Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Ronald Jean Degen
Author-Email: rjdegen@gmail.com
Author-Workplace-Name: International School of Management Paris
Title: Fordism and Taylorism are responsible for the early success and recent decline of the U.S. motor vehicle industry
Abstract: This paper identifies the ways in which the ideas of Fordism and Taylorism have been responsible for the success of the U.S. motor vehicle companies until 1955, and for their subsequent decline. On three occasions, the motor vehicle industry has changed the fundamental ideas on the process of manufacturing, and, perhaps more significantly, on how humans work together to create value. Under Fordism and Taylorism, the conditions of employment at the assembly lines became less and less bearable for the workers, and this resulted in an ongoing confrontation between management and the workforce, led by United Auto Workers (UAW). This confrontation resulted in escalating labor costs for the U.S. motor vehicle companies, and undermined their capacity to compete with the Japanese motor vehicle companies, who had developed a lean production system and a more humanistic management style.
Creation-Date: 2011-09-12
File-URL: https://globadvantage.ipleiria.pt/files/2011/09/working_paper-81_globadvantage.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Number: 81
Classification-JEL: M0, M1
Keywords: Fordism, Taylorism, decline of the U.S. motor vehicle companies, mass production system, lean production system, reflective production system, confrontational management-labor-relations
Handle: RePEc:pil:wpaper:81