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Ownership Matters: French Governments and Automotive Industrialists Facing the Japanese Challenge, 1974–1986

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2022

Alice Milor
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Abstract

Between 1974 and 1986, the intervention of various French governments on both the right and the left—in addition to corporate maneuvering and increased focus on competitiveness and lean production—resulted in foreign direct investment, mergers, plant closures, and bankruptcies among struggling French automotive suppliers. This article will explore why these efforts were unsuccessful by revisiting the first Japanese attempts to enter the European automobile industry. It does so not only through the case of Nissan in the United Kingdom in 1984 but also through the essentially unfamiliar and contemporaneous example of French automotive suppliers.

Keywords

Automotive industrysuppliersglobalizationJapanese FDIinterventionist policyliberalism
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 96 , Issue 4 , Winter 2022 , pp. 833 - 855
Copyright
Copyright © 2022 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

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