One can assist to significant changes in the organisation of manufacturing systems during the last years. Lean production, network enterprise or the virtual enterprises are reference concepts of the re-organisation of manufacturing systems. Some authors mention a new enterprise paradigm, of...

With increasing globalization, the intense competition and customer-pressure have spurred many producers from developing/ emerging countries to adopt the best management and organizational practices. The quality issues are paramount for automotive manufacturing. The multiplicity of Quality...

This paper examines the link between fuel prices and sales of cars and trucks. U.S. automakers have long denied that such a link exists. One source of this false belief is an obsession with the crude count of units sold, equating Hummers with Minis. Another source is the conventional...

This article analyses business strategies in the automobile sector to determine the key factors behind production relocation processes in automobile components suppliers. These factors help explain changes in production geography in the sector not only in terms of location advantages but also...

Some programs and research networks are dealing with topics associated to the automtive sector and they observe one of the most significative sectores of modern economies. Because of that is so interesting to forecast some possible changes in an horizon of 10 to 20 years. But this exercse must...

The aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework explaining the different options of corporate competency division and their regional effects in terms of peripheral acquisition of competencies. The framework is empirically based on an analysis of the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles...

Taking into account the global trends towards vertical de-integration and functional integration, the WorTiS project is expected to be able to determine to what extent the Portuguese automobile industry is experiencing far-reaching changes as far as innovative (post-fordist) work systems are...

In recent years developing countries have emerged as significant participants in the OFDI (outward foreign direct investment) activities having the strategic asset seeking motive. Such OFDI which is assets exploiting cum augmenting involves potential two way cross border knowledge flows. This...

A lot has been written over the last decade with regard to Toyota and the productive model associated to it (toyota-ism). And more specifically concerning the "(…) best-seller that changed the... sociological world" (Castillo, 1998: 31). But the case of Salvador Caetano’s Ovar Industrial...