Competitivity of the Automobile Industry: The French Way

Abstract

The French auto industry is now one of the most successful in the world and has developed markets in other European countries and further afield. The intriguing background to this has been that the French manufacturers, Renault and PSA, have developed strategies based largely upon homegrown employment cultures. While the companies have spent considerable time in Japan, the specificity of French employment practices and employee relations have intervened to block or significantly moderate outside practices. Perhaps the most important lesson is that any organizational system cannot be separated from its social, historical and economic context, in which the interests of different actors impact upon the process of innovation.