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Global Restructuring and the Auto Industry

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Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2010, 3, 311–318
doi:10.1093/cjres/rsq029

Global restructuring and the auto industry

David Baileya, Alex de Ruyterb, Jonathan Michiec and Peter Tylerd

a
Coventry University Business School, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK, david.bailey@coventry.ac.uk
b
Business School, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley PA1 2BE, UK, alex.deruyter@uws.
ac.uk
c

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Department for Continuing Education and Kellogg College, Oxford University, 62 Banbury
Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX2 6PN, UK, jonathan.michie@kellogg.ox.ac.uk
d
Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, 19 Silver Street, Cambridge CB3 9EP,
UK, pt23@cam.ac.uk

It is a time of economic restructuring in the world’s of the ‘gas guzzlers’ which have been such an
car industry and the implication for individual entrenched feature of the US domestic market, but
nations and regions is profound. In the rapidly also creating a whole new breed of cars based on
expanding markets of Brazil, India and China, there alternative energy sources and leading-edge R&D.
is expansion of capacity with new plants being The worst economic impacts of the Credit Crunch
opened as local markets grow on the back of rising may now be over but there is little doubt that the
domestic incomes. The pattern in the traditional effects on the big car producers in the west have been
markets of the West is the reverse, with significant transformative as reflected in the mergers and
contraction and even plant closures by the tradi- restructuring that has taken place. It is also significant
tional volume producers. that some of the most famous and established top-of-
Data provided by the International Organization the-range brands in the industry like Jaguar are now
of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA)1 shows owned by companies based in emerging markets.
that total world auto production increased by some This editorial begins with a brief review of the
16% over the period 1997–2009 to 61.7 million changes that are now underway in the auto industry
vehicles. Vehicle production in the USA, Japan and the nature of their regional impacts. It then
and Europe represented 77% of global production moves to outline what leading researchers writing
in 1997 but this had declined to around 50% by in this Special Edition see as the likely shape of
2009 whilst production in China had risen from things to come and the possible impacts on people
3% of the total in 1997 to over 22% in 2009. Other and places around the globe.
evidence provided by OICA indicates that the
global turnover of the world auto industry was close
to 2 trillion euros in 2005 and that worldwide over A time of change
50 million people were in employment either di- Looking back over the 20th century, we may regard
rectly or indirectly as a result of the auto industry the auto industry as a metaphor for capitalist de-
(OICA, 2010). velopment. The 20th century was dominated by
Climate change and the need to reduce carbon the development and roll-out globally of mass pro-
emissions is having an impact, leading to the demise duction and consumption (described as the ‘first

Ó The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Bailey, de Ruyter, Michie and Tyler

revolution’ in auto production; Womack et al., omy and indeed society: post-Fordism was also
1990), with large factories and Taylorist regulation presented as a move from mass consumption to
of assembly-line speeds and techniques. That whole niche markets and more individualistic lifestyle
era—covering the first 80 years of the century, at choices.
least—was often referred to as the era of ‘Fordism’, Much of this ‘post-Fordist’ literature was rather
after Henry Ford’s first production-line factory superficial, not least in its parochial view that devel-
(Womack et al., 1990). opments in the industrialized economies typified
Many of the major developments in the economy a global development, whereas if anything the op-
took place in the auto industry. Ford’s factory used posite was the case—to the extent that the large
assembly-line technology to an unprecedented de- factories in Western Europe and North America
gree, and his $5 per day wage introduced/acknowl- were giving way to smaller scale facilities and ser-
edged the idea of a high wage, high-productivity vice provision, this was mirrored by the rise of mass
economy making sense at the micro level as high production in the less developed countries (Costello

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productivity could deliver low unit costs despite (or et al., 1989). This was not just global outsourcing
rather via)—relatively—high wages. Relatively but also represented the industrialization of these
high wages—for large workforces within these fac- countries. Thus, post-Fordism in Western Europe
tories and therefore communities—also played was sometimes depicted as signifying the end of
a macroeconomic role in sustaining the growing the massed proletarian ranks that Marx had envis-
consumer demand which underpinned the mass aged would overthrow capitalism—the ‘forward
consumption which formed a part of the Fordist march of Labour halted’. However, there are more
‘regulation’ of the economy, as discussed explicitly such factory-based proletarians today in South
by Aglietta (1979) and others of the French regula- Korea alone than there were in the whole world
tion school. when Marx was writing, so reports of the death
In the UK, the industrial sociologist Benyon cap- of Marx’s concept in this regard are somewhat
tured the social aspects of this era in his Working for exaggerated.
Ford. Again in the UK, the historic strike for equal In terms of production technologies, post-Fordism
pay for women was at Ford’s Dagenham plant in the refers to the sort of lean production, just in time pro-
1960s (at one time the largest factory in Europe, along cesses applied in Japanese industry—and in particu-
with the nearby largest housing estate in Europe). lar, Toyota: again, it was indeed an auto company
However, the auto industry has undergone sig- that appeared to exemplify this socio-historical–
nificant change since the introduction of assembly- geographic shift, or ‘second revolution’ (Womack
line production and the so-called ‘Golden Age’ of et al., 1990). Since the mid-1990s, a so-called ‘third
capitalism. Over the past 40 or so years, shifts have revolution’ has centred on improvements in flexibility,
affected the industry’s value chain, from manufac- with implications for product creation, design,
turers and suppliers through to service providers manufacturing and life cycle.
and dealers.
Globalization: but a particularly
A shift from Fordism to post-Fordism? regional form—so far
In the industrialized economies, there was much Meanwhile, reductions in trade barriers have led to
talk from the late 1980s onwards of capitalism hav- waves of investment in emerging markets. Thus,
ing moved beyond ‘Fordism’ to an era of flexible one key change since Ford’s first plant has been
specialization, niche production and services, often the continued globalization of economic processes,
depicted as ‘post-Fordism’. Again, analogies from as signified firstly by the appearance of Ford pro-
the production methods from the car industry were duction plants across the world and more recently
used to depict the organization of the whole econ- by the emergence of independent auto companies

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 Global restructuring and the auto industry

across the world, including now from the BRICs Overall, what can be seen in the industry so far is
(Brazil, Russia, India and China). Hence the UK’s not so much globalization, as really regionalization
Jaguar Land Rover is now owned by the Indian within a global pattern, whereby the original equip-
manufacturing firm Tata, while Sweden’s Volvo ment manufacturers (OEMs) assemble and design
at the time of writing [August 2010] is being sold vehicles locally, close to the customer (witness ma-
to the Chinese company Geely. jor OEMs setting up design studios in China and
However, one needs to be cautious about some of India for example). A key question then centres on
the generalized claims made regarding ‘globalization’ whether the emergence of China and India as major
(see Sutcliffe and Glyn, 2003). Firstly, globalization producers and exporters will challenge this pattern,
was well established prior to Henry Ford’s original given the possibility of low labour costs and econ-
assembly-line-based factory—indeed, how else omies of scale overcoming transportation costs to
would such a factory have come to be established major markets. Whilst the OEMs currently prefer to
in North America, had it not been for the large-scale locate near the final market, they have shifted as-

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movement of people globally prior to that date? The sembly operations towards low-cost locations
pre-World War I era also witnessed high degrees of within major trade blocs—towards central and
‘globalization’ as measured by global movements of Eastern Europe for example, within the EU.
capital and trade, prior to a retreat from globalization Similarly, in the USA, there has been a shift
during the great depression of the 1930s. southwards and to Mexico, with auto production
The 10-fold expansion of production in China now located primarily in an ‘auto-valley’, as Klier
over the last decade and the rapid growth seen in and Rubenstein (2010) detail in their paper looking
Brazil and India has so far been associated with at the changing geography of US production. This
domestic consumption, from both domestic manu- was driven by the restructuring of the ‘Big Three’
facturers and foreign firms operating there. Chinese producers and the setting up of transplant plants by
industrial policy is meanwhile encouraging the foreign firms. The end result has been a division of
rapid consolidation of China’s auto producers. Chi- auto-valley into two subareas—a northern area
nese firms are developing capacity to undertake dominated by the Big Three and a southern area
more complex assembly functions and research dominated by foreign-owned carmakers.
and development, including in electric cars. Whilst As a result, the ‘old’ mature auto-manufacturing
China is not as yet perceived by US and European regions have been through a painful adjustment;
producers as an import threat, it may well do so in recent plant closures in the UK (such as Jaguar
the not-too-distant future. Similarly, small car and Peugeot-Citroen) will be followed by others
exports from India by manufacturers such as Tata across Western Europe, notably in connection with
to Europe are just beginning. the downsizing of GM but also possibly at Fiat. In
Recent experience in Brazil is highlighted by the US industry, as noted, the adjustment is even
Cruz and Rolim (2010) in this issue. A combination more marked, and the Big Three are undertaking
of factors has provided an attractive opportunity to dramatic downsizing, in part linked to US govern-
foreign investment by major auto manufacturers. ment support (in effect, nationalization) during and
Rollim and Cruz look at the impact of this on one after Chapter 11 insolvency for GM and Chrysler.
region (Curitiba) that has seen rapid growth. The
authors note that key factors that played an important
role in attracting auto investments outside of old core
Changes in the global value chain
regions (such as fiscal incentives, low labour costs) Other trends in the industry add to the challenges
have been largely exhausted; further expansion in for suppliers as well as OEMs. The industry is seen
such regions will depend on developing competitive by many as a producer-driven value chain where the
advantages based on agglomeration economies, big OEMs play a central role in coordinating the
labour skills and general expansion of the economy. production network (Dicken, 2003). Under the

313
Bailey, de Ruyter, Michie and Tyler

‘lean manufacturing’ model manufacturers demand (GPNs) and global value chains (GVCs). Such
quality, cost and delivery performance and prefer to issues are explored in this issue by Pavlı́nek and
deal with fewer suppliers so as to reduce costs in Ženka (2010) in the case of auto suppliers in the
overseeing the value chain. The net effect is to pass Czech Republic (Czechia). They explore whether
some of these roles on to first-tier suppliers who act Czech regions hosting firms positioned at the
as ‘systems integrators’ and are forced to become bottom of the value chain were more threatened
‘world class’, leading to a wave of consolidation in than those hosting better-positioned firms during
the value chain. Those first-tier suppliers that sur- the crisis.
vive in turn wield greater power over lower tier Despite heavy job losses in the Czech auto in-
suppliers. dustry during the downturn, they find that most auto
As a result of such trends, first-tier suppliers have firms shed workers because of downsizing rather
taken on greater R&D roles and, increasingly re- than closures, suggesting relatively strong local
sponsibility through ‘modularization’ for the supply embeddedness. They also challenge the assertion

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of complete modules (for example doors or ‘front of a simple dichotomy in the central European auto
ends’), whole subsystems (for example steering), supplier industry, in which foreign suppliers exclu-
or even specialist assembly work. A supposed sively occupy high value-added positions and do-
‘post-Japanization’ era characterized as ‘at supplier mestic firms low value-added positions. This raises
cost’ emerged in the 1990s, with innovative capabil- questions as to whether such locations are moving
ity required throughout the value chain (Wells and ‘up the ladder’ in terms of shifting their peripheral
Rawlinson, 1994). status to intermediate level, and/or whether the
Modularization outsourcing by OEMs has led to growth of assembly and supply in other peripheral
major suppliers setting up in close geographic prox- locations (for example south-eastern Europe) endan-
imity to the OEMs’ plants. Yet more international gers this position in central Europe in the context of
component sourcing by these suppliers enables labour shortages, rising wages and currency factors
low-cost component imports to penetrate mature (Domański and Lung, 2009).
producing regions, as first-tier suppliers may have
little incentive to source components locally for the
modules they actually prepare for the OEMs. This
The challenge of cost recovery
in turn adds to the pressure on suppliers in mature Related to the above has been the pressure of cost
markets. As Klier and Rubenstein stress in this is- recovery that, along with intense competition, has
sue, over 25% of all parts attached to new vehicles led automakers to search for economies of scale and
assembled in the USA are now imported. Whilst outsource ‘non-core’ activities. Secondly, increas-
Mexico and Canada account for half of the total, ing regulatory pressures combined with consumer
followed by Japan, China is emerging: during the demands continue to lead to new technological
first decade of this century, China’s share of developments in terms of greater efficiency, the de-
imported new vehicle parts in the USA increased velopment of hybrid/electric vehicles and new fuel
from 2 to 10%. sources (Deloitte, 2009). This is despite the industry
The precise configuration of particular supply being dominated by large firms, with incremental
networks is influenced by the strategies of auto and process-oriented innovation. Thirdly, increased
assemblers in different markets, as well as the market pressures have led manufacturers to seek
socio-political, cultural and institutional environ- new segments, with the consequent fragmentation
ment in which they operate (Coe et al., 2004). of markets, with auto manufacturers offering a
These differences induce varying degrees of higher number of body style variations underpinned
‘embeddedness’ of the car assemblers in regions, by standardized ‘under-skin’ platforms.
with differing impacts on development and hence One outcome of these drivers of change has
firms’ positions within global production networks been the increasing cost of genuinely new model

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 Global restructuring and the auto industry

development, in contrast with what was expected un- Excess capacity and a flawed business
der the ‘life cycle’ model of industry development. model?
Rather, the ‘crisis of cost recovery’ facing automakers
A further outcome of such trends has been the
has intensified over time. In today’s prices, the cost of
build-up of excess assembly capacity worldwide,
bringing a genuinely new model can be of the order
with 25% under-utilization in Western Europe, for
of $1 billion (Bailey et al., 2008). As a result, large-
example (even before the current financial crisis
scale production over different models and brands
unfolded). This overcapacity of the auto industry
using a platform sharing approach is seen as vital
is related to a deep-seated inability to match supply
to generate the cash for future model development
and demand in terms of actually linking production
and is set to be pushed further by the big players.
to orders from consumers. Whilst some manufac-
The net effect has been a step change in the un-
turers have belatedly begun ‘build-to-order’ pro-
derlying economics of the automotive industry; in
grammes, the business model of many automakers
earlier times economies of scale were linked to in-

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seems obsolete to some observers (Holweg et al.,
dividual models, and production of some 250,000
2009; Maxton and Wormald, 2005).
units per year could be enough for that model to
The sustainability of ‘business as usual’ is picked
break even for a producer. Today, however, econ-
up by Wells in this issue, in the context of the de-
omies of scale in the industry are rather linked to the
velopment of the Tata Nano. He argues that the auto
underlying platforms and shared modules and com-
industry in Europe focused on achieving cost re-
ponents. This creates opportunities for firms to find
duction (lean production) and developing new tech-
ways to spread costs across models but also brings
nologies for environmental and safety performance.
dangers in terms of confused ‘brand’ signals and
With India, Russia and others becoming exporting
risks to a whole range of models if a key component
nations, he argues that it is not clear that the Euro-
fails. This trend has also created a ‘two-space’ mar-
pean automotive industry can survive with this
ket, with one set of manufacturers ‘leveraging’ their
strategy, unless linked to continued non-price com-
brand portfolio and achieving economies of scale
petition (going up-market) or more stringent envi-
by platform-sharing platforms and another set
ronmental regulation. He argues that despite the
occupying the low-volume premium end of the
industry’s long-held emphasis on cost reduction,
market (Holweg et al., 2009).
without the sort of strategic realignment achieved
Firms ‘stuck in the middle’ (Saab could be seen
by Tata with its Nano, ‘‘it is now clear that the
as one such firm today, and also as experience of the
industry has reached some fundamental limits within
now defunct MG Rover testifies) find it increas-
the existing business model and design philosophy’’.
ingly difficult to generate the cash for new model
In this sense, the European industry has been locked
development and hence to survive. Whether and
into a particular trajectory, and the Nano should
how a possible shift to more specialized ‘short-
motivate policy to identify viable alternative
run’ production will impact on development costs,
business models for the automotive industry.
economies of scale and the nature of players in-
volved in the industry, remains an open question.
The MG Rover case highlights issues of cash flow
Before and after the financial crisis
and hence the increasing role of private equity in The challenges facing the auto industry were
the industry. The ‘Private Equity Business Model’ vividly exposed by the 2007–2009 global financial
(PEBM) in the MG Rover case is explored by crisis, which led to a severe drop in auto output in
Bailey et al. (2010) in this issue. They argue that many countries, to high-profile bankruptcies and
the emergence of the PEBM changes the basis of takeovers, and to a raft of temporary policy inter-
competitive rules in organizations in the industry ventions across states to support the industry, such
and the running of previously going concerns, as through demand stimulus measures—with a later
thereby necessitating a need for further regulation. fall off in demand when such support ended.

315
Bailey, de Ruyter, Michie and Tyler

In this sense, the financial crisis can be seen as The continued production of gas-guzzling sports
laying bare a range of pre-existing vulnerabilities in utility vehicles in the USA up to the 2009 global
the auto industry. Indeed, even before the global recession, for example, was little short of immoral.
financial crisis unfolded, the Big Three North A vital question is whether the election of a Presi-
American OEMs ran up total net losses of over dent, in Barack Obama, with a more responsible
$100 billion between 2005 and 2008, exhausting approach to the environment than his predecessor,
their equity base and questioning their viability, George W. Bush, will result in a more ecologically
as Stanford (2010) details in this issue. In addition, sustainable transport system and auto industry in
the Big Three’s efforts at generating profits before the USA—with increased reliance on public trans-
the crisis through ‘financialization’ strategies—in port and less polluting makes of car.
effect ‘auto banks’ financing sales, leasing and Indeed, any analysis of trends in the auto industry
derivatives operations (Freyssenet and Jetin, needs to stress that the industry faces a major—but
2009)—exposed them to an additional set of risks long-run—transition to new fuels, driven by both

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when faced with a ‘double whammy’ of shocks on the need to shift to low-carbon systems so as reduce
both the financial and industrial side. greenhouse gas emissions and likelihood of high
The impact of the support offered by govern- energy prices linked to supply constraints (peak
ments at national and regional levels has yet to play oil) and growing demand from emerging econo-
out. The US rescue effort was, Stanford argues in mies. Mikler (2010) in this issue notes the possibil-
this issue, uniquely tied to an attack on the compen- ity for radical/disruptive change in terms of
sation and conditions of autoworkers and to a chal- environmental emissions in the industry. However,
lenge to the legitimacy and power of automotive he provides substantial empirical support to suggest
trade unions. Whether the ‘bail out’ of GM and that change will continue to come incrementally:
Chrysler by the US government has really ‘solved’ within distinct national/regional institutional con-
the underlying weaknesses of these firms remains to texts that are not easily altered and within the path
be seen, he suggests. dependence of existing production profiles and
market conditions.
The shape of things to come These supply-side path dependencies are ampli-
fied by potential demand side and behavioural
The discussion in previous sections has outlined
‘lock-ins’ (see Whitmarsh and Köhler 2010 in this
how the industry has undergone significant (and
issue). Any new technology such as electric
severe in many cases) change. Along with changes
vehicles will have to compete on a number of
in production techniques/technology and the con-
dimensions (availability, cost, safety, usability, re-
tinued globalization of the economy, there has been
liability) with internal combustion engine and hy-
the impact of the global financial crisis and contin-
brid technologies. Add-in issues around consumer
ued excess capacity in the sector. However, the other
perceptions such as on range and reliability, plus
great development of the current epoch is climate
typically high costs of new technology as manufac-
change and here the auto industry takes centre stage.
turers struggle to move down their learning curves,
In this section, we outline how future developments
and take up of low-carbon technologies may be
concerning the viability of the sector will indeed be
slow to develop unless a range of measures are used
intrinsically linked to its ability to ‘go green’ and
to speed it up—for example tax breaks—suggesting
a consequent shift to new consumption patterns.
the need for a greening of policy itself.
The need for sophistication in policy mixes is
Greening the industry: can the auto highlighted by Whitmarsh and Kohler in this issue,
industry save the planet? in addressing supply and demand side barriers to be-
The motor car has been and remains a major con- haviour change in relation to environmental innova-
tributor to the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. tion. In so doing, they emphasize the psychological,

316
 Global restructuring and the auto industry

cultural and infrastructural dimensions of consumer polluting (or otherwise) the cars produced will be.
demand, which can limit the effectiveness of low- Other important issues are how much commuting
carbon transport measures, while highlighting the will be undertaken and to what extent urban devel-
impact of current global and sector-specific eco- opment will take more sustainable forms, thus re-
nomic conditions as critical drivers of change ducing the amount of CO2-producing commuting
within the automotive sector. that is undertaken.
A knock-on effect of the need to green the in-
dustry is that the pressures of cost recovery are in-
tensifying as OEMs invest in new technologies.
New consumption patterns?
This has led to a wave of joint ventures and alli- Hence, alongside the importance of demand side
ances (for example Renault–Nissan–Daimler) as issues such as consumer perceptions and willingness
firms look to share costs and expertise. Longer to pay in greening the industry, other key challenges
term, further mergers and acquisitions are likely. arise on the demand side going forward. These in-

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Some commentators even suggest that by 2020, clude, but are not limited to questions such as:
as few as 6- to 10-volume OEM groups based in
six major markets (Western Europe, Japan, Korea, i. Will recent trends in major markets towards
the USA, China and India) will account for 90% of more conscious value-orientated consumption
global automotive sales (for example Deloitte, continue? A recent combination of recession,
2009). At the same time, existing firms may have high oil prices and the effect of ‘cash for
to look to others, in what may be a shift to more clunkers’ schemes saw a shift towards more
‘open innovation’ models in the industry (MacNeill value-orientated and less conspicuous con-
and Bailey, 2010). Despite such possibilities, there sumption, but as Whitmarsh and Köhler note
are the limits to ‘openness’; conventional production in this issue, it will be interesting to see whether
modes will persist for some years to come—because habits formed now continue in the future.
of scale, resources and the fact that OEMs still con- ii. How will demand from emerging markets affect
trol in a top-down manner GPNs and GVCs. the industry? On the one hand, new wealth in
There were great hopes during the global emerging markets is seeing a growth of pre-
responses to the 2007–2008 credit crunch that the mium brands in such markets. Premium pro-
threat of recession would lead to the launch of ducers have already set-up operations in India
a ‘Green New Deal’—an environmentally sustain- and China or are planning to do so. At the same
able version of Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, time, rising living standards in emerging econ-
this time with an emphasis on developing new omies will see an explosion in first-time pur-
green technologies, as well as undertaking public chases of new basic cars like the Tata Nano,
works that would reduce CO2 emissions. At the as discussed in this issue by Wells (2010).
time of writing (August 2010), the success of gov- iii. In addition, there are challenges over whether
ernment Keynesian policies in 2008 in limiting the and how producers and dealers capitalize on the
scale and length of the global downturn appears to desire of consumers to ‘stay connected’ in terms
be laying the basis for a return during 2010 and of being networked, how consumers shop for
beyond of business as usual, so hopes that a new and design the cars they buy, and how demo-
era of sustainable production would be developed graphics and increased urban living will impact
appear likely to be dashed. on demand. On the latter, with more people
Another question is how the growing demand for living in urban spaces, trends like car sharing
cars amongst the rest of the world’s population— may develop, as a quasi-public transport mode,
most obviously within China and India—will be making manufacturers think about what they
met; again, the question is what role public trans- offer consumers in terms of mobility services
port might play as against private cars, and how rather than car ownership per se.

317
Bailey, de Ruyter, Michie and Tyler

Conclusion Domański, B. and Lung, Y. (2009) The changing face of

the European periphery in the automotive industry. Eu-
The auto industry will continue to play a role in the ropean Urban and Regional Studies, 16: 5–10.
various developments discussed above. But if eco- Freyssenet, M. and Jetin, B. (2009) ‘Big Three: Le Piege
logically sustainable transport systems are to be de- de la ‘‘Liberalisation’’ Salariale et Financiere se
Referme’. La Lettre de GERPISA, January–March,
veloped, it is going to require massive infrastructure
9–14.
investment. And if aspects, at least, of the new auto Holweg, M., Davies, P. and Podpolny, D. (2009) The
production are to remain in Western Europe and Competitive Status of the UK Automotive Industry.
North America—even if only at the higher value Buckingham, UK: PICSIE.
added end—this is going to require investment in Klier, T. and Rubenstein, J. (2010) The changing
geography of North American motor vehicle produc-
R&D, including in the green technologies of the
tion. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and
future. There is, therefore, all to play for, nationally Society, 3.
and internationally. The auto industry is going to MacNeill, S. and Bailey, D. (2010) Changing policies for

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remain important, for local, regional and national the automotive industry in an ‘old’ industrial region: an
economies, as well as for the future of the planet. It open innovation model for the UK West Midlands?
International Journal of Automotive Technology and
will, no doubt, remain an important topic in the
Management, 10: 128–144.
academic literature. Maxton, G. and Wormald, J. (2005) Time for a Model
Change. Re-Engineering the Global Automotive Indus-
Endnotes try. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Mikler, J. (2010) Apocalypse now or business as usual?
See http://www.oica.net/category/production-statistics/. Reducing the carbon emissions of the global car indus-
try. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and
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