationalization of firms-recomposition of the world economic environment†ª to understand what he is studying, including at a micro level, and at other periods in the history of the automobile industry, just as we will do during the Fifth International GERPISA Colloquium to be held in June.
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