Industrial Cultures and Production: Understanding Competitiveness

This book contains a selection of articles on the subject of 'Culture and Production'. They are results of international conferences held in Tokyo, Washington and Bremen between 1991 and 1994. The International Research Network on Culture and Production (CAPIRN) carried out a 5-year joint research project examining the impact of different industrial cultures on the development and implementation, and above all on the international transfer of technology. The machine tools sector was selected for this international comparative study, because over the last 15 years this global market has undergone dramatic changes that cannot be adequately explained by traditional economic theories of international competition. The 'industrial culture' research concept permits an analysis and understanding of hitherto unrecognised interrelationships between the dimensions of different industrial cultures and the process of technological innovation in international competition. The special challenge faced by CAPIRN was to develop the theoretical concept of industrial culture further and to apply it within a large-scale international study. A considerable amount of work in this field has been published by CAPIRN members since 1990. This book is the first compilation of research findings in the field of industrial culture. We wish to express our thanks to the national research councils in the participant countries, the FORCE and FAST programmes of the European Union, the Japanese Ministry for Industry, MITI, and the Hans Bockler Foundation, to mention only some of the many bodies that have provided support.