Comprehensive competitiveness for auto companies from the USA, Germany, Japan, and Korea: empirical analysis through a diamond model perspective

Abstract

This study analysed the comprehensive competitiveness for multinational automobile companies (GM, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Hyundai). Based on Porter's (1990) diamond model, we selected the leading papers in the field of management and strategy, then extracted the key factors of comprehensive competitiveness for the automobile companies. According to the results, among factor conditions – the CEO characteristics, human resource management (HRM) system, and technological innovation capability – technological innovation capability positively influenced the comprehensive competitiveness for all four companies. Hyundai (Korea) showed that CEO characteristics also positively affected comprehensive competitiveness. With a moderating effect of government support, HRM system had a significant interaction for both GM (USA) and Toyota (Japan). Technological innovation capability also significantly interacted with government support for Toyota (Japan). In the case of open innovation, technological innovation capability significantly interacted with it for GM (USA), Volkswagen (Germany) and Toyota (Japan). Finally, the CEO characteristics and HRM system significantly interacted with open innovation for GM (USA).