International Motor Vehicle Program Globalization Research Program Fiscal Year 1999 Summary Report

Program Summary:One of the key drivers of change in the automotive industry can be summed up by the word"globalization." Globalization is driving industry consolidation, the expanding role ofsuppliers, underbody commonalization, product diversification, and efforts to reduceminimum scale economies in final assembly plants. Automakers, along with their largestsuppliers, are in the process of creating enterprise and supply-base structures that function ata truly global scale. Because globalization connects activities occurring in an extremelydiverse set of locations, it is an inherently complex process, one that cannot call for a staticset of strategic responses or result in a single societal or competitive outcome. Accordingly,IMVP's Globalization Research Program (GRP) is relying on a series on inter-linked researchprojects that seek to understand the process of globalization in terms if corporate strategy,industry organization, and social impacts for both "home" and "host" countries.