Emergence of New Industrial Models: Preliminary Findings and Conclusions

The GERRPISA meetings on 2nd December and the morning of 3rd December, 1994(as part of the International Steering Committee meeting) were dedicated to discussing the text by Robert Boyer and Michel Freyssenet, in its third French-language version, a text intended to mark the scientific progress made as the programme advances, a text the role of which in conceptual and methodological clarification has been emphasized before. As with all intermediate work, these meetings served to remind us of the process we are following. Thus while we might legitimately hope already to possess clear criteria to define our concepts, it would in fact be premature to fix our definitions. We are deliberately assuming uncertanity as to the definitions we use, for instance the definition of "model". And yet, however great is the uncertainty, the concept of the "model" remains a useful tool in our theoretical work. Advancing in this way permits scientific questions to be brought to the surface, and avoids accepting superficial agreement on meanings or neglecting lesser-kown models.

Giuseppe Volpato, who was the discussant for the debates, proposed that models could be understood at three levels:

- the ahistorical model, an ideal-typical stylization in the fashion of Weber, repregenting the model as it should function when all its components are coherent with each other;

- the determinate "historical" model, a partial concretization of the ideal-typical model with local adaptation, incorporating elements fom other models and from context-related changes;

- the representation of the ideal-type, utilized or perceived as a tool by social actors (managers, unions, etc.) in order to legitimate or transform a reality which is not always coherently related to the ideal-type.

In its clarification function, this proposal is related to the distinction suggested by Robert Boyer and Michel Freyssenet between genotype and phenotype, separated and linked by the socio-temporal context, with the same company able to simultaneously combine elements from different models. These ideas reinforce the concern to distinguish between the existence of a model and the duration of an organizational form on the one hand, while not associating a model with a particular firm or factory on the other hand. They also direct us towards studying the criteria (stability, adaptability, viability, etc.) and the nature of the linkages among the components of the model.

Rearding the components of a model, the debate focused on Figure 11 (page 39) which incorporated the contributions made by the Production Organization group. Several questions were discussed:

1. The profit strategy is easier to pinpoint than the model. But its relationships with the other components is not necessarily instrumental in the way management is taught at business schools, and may indeed be understood inductively.

2. Do trade union strategies not also greatly contribute to the constitution of a model?

3. The strategy identified is a profit "meta-strategy". Should it not be better specified so that it can be more closely related to other strategic issues?

4. The composition and relationships in the set of "apparatuses and practices" requires further examination, especially its relationships with socio-production principles. From a dynamic perspective, the principles emerge and "solidify" on the basis of practices and apparatuses.

5. More broadly, the diagram is - necessarily - static. However, the dynamics of a model change not only the context and its characteristics, and the forms of uncertainty in the market and work, but also its own internal structure.

6. The set "context" deserves further examination too: thus the weight of a firm in the national economy affects its strategy, and sometimes in a deterministic way. On the other hand, the role of the form of ownership has often been underestimated, according to the work of Chandler. In fact, the last few years have seen a reevaluation of the role of owners in company strategies.

7. Are technological uncertainties of the same nature as market and work uncertainties? The significance of scientific discoveries, the frequency of current and future innovations, imply an affirmative answer. However, a discovery does not become an innovation until the firm sees in it a possible and viable response to a market expectation. Uncertainty lies not in technology but in market perceptions.

Regarding the scenarios for model trajectories (Figure 15, page 58), the debate suggested further possibilities. For instance, convergence towards the strictly defined Ohno lean production model is debatable, but variations in employment relations may be combined with convergence through hybridization. On the other hand, research on emerging models requires us first to characterize the models of firms, their subsidiaries and their transplants at the start of the period under consideration (1960-1970).

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