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 finance problems of small firms. Since small firms and banks belong to different economic worlds, as a result of which information assymetries emerge, credit rationing leads to sub-optimal financing arrangements. The paper analyses institutional solutions to these...

Vertreter einer einflußreichen Argumentationsrichtung in der neueren Forschungüber die industrielle Reorganisation in modernen Industriegesellschaften sehen imAufbau zwischenbetrieblicher Vertrauensstrukturen und im relational contracting mögliche Wege, die betriebliche Organisation an die...

This paper discusses industrial and economic adjustment in France in the 1980s. Itargues that French industry followed a path of adjustment throughout the decade,which was fundamentally different from both the German-Japanese style organisedcapitalism, and the US-UK type of deregulated...

According to the contemporary political economy literature on France, the country appears caught in the worst of all possible worlds: it fails to create the conditions for economic growth and employment by deregulating labour markets as the UK has done, and it lacks the institutional...

In diesem Papier werden Ausbildungszertifikate und Diplome als Industrie-Normenverstanden und analysiert, also als Dokumente mit standardisierten Informationen fürdie Akteure in der Wirtschaft. Im ersten Teil wird der vergleichende Analyserahmenentwickelt und die Hypothese über die...

This paper discusses the adjustment of large firms in France, in particular how theyregionalised their production structures in the 1980s. Throughout the Golden Age,large firms had geographically reorganised their activities: strategic planning remained in Paris, while the actual production was...

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...

This paper discusses the development of labour relations during the 1980s in Western Europe. It argues that a proper understanding of the different trajectories indifferent countries cannot be understood by taking into account either state policies or employers preferences alone. Through their...