What future for car manufacturers ? Imitation or assertion of identity ?

• Robert BOYER
  Economist, director of research, CNRS
  Director of studies, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
  
• Michel FREYSSENET
  Sociologist, director of research, CNRS (CSU-IRESCO)
  Co-director of the GERPISA international network
  
• Pierre BEUZIT
  Research director, Renault SA
  

Summary

After the upheavals of the 1980s, the American and European manufacturers started imitating the "Japanese model", heralded and described by MIT researchers as the "model of the 21st century ". However, the Japanese manufacturers almost folded… Western manufacturers therefore distanced themselves from the Japanese model and at the same time recovered from the earlier recession. They are now the key players in mergers and acquisitions. But is this not just a new trend ? Studies by the French GERPISA, an international research network, suggest that reading the productive models on which manufacturers often subconsciously rely, helps develop their strategies. They highlight contradictions in current alliances and show that no one model is the best over a long period of time. Pierre Beuzit comments on this discussion, which gives some background detail on the Renault-Nissan alliance.

Summary translated from French by Rachel MARLIN.

• The entire article was written by Loïc VIEILLARD-BARON.

To obtain this article, you can :

• download it for free in French (PDF help) or contact ecopar@paris.ensmp.fr (Reference IN291100).

The entire article appears in French in the Journal de l'École de Paris du management N° 30.