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Seeds of Destruction: The Decline and Fall of the US Car Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Craig Freedman  and
Alexander Blair
Craig Freedman
Affiliation:
IRRC, The University of New South Wales
Alexander Blair
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics and Business, Macquarie University
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Abstract

Japanese car makers were able dramatically to expand their share of the US car market in the seventies and eighties. This was partly the result of their own efforts and partly fortuitous. This paper examines why the US car makers of this period were vulnerable and how the Japanese were able to exploit their own technical and organisational strengths. An understanding of this key period in the history of Detroit’s ‘Big Three’ indicates why some two decades later the US companies found themselves on the brink of corporate ruin.

Keywords

Car manufacturingJapanese production systemscost efficiencyflexibilityvertical integrationUS automobile industryL21L22L62
Type
Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , October 2010 , pp. 105 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010

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