Centre for Innovation Management Research (CIMR)
Birkbeck, University of London
6th February 2015, Room GOR G04 (Gordon Square)
In the last few decades the automotive industry has undergone considerable changes in terms of: industry structure and competitiveness; geographical reach of markets and production facilities; organisational boundaries and relations with its workforce. Some of these changes are part of the wider changes in the economy and society; some are industry specific.
This workshop aims to stimulate discussion on as many as possible of the following issues.
- Trends and configurations in the automotive industry: emerging markets and new transnational actors.
- Consolidation, alliances, competition: where is the industry now?
- Trade, direct investment and transnational networks: evolving national and regional competitiveness and roles in the global scenario.
- Vertically-integrated relations and global value chains: the impact of modularisation on carmakers, first-tier and second-tier suppliers, local and international outsourcing
- Small and medium-sized enterprises: their participation in global supply chains and international networks.
- Post-fordist models and trajectories, the role of business networks
- The restructuring and regeneration of traditional industrial regions in the automotive sector: policy initiatives and business experiences, intra- and inter-regional collaboration, inward and outward foreign direct investments.
- Strategies towards labour in the globalised context: implications for industrial relations and for power and conflicts within the industry.
Workshop programme
- 10.00 – 10.15: Welcome and programme for the day:
Professor Helen Lawton Smith, Director CIMR - 10.15- 10.45: Dr. Tommaso Pardi (ENS-Cachan, Paris and GERPISA),
Beyond overcapacity. The new rules of the game in the European automotive industry
Chair: Dr. Vincent Frigant - 10.45 – 11.15: Professor Xavier Richet (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3)
Regional investment strategies of European carmakers: South Eastern European economies versus MENA?
Chair: Professor Ulrich Hilpert - 11.15 – 11.30: Coffee/Tea break
- 11.30 – 12.00: Professor Glenn Morgan and Dr. Marco Hauptmeier (University of Cardiff)
The use of internal market competition inside auto companies and its impact on labour
Chair: Professor David Bailey - 11.30 – 12.00: Professor Xavier Richet (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3)
Regional investment strategies of European carmakers: South Eastern European economies versus MENA?
Chair: Professor Ulrich Hilpert - 12.00 – 12.30: Dr. Alessia Amighini (University of Piemonte Orientale) and Dr. Sara Gorgoni, University of Greenwich
The international reorganization of auto production: dynamics of multinational networks
Chair: Professor Xavier Richet - 13.00 – 14.00: Lunch break
- 14.15 – 14.45: Dr. Vincent Frigant (University of Bordeaux),
Are automotive global production networks becoming more global? Persistent heterogeneity and convergence of trade patterns
Chair: Dr. Odile Janne - 14.45 – 15.15: Professor Giovanni Balcet (University of Turin)
Fiat Chrysler: transnational trajectories and integration
Chair: Dr. Tommaso Pardi - 15.15 – 15.40: Professor Grazia Ietto-Gillies and Professor Giovanni Balcet
Geographical and organizational fragmentation & industrial relation. The case of FIAT – Ongoing research
Chair: Professor Slavo Rodosevic (SSEES, UCL) - 15.40 – 15.50: Coffee/Tea break
- 15.50 – 16.50: General discussion
