| La Lettre du GERPISA | no 126 (novembre 1998) |
In what way are certain conceptual categories defined during Gerpisa's first program still pertinent for our second program ? This was the subject debated during our Octber 9th workshop devoted to Robert Boyer and Michel Freyssenet's1 paper presented at last June's colloquium, as well as Bruno Jetin's introductory remarks. Three main topics were brought up. Globalization strategies are often perceived of as the extension to new areas of national or regional strategies. This representation supposes a chronological succession between two developmental stages of the firm, and the simple reproduction of the strategy applied in the larger area.
In fact, the international dimension can be part of a firm's original strategy at its creation. Indeed, globalization represents the opportunity to open up new strategic possibilities. When moving towards an international dimension, a firm can make a clean break and change strategies in order to achieve what thusfar had been impossible. Seizing an opportunity can also push the firm to unexpectedly branch off from its model, and implement de facto change in strategy. The new international dimension encourages many firms to question their own strategies and models by offering thepossibility for additional volumes and economies of scale. Consequently, a firm that applies an "innovation and flexibility" model on the national market can implement a "volume and diversity" strategy abroad, where it may find larger volumes than national ones. Though all these cases can, in principle, be envisioned in the realm of strategy and model reformulation, two parameters must nonetheless be considered. On the one hand, for the period, development, or simple integration of regional markets. On the other hand, a profit strategy is solidly structured with the implementation of product policy, productive organization, and worker/salary relations, as well as by the type of market and work it requires.
How far can a firm go in questioning its strategy ? The recomposition of global parameters represents for each and everyone the opportunity to test the pertinence of chosen strategic orientations. In a punctual manner, a firm often adopts a different strategy in its national or regional market than in its exterior market. Achieved economies of scale thus authorize the articulation of two distinct strategies in different areas, for example "reducing costs at a constant volume" in the firm's national or regional market, and "volume" (with or without diversity) in an exterior market. Can this articulation last as it reveals implicit synergies allowing for responses to different markets ? Or, will coherence factors ultimately lead to the firm's constructing a unique strategy ? The answer to this question varies according to the model adopted by the firm. The "volume and diversity" model undoubtedly corresponds more readily to a unique strategic coherence, whereas a firm applying an "innovation and flexibility" model in its national or regional territory can more easily accommodate itself to a different strategy applied in an exterior market. The answer will also perhaps vary according to areas in which firms are present or seek to be, in particular according to the structure of corresponding markets. All these hypotheses need to be tested in future research. In the event where a firm would adopt a unique strategy, what happens to its internal organization and worker/salary relations ? On the one hand, in order to respond to shared internal demands, the firm tends to harmonize and thus is less likely to have a different strategy according to the country.
Increased integration which occurs in one form or the other, for example in the realm of industrial production, provokes a corresponding situation in the realm of worker/salary relations. On the other hand, this firm encounters areas which differ in structure, growth modes, employment, revenue policy, training, and labor legislation, and can not ignore these differences, as past research on hybridation has demonstrated. This tension seemingly gives rise within the firm to internal functional equivalencies designed to conciliate strategic coherence with differing worker/salary relations.
The question of harmonization within firms thus presents a different perspective than the way it was discussed during the first program. Indeed, suppliers were essentially analyzed from the standpoint of constructors.
However, their role has now considerably increased in the realm of achieving economies of scale and also in strategy reorganization. They no longer simply answer to the demands of constructors, in terms of reducing costs or participating in implantations abroad, but are now increasingly proposing technical and functional solutions relative to their own capital. Finally, they are supplying an increasing number of different constructors. While keeping in mind differences between these suppliers and the relations they have with their constructor clients, this evolution is changing matters. It has momentarily encouraged increased flexibility on the part of constructors in terms of coherence and strategic choice.
In the context our research program and where it stands, these questions offer a series of paths to investigate. They also indicate that notions elaborated during the first program should not simply be transposed, but rather reconsidered according to a double transformation involving 1° the situation itself, and ; 2° the new role of suppliers.
1 Robert Boyer et Michel Freyssenet, The future once again is open. Profit strategies, internationalization forms and new spaces of automobile industry, Paris, sixth international Gerpisa colloquium, june 1998, p. 623-632.