This paper discusses the introduction and implementation of ISO 9000 qualitystandards in the German and French car industry. Rather than a transfer of a set ofconcrete, well-understood rules, which are ready to be implemented, the paperargues, the quality standards have to be reconstructed and...

This paper discusses the development of shop floor industrial relations and industrial restructuring in France in the 1980s. It argues that French companies appeared to have found a way out of their Fordist spiral, into a form of flexible mass production, but that they managed to do so only...

This paper deals with the situation in the European car industry since the crisis of the early 1990s. After a short review of the structural problems of the industry and the main responses by car manufacturers, the discussion shifts to a detailed analysis of labour union responses. The paper...