Internationalization at Honda: transfer and adaptation of management systems

This article reviews Honda’s strategy to localize operations, organization and employment relations at Honda of the UK Manufacturing (HUM). The management literature describes Honda as an unusually un‐bureaucratic company where individual initiative thrives. However, the production system and organization of work at HUM were found to be very tightly controlled, with little variety of work and individual initiative constrained within strict bounds. This may reflect the relative youth of the plant and the company’s strategy to embed its production system thoroughly before permitting change, or it may suggest that production work at Honda does not fit the usual characterization of the company in the literature. Local management has been given freedom to adapt certain aspects of the organization and employment relations framework to fit the British environment, but with no impact on the direct transfer of the production system.