North American Automobile Industry Research Articles

Buyer-Supplier Network Structure and Product Architecture: An Empirical Investigation

This study seeks to understand the normative buyer-supplier network structure for varying product architectures. The hypotheses are tested on a combination of primary and secondary data from the North American automobile industry. The results suggest that correspondence between buyer-supplier networks and product architecture networks may not be conducive for product quality. While buyer network density (or tight coupling) is better suited for improving the product quality of modular systems, buyer network centrality (or loose coupling) is better suited for improving the product quality of integral systems. The implication is that greater information sharing between buyers and suppliers is more likely to improve product performance of modular products compared to integral products.

Buyer-Supplier Network Structure and Product Architecture

This study seeks to understand the normative buyer-supplier network structure for varying product architectures. The hypotheses are tested on a combination of primary and secondary data from the North American automobile industry. The results suggest that correspondence between buyer-supplier networks and product architecture networks may not be conducive for product quality. While buyer network density (or tight coupling) is better suited for improving the product quality of modular systems, buyer network centrality (or loose coupling) is better suited for improving the product quality of integral systems. The implication is that greater information sharing between buyers and suppliers is more likely to improve product performance of modular products compared to integral products.

Persistent scale effects: the case of freight transport in the automobile sector

The environmental effects of freight transportation are closely linked to growth in industrial scale. Focusing on firm or industrial sector activity allows for a clearer understanding of the dynamics underlying this phenomenon. Using a supply chain as the analytical unit, emissions associated with freight are estimated for one corporate supply chain in the North American automobile industry. Examining freight emissions in the context of growth in industrial scale shows that, notwithstanding improvements in regulation, scale effects easily outweigh efficiency gains, arising from technology and regulation. Efforts to address climate change and air pollution through measures focusing on efficiency gains targeting emissions per unit transported will not be successful in reducing overall emissions and the industrial footprint. This reinforces the need to address the three distinct economic problems of efficiency, allocation and scale when moving towards a more ecological economy.

Books Reviews

International Labour ReviewVolume 144, Issue 3 p. 345-364 Books Reviews First published: 22 September 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2005.tb00572.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: Labour laws and global trade. By Bob HEPPLE. Understanding globalization, employment and poverty reduction. Edited by Eddy LEE and Marco VIVARELLI. Unemployment compensation throughout the world: A comparative analysis. By Wayne VROMAN and Vera BRUSENTSEV. Recent books: The human tradition in American labor history. Edited by Eric ARNESEN. Reorganizing the Rust Belt: An inside study of the American labor movement. By Steven Henry LOPEZ. A promise unfulfilled: Unions, immigration, and the farm workers. By Philip L. MARTIN. Reshaping the North American automobile industry: Restructuring, corporatism, and union democracy in Mexico. By John P. TUMAN. Human capital in the United States from 1975 to 2000: Patterns of growth and utilization. By Robert H. HAVEMAN, Andrew BERSHADKER, and Jonathan A. SCHWABISH. Labor standards in the United States and Canada. By Richard N. BLOCK, Karen ROBERTS and R. Oliver CLARKE. Euros and Europeans: Monetary integration and the European model of society. Edited by Andrew MARTIN and George ROSS. International labour law. By Jean-Michel SERVAIS. International Labour Organization. (International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Intergovernmental organizations, Supplement 22). By Jean-Michel SERVAIS. Non-standard work in developed economies: Causes and consequences. Edited by Susan HOUSEMAN and Machiko OSAWA. Russian trade unions and industrial relations in transition. By Sarah ASHWIN and Simon CLARKE. New ILO publications: A handbook on HIV/AIDS for labour and factory inspectors. El mundo del trabajo en la integración económica y la liberalización comercial. Una mirada desde los países americanos. By Daniel MARTINEZ. Food at work: Workplace solutions for malnutrition, obesity and chronic diseases. By Christopher WANJEK. Glossary of labour law and industrial relations (with special reference to the European Union). Edited by Gianni ARRIGO and Giuseppe CASALE. Human trafficking and forced labour exploitation: Guidance for legislation and law enforcement. Le trafic et l'exploitation des immigrants chinois en France. By Gao YUN and Véronique POISSON. Promotional framework for occupational safety and health. International Labour Conference, 95th Session, 2006, Report IV (1). Safety and health in ports: ILO Code of practice. The global evolution of industrial relations: Events, ideas and the IIRA. By Bruce E. KAUFMAN. Working and employment in new EU Member States: Convergence or diversity? By Daniel VAUGHAN-WHITEHEAD. Working time laws: A global perspective - Findings from the ILO's Conditions of Work Database. By Deirdre McCANN. Volume144, Issue3September 2005Pages 345-364 RelatedInformation

Re-scaling collective bargaining: union responses to restructuring in the North American auto industry

Historically, political struggles to define the geographical scale at which labour relations and collective bargaining will be conducted have been of crucial significance to the labour movement. Today, workers and their unions face very difficult challenges. In many manufacturing industries changes in the organizational structure of production at different geographical scales have undermined the effectiveness of the organizing and collective bargaining strategies associated with traditional industrial unionism. This paper focuses on collective bargaining strategies developed by North American autoworkers’ unions to respond to the extensive restructuring of the automotive industry that took place during the 1990s. These strategies include innovations in the structure and content of collective bargaining and efforts to redefine the scale at which collective bargaining takes place. Following a brief discussion of the challenge posed by the integration of Mexico into a continent-wide production system, the analysis focuses on the strategies devised by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union during the 1996 and 1999 rounds of collective bargaining to address issues raised by outsourcing and modular manufacturing. With outsourcing, the automakers are not so much eliminating jobs as they are deciding who gets to do them, at what price, and under what working conditions. With modular manufacturing, the organizational boundaries between firms are blurring and the terms and conditions of work in one firm arguably are becoming dependent upon management decisions made in another firm. The CAW’s response has been to develop new collective bargaining strategies including the concepts of ‘work ownership’ and ‘satellite bargaining’ which involves redefining the traditional geographical extent of the bargaining unit. While the empirical focus is on the North American automobile industry, the general issues related to the re-scaling of production, and especially outsourcing and modular manufacturing, are common across a range of manufacturing industries.

Empowerment As a Trojan Horse: New Systems of Work Organization in the North American Automobile Industry

While new models of work orgaization (lean production) in the automobile industry have been portrayed as a 'democratic'break with Fordism, we find considerable parallels with those traditional patterns of labour control they were intended to supplant. Far from understanding these as exemplars of 'democratic Taylorism', the article identities spwific company responses to problems associated with declining productivity and competitiveness. Moreover, the article argues that new models of work organization associated with lean production, far from heralding empowerment, are more conerned with asserting management control in varying ways in different companies.

The Continental Integration of the North American Automobile Industry: From the Auto Pact to the FTA and beyond

The continental integration of the US and Canadian automobile industries quickly followed the negotiation of a sectorial managed trade agreement—the Auto Pact—in 1965. Thus the recent Canada—US Free Trade Agreement (FTA) will likely have less short-term impact on restructuring in the auto industry than it will in most other industries. The paper begins with an analysis of the significant restructuring that occurred within the North American auto industry during the 1980s in response to the globalization of production and dramatic changes in competitive conditions. The future prospects of the industry as it enters the 1990s are examined with regard to three issues: the likely impact of the implementation of the automotive-industry provisions of the FTA; the consolidation of the significant auto-manufacturing presence in North America established by Japanese automakers during the 1980s; and the fact that, with or without the negotiation of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it appears likely that Mexico during the 1990s will become fully integrated into a truly North American automotive industry.

The Break-up of an International Labour Union: Uneven Development in the North American Auto Industry and the Schism in the UAW

In 1985, after being represented by the United Automobile Workers union (UAW) for almost half a century, Canadian autoworkers split from the International Union to form their own independent union, the CAW. To date, most interpretations have attributed the split to political, cultural, and ideological differences between the US and Canadian sections of the union. Through an analysis of restructuring and collective bargaining in the North American automobile industry, it is argued in this paper that the split in the UAW was rooted in the tensions that arose over the different, and increasingly incompatible, bargaining agendas and strategies adopted by the Canadian and US sections of the union during the 1980s. The analysis shows that these differences in strategy resulted primarily from the geographically uneven effects of the significant restructuring which was taking place in the North American automobile industry during this period.

Labour Relations and Industrial Adjustment in the North American Automobile Industry

The purpose of this project is to examine similarities and differences in the labour‐management relations system between the United States and Canadian portions of the North American automobile industry. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the differential collective bargaining response in the two countries to recent issues relating to technological change and restructuring and to the introduction of “new human resource management systems.”