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The purpose of this paper is to investigate recent labor unrest in China's automobile industry and the implications for the debate on the future of the country's labor relations and cost competitiveness.

Using data between 1999 and 2007, the authors examine how differences in work organizations in China, Germany, Japan and the USA affect wages in the automobile industry.

It is found that market forces play a more prominent role in Germany and the USA than in China and Japan and the difference is attributed to cultural, economic, political, and regulatory factors in each country.

This paper is one of the first that uses systematic data to conduct comparative analysis of labor relations in the automobile industry.

The learning outcomes of this paper will help students in understanding the dynamics of the formation of industry clusters and the benefits associated with industry clusters. The case will give stimulus towards the cluster competition.

The case describes the dilemma of a potential investor of a tyre company that wants to diversify its product line and is searching for a new strategic location. The investor is thoughtful about the Pithampur auto industry cluster for its upcoming investment. The case demonstrates how Pithampur has transformed into an “industry cluster” and the benefits it provides to firms in it. However, Pithampur is not the only auto industry cluster in India, clusters like Chakan-Pune is in competition with Pithampur for attracting investments. This is a cause of worry for the cluster’s stakeholders. The case projects amalgamation of concerns of the stakeholders of the clusters and those of potential investors in evaluating and benchmarking it with other clusters for a competitive future.

Suitable for both undergraduate and post-graduate students (MBA students).

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 11: Strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to identify dimensions of competitiveness, factors affecting the competitiveness and building the framework of competitiveness for the Indian auto-component industry and further develop and validate a survey instrument based on the identified factors.

Dimensions of competitiveness and factors affecting it are extracted out after extensive literature review. A theoretical framework is developed using these factors. A survey instrument is developed based on the theoretical framework and validated through a pilot survey.

In total, 30 variables are found to be reliable in establishing the potential indicators of competitiveness. There are three significant contributions to the theory of competitiveness. It provides a theoretical framework of competitiveness to address the current market conditions of volatility. Second, it incorporates the dimensions like supply chain management, presence of global value chains and employee empowerment. Third, it clearly identifies the dimensions of competitiveness relevant in current context, like ethical behavior of firms, protection of intellectual property and innovation.

The proposed approach provides a good basis for assessing the competitive performance of the companies. This can help researchers and practitioners in deciding how to improve the competitiveness of a company.

The research proposes a theoretical framework for measuring the competitiveness of firms from a specific industry. This study indicates the factors affecting the competitiveness of Indian auto-component industry. The findings can be useful for both researchers and practitioners.

The automobile industry in India is one of the sunrise industries and is poised to enhance its contribution from 5 percent of GDP in 2006 to 10 percent by 2016. The auto component industry in India has grown hand in hand with the industry and is in the process of transforming itself from being a “Job order fulfiller” to being an “Integrated organization”. With the liberalization process having started in 1991, most auto component manufacturers in India have chosen the easy path of attempting to progress on operational or manufacturing capabilities. For advancing on technology capability dimension, they mostly relied on international collaborations. The purpose of this paper is to study the strategic technology management (STM) practices in select case organizations in the auto component industry in India.

The methodology employed for this study is a combination of literature survey, expert opinion, comparative case study and a flexible systems methodology, situation‐actor‐process‐learning‐action‐performance analysis. Longitudinal studies of technology development at the two case organizations have been done and the case analysis and synthesis has been developed based on valuable inputs and insights shared by key personnel in the case organizations.

The study finds that two different organizations have adopted different technology strategies. While both case organizations have strong linkage between business and technology strategy, the approach has been reasonably different for technology acquisition and development. The findings suggest that an effective STM can contribute to faster technology absorption and overall business performance. Organizations in India need to develop the in‐house capabilities along with suitable technology acquisitions, wherever required.

The two cases provide valuable insights into STM practices in two organizations and highlight the methodology adopted by the companies in their evolutions toward becoming world‐class integrated organizations. The learning can provide the way forward for capable firms in the auto component industry in India.

This paper summarises the results of a survey of how Canadian firms are implementing continuous improvement (CI) programs, where CI is defined as a set of activities intended to achieve ongoing improvement in customer satisfaction, productivity, and quality. The paper first summarizes and compares certain market and organisational characteristics of survey respondents from the auto and auto parts, electronics, metals and metal‐processing, and food‐processing industries. Next, the study examines the extent to which specific CI practices are being implemented within each industry. Conclusions are presented, based on statistical analysis, on similarities and contrasts among the four industries in the extent to which they implement particular CI practices. Finally, the authors seek to provide insights into why each industry establishes its CI practices at specific levels, by relating the adoption of CI practices to the market and organisational characteristics of firms in that industry.

International business

Undergraduate/graduate/executive education.

China has become the world's largest producer of automobiles, surpassing the USA and Japan. The Chinese auto industry differs quite significantly from those countries though. While the industry exhibits a substantial degree of concentration in the USA and Japan in early 2011, it remained highly fragmented in China. The Chinese Central Government had announced a desire for consolidation, yet it remained unclear whether a significant shakeout would occur in the near term.

Like many Chinese automakers, Chang'an partnered with well-known global auto makers to develop, produce, and distribute its products. In the coming years, Chang'an hoped to develop more independence from its foreign partners, including the production and distribution of self-branded cars. However, the company grappled with how it could strive for independence while managing its existing joint ventures. Executives worried too about how to compete with foreign automakers who had achieved global economies of scale.

The case provides a rich description of the evolution of the Chinese auto industry, and it documents how the Chinese industry differs from other global markets. Readers can analyze the extent to which they believe scale economies provide foreign firms an advantage over smaller Chinese rivals, and they can evaluate the conventional wisdom regarding the industry's minimum efficient scale. The case also provides a detailed account of Chang'an's rise to prominence. The case concludes by offering an in-depth description of the firm's key rivals, and it presents the key questions being considered by Chang'an executives in 2011.

Enables students to examine how and why an industry's structure can differ substantially across geographic markets.

Enables students to examine whether the need to achieve economies of scale may cause substantial consolidation in the Chinese auto industry.

Provides an opportunity to evaluate the pros and cons of the joint venture strategies employed in China.

Provides an opportunity to examine how a relatively small firm can position itself against large multinationals in a high-growth emerging market.

Teaching notes.

The purpose of this study is that on the basis of the competitive edge theory, source mechanism and evaluation approaches of industrial cluster competitiveness, combined with international trends in the automobile industry and the features of Chinese automobile industrial cluster development, an evaluation index system about cluster competitiveness of auto industry is built with comprehensive consideration of factors such as cluster development environment, external scale effect and internal competitiveness from the perspective of value chain of automobile industry.

An evaluation index system for automobile industrial cluster competitiveness was realized by integrating current strengths and future growth capacities with multidimensional, dynamic and comprehensive characteristics, which included 3 second-level, 10 third-level and 16 fourth-level indices. In the light of evaluation methods, a group intelligence optimization algorithm – (cuckoo search) – and traditional methods of complex decision-making system – analytic hierarchy process (AHP) – were combined to propose the cuckoo-AHP evaluation method. It was applied for the calculation and optimization of weight values in an automobile industrial cluster competitiveness evaluation index for the purpose of obtaining better scientific and more reliable results.

The research might further enrich the evaluation theory of automobile industrial cluster competitiveness and also can be useful for showing how traditional evaluation methods can be combined with intelligent algorithms to carry out better automobile industrial cluster competitiveness evaluations. In addition, studies of channels for kick-starting Chinese auto industrial cluster competitiveness are expected to provide references for how to enhance the cluster competitiveness of the Chinese automobile industry.

Changsha and Liuzhou, the Guangxi automobile industrial clusters as the two empirical analysis objects selected for this paper, are geographically adjacent to each other. The automobile industries of the two cities are local pillar industries with the strong support of the local government. Both clusters have their own advantages and weak points with different characteristics of cluster development, and they enjoy a representative significance amongst China’s numerous auto industrial clusters that are taking shape. Comparative analysis of both clusters serves as a good reference for the objective evaluation of the competitiveness of Chinese automobile clusters in terms of their real and practical developments and in respect of the success of reasonable scientific and industrial cluster policies.

Multidimensional, dynamic, integrated evaluation index systems are constructed around automobile industrial cluster competitiveness, which has taken into account developments in current strengths and future growth capacity. The cuckoo-AHP evaluation method has been formed by combining the traditional decision-making method known as AHP with a new meta-heuristic optimization algorithm called “cuckoo search”. Both have been used in evaluations of automobile industrial cluster competitiveness in Liuzhou and Changsha, which will be beneficial for enriching automobile industrial cluster competitiveness evaluation theory and new evaluation methods that will enable better evaluations of automobile industrial cluster competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the historical development and characteristics of the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

This study is positioned as an exploratory case study, using data triangulation techniques based on archival research and published reports of statistical agencies both at central government and single industry level.

China's automobile industry represents an extraordinary case of a development path toward globalization in a transitional economy. One of the obvious characteristics of the auto industry is that it necessitates technology transfer and innovative learning, which can be regarded as an important aspect of maintaining competitiveness in industrialization and global competition. The automobile industry in China is also characterized by state intervention and industrial regulations. The state initiated open-door reform has led to a mixed regulatory mechanism including both market-based competition and the legacy of a command economy. Other major features are demonstrated as follows: state-owned auto enterprises have been gradually given more freedom in the decision-making processes; the Chinese auto industry has shown phenomenal growth in the country's economic development with an average annual rate of about 9 percent. This achievement combined with the increasing impacts of globalization of production and market expansion has undoubtedly led to the increasing inflows of foreign direct investment in the form of international partnerships between the auto-producing MNCs and major local Chinese firms as per the industrial policies in the Chinese automobile industry.

This paper addresses an important topic, the historical development path of the Chinese automobile industry, but to date, it has received very little research attention. It advances the institution-based perspective and therefore develops a better understanding of changes in China's automobile industry over the past decades since 1949 and concludes that the combination of the influences of foreign technology, China's industrial policies and institutional dynamic processes has resulted in a unique dynamic development path for the globalizing Chinese automobile industry.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative approach to measure industry clusters competitiveness.

An attempt has been made to construct a composite indicator backed up by a conceptually grounded framework, by means of Analytical Hierarchical Process technique. Four industry clusters from auto sector in India are chosen for manifestation of the methodology.

The proposed methodology sufficiently emphasises on the order of significance of the factors/indicators that make a cluster competitive. The study demonstrates the comparative competitiveness performance of four select industry clusters from India.

The methodology only focusses on auto clusters from India, application of the model/methodology needs to be extended to other set of industries that follows tier structure, or belong to other developing nations to corroborate the findings.

The proposed approach is a useful tool to provide guidance to policy-makers and in monitoring industry clusters progress.

The paper offers an empirical approach for measuring competitiveness of industry clusters. So far there has been only a minuscule research on cluster competitiveness using empirical methods specifically in case of developing countries like India. Because of the heterogeneity of actors in industry clusters and absence of cluster relevant databases, its performance has been mostly captured via means of case studies. This study is one of its kind that renders comparison of competitiveness across industry clusters by combining secondary data with the perception of cluster actors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine evolutionary processes of sectoral systems of innovation in China's catch‐up situation.

History event analysis method is used. The data that inform this paper come primarily from interviews carried out as a part of case studies of the innovations of China's car industry as well as public sources.

Market catch‐up of China's self‐owned brand cars expanded from low to high end market segment. Changes of the five building blocks of innovation system of China's car industry have driven the market catch‐up since the 1980s. The five building blocks are: market demand, industrial technology and knowledge base, institutional setting, industrial structure, firms' competences and strategy. China's car industry evolved through exploitation and exploration, which were affected by the five building blocks. The exploitation and exploration shaped the catch‐up way of China's car industry: from production localization to design localization and self‐owned brands. Exploration of the self‐owned brand group built on exploitation of the joint‐venture group.

The findings are based on a single industry. Studies on more industries are needed to generalize the research results.

Increased understanding of how sectoral systems of innovation evolve will give managers and policy makers in the developing countries like China improved opportunities to formulate policies and management practices that can cultivate innovation capabilities in catch‐up.

The paper contributes to the research stream on sectoral systems of innovation by understanding building blocks and evolutionary processes at the base of change and growth in the catch‐up situation.