La lettre du GERPISA no 98 (décembre 1995)

Nouvelles du Programme

Call for papers for the 4th International GERPISA Meetings, 19th-21st June 1996, Paris

An information processing error caused the disappearance of part of a paragraph of the French version of the call for papers distributed with the previous issue of the Lettre du GERPISA. A number of small additions have also been made. The complete text is attached. It is to members of the GERPISA network, but is also for diffusion outside the network. You are therefore welcome to reproduce and circulate it among your colleagues. Thank you.

The 4th International Gerpisa Meetings will be financed by the participants themselves, unlike the three first ones. Its purpose is to start up the second programme.

Evaluation of the synopsis for the "Trajectories" group

Oxford University Press has sent us the comments of the three "experts" consulted on the "Trajectories" book synopsis. They were all very positive. The three experts had undertaken their work scrupulously, making relevant and detailed comments on the various chapters. Their comments will be transmitted to the authors involved in the book. The publisher's decision will be known soon.

STOP PRESS: Oxford University Press has formally agreed to offer a contract to publish the "Trajectories" book and is looking forward to reviewing the synopses of the other books.

The theme of the second GERPISA programme

The International Steering Committee devoted the afternoon of Saturday 18th November to discussing the theme of the second programme. It took up the discussion as it had been left at the June International Meetings in Paris, ie evaluating the respective interest of two themes: the globalization of the automobile industry and "automobile and society".

It became evident that this second theme could not be treated in general: the relationships between the automobile and society depend precisely on the society under consideration. During the first programme, it became clear to what extent the characteristics of the demand for automobiles, including in the industrialized countries with high rates of autombile ownership, were linked to the class structures of the various countries, to income distribution, to the symbolic role played by the automobile in processes of social definitions, to national policies in terms of transport, taxation, urbanization, etc. It appears that one of the great challenges in the globalization of production and sales by companies is their capacity to understand the evolution of relationships between the supply of automobiles and the new attitudes of the different categories of populations and governments in the countries where they are trying to establish their presence, taking account of the competition. The second great challenge, of course, is the capacity to understand local employment relationships and to manage their diversity, it being understood that each implies adaptations, or even changes to production organization so that it remains efficient.

A first plan which was developed in these terms as a basis for further reflection will be enriched by the discussion which took place.

Because the discussion of the contents of the book "New industrial models" and of the introductory chapters of the thematic books took longer than planned, the Saturday morning discussion which was to review the first programme - organization, functioning, procedures - was set aside. We thought it would be possible to save time here, given the excellent nature of the previous in-depth discussions. This was perhaps a mistake, because the lack of review of the first programme affected the discussion on the second programme. Some of the proposals made implied forms of cooperation different from those that GERPISA has tried to create. They revealed either a misunderstanding of what we were trying to achieve, or a different interpretation of our past experience. In fact, content and form are intimately linked. It would therefore appear necessary to undertake this self-examination in order to gain the maximum benefit from the first programme and to launch the second with a full understanding of the GERPISA process.

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