| La Lettre du GERPISA | no 127 (december 1998) |
Programme News 3
Teamwork in the Automobile Industry : Radical Change or Passing Fashion? is the scientific product of four years oft heoretical and on-the-field research on employee relationships by an international GERPISA group. In a volume comprising seventeen chapters, thirty researchers from Europe, the United States, Japan, and Latin America analyze the organization and work rhythms present on the assembly lines of some of the most important automobile constructors today.
Through the concept of employee relationships, the book's introduction presents the conditions for post-Fordian regulation in the realm of worker competition (pressure towards underemployment, the weakening of unions) and worker involvement (methods of remuneration, interiorization of the firm's objectives using management tools such as just-in-time, TPM, kaizen, total quality). The advent of teamwork, a common theme throughout all chapters, offers an evaluation of approximately twenty plants concerning their actual organization methods, emulation systems, the role of unions, the establishment of quality policies, volumic flexibility, etc. A systematic comparison of the workshops studied leads to the conclusion of the emergence of four major types of relationships which combine the plant's host country's national history with the firm "culture".
Because of its unique approach as a comparative work in scientific literature, Teamwork in the Automobile Industry was enthusiastically hailed by its first readers.
GERPISA members should encourage the distribution of this book by asking their university libraries and laboratories to purchase it.
In English (Editions Macmillan, Basingstoke) : Teamwork in the Automobile Industry. Radical Change or Passing Fashion ? Edited by Jean-Pierre Durand, Paul Stewart and Juan José Castillo.
Contributors : Paul Adler, Michel Albertijn, Steve Babson, Leen Baisier, Göran Brulin, Arnaldo Camuffo, Guy Cornette, Michel Freyssenet, Detlef Gerst, Masanori Hanada, Thomas Hardwig, Nicolas Hatzfeld, Rik Huys, Martin Kuhlmann, Anne Labit, Andrew Mair, Roberto Marx, Stefano Micelli, Tommy Nilsson, Hikari Nohara, Ichiro Saga, Mario Sergio Salerno, Michael Schumann, Johan Vanbuylen, Geert van Hootegem.