This article examines China’s outward investment in the European automotive industry since the late twentieth century. By mapping and analyzing the main investment operations, we argue that private companies played a key role in the internationalization of the Chinese automotive sector. Chinese state-owned enterprises took part, especially in the initial stages of international expansion. Our contribution also analyzes the pattern of internationalization followed by Chinese companies, arguing that it differed from the one followed by well-established automotive firms in advanced economies during previous decades. The findings reveal that achieving the most advanced technology was the key driver of outward investment decisions. However, Chinese investors’ strategy was not uniform; it was flexible and varied significantly depending on the European country and the size of the company targeted. Furthermore, Chinese government industrial policies greatly influenced the international strategies of both state-owned and private companies, particularly the “Go Out” policy.

Agile methods are increasingly being used in automotive development. This research delves into the current state of agile transformation in the automotive industry regarding benefits, challenges, organizational adaptations, and successful measures to establish the agile approach. The results of an online survey reveal that benefits are already evident after 6 months and that challenges are mainly organizational in nature and organizational structures need to be adapted. Main drivers of success are pilot projects on a small scale and top management support as well as training managers.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review about the management of rule-based product-portfolios with high variance. This type of portfolio is particularly distinctive in the chosen use case of the German automotive industry since it satisfies the requirements of mass customization and modularization. However, the research field of variant- and complexity management is manifold and multidimensional. This paper systematically searches the databases Scopus and Web of Science using the PRISMA method and briefly summarizes the main contributions and comparing them by elaborated topics.

The article aims to analyse how the business power of actors in the Argentine automotive industry influenced the foreign trade policies relevant to the sector between 2002 and 2015. The research methods employed combine documentary sources, interviews with key informants and descriptive statistics. The overall findings show how automakers achieved considerable power in the first stage of the period, obtaining clear benefits in terms of foreign trade policy. However, macroeconomic and political changes in Argentina after 2008 had a negative impact on their business power, leading to their enjoying a reduced number of trade policy concessions.

Murmann and Vogt's (2022) analysis of the automobile industry using a capabilities framework that integrates both dynamic and ordinary capabilities supports an informative table which sets out the major relevant capabilities that incumbents, start-ups, and diversifying entrants would need to develop or access via contract or other arrangement (see Murmann and Vogt, 2022, Table 3). Jiang and Lu (2022) have further discussed new industry paradigms which they suggest will greatly challenge – and perhaps overwhelm – automotive industry incumbents. We believe that their insights can be taken a step further by focusing on two areas: first, the greatly increased availability of outsourced manufacturing driven by the shift to electric vehicle (‘EV’) powertrains; and second, the ongoing transformation of the driver and passenger experience that is driven by software–user experience software integrated with networked consumer service ecosystems.

The 2013 and 2014 announcements by major car manufacturers that they would wind down all their remaining Australian automotive operations by 2016/2017 pre-empted the March 2014 release of the Productivity Commission’s final report into motor vehicle manufacturing. The Commission suggested that government subsidies had only delayed car plant closures and reiterated its longstanding opposition to industry policy and redistributive regional adjustment programmes by government. Industrialists, employer associations, state governments and trade unions have, however, questioned the Commission’s forecasts for both economic spillover effects and social impacts in regions affected by automotive plant closures. In addition to challenging several underlying assumptions used to calculate the Productivity Commission’s forecasts, this article argues that insufficient attention has been paid to the quality of future work. It extends insights from previous studies of industrial decline by proposing a new research agenda based on the idea of ‘social spillovers’.

The experience of industry policy in the wider Asian region contrasts significantly with many of the neoliberal policy prescriptions prevalent in Australia today. Using the automotive industry as a comparative case study, this article compares industry policy in three demographic and geographic giants of the region: China, India and Indonesia. China’s dominant position has benefited from a highly ‘interventionist’ industry policy which places strict conditions on foreign carmakers in joint ventures. This policy has also influenced the emergence of a thriving domestic industry, with state-owned enterprises leading the way. While India has also emerged as a major auto producer, its industry policy has moved away from the joint venture model since the 1990s, with fully foreign-owned operations now playing a much bigger role. In contrast, Indonesia retains a version of the joint venture model while local industry is dominated by Japanese capital. The record of industry policy in these countries challenges the idea that more ‘liberal’ economic systems lead to stronger domestic industries or firms.

Through two in-depth case studies, we compare the approaches of a state-owned enterprise (SOE), Beijing Automotive Industries Holding Co., and a privately owned enterprise (POE), Geely, to acquire and absorb advanced technological knowledge to enhance their innovation capabilities. Each company acquired advanced knowledge from troubled famous Swedish automakers and upgraded their products technologically. Analyzing data mainly collected from secondary sources identifies major differences in approaches and actions at each acquisition step rooted in the type of ownership. We juxtapose these differences with insights from the literature on knowledge acquisition and research on firm ownership. Our findings show that the POE seeks the strategic goal of synergistic technology integration for better innovation and economic performance. In contrast, the SOE pursues national objectives with less regard for market success. This SOE focuses on an independent approach to knowledge absorption and development during their acquisition, whereas the POE emphasizes collaboration in innovation capacity development. This study provides insights into Chinese firms’ positioning on innovation development on the global stage, comparative capitalism, and the particular case of state capitalism in China.

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.

Sustainability is a key issue for manufacturing companies, which detail in their annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports how they plan to operationalise the seventeen sustainable development goals set by the United Nations in 2016. Design is deemed particularly relevant to integrate sustainability issues, and many design for sustainability (DFS) approaches have developed since the 1980s. However, the lack of understanding of the relationship between CSR and design prevents DFS approaches from enabling sustainability issues to be integrated in the design process in a relevant manner with the CSR strategy of a company. Consequently, we developed a mapping methodology in order to provide a better understanding of the CSR-design relationship. This mapping methodology consists in (1) identifying the relevant CSR goals that can be managed during the design process, (2) gathering information about the links between these CSR goals and the design process through semi-structured interviews, and (3) building a map representing these links. We started to apply our mapping methodology in an application case in the automotive industry. The first results of this application are presented in this article.

Critical raw materials (CRMs) are crucial for the transformation towards low carbon mobility. However, their production is often highly concentrated in a few countries, which leads to supply risks. Exemplified by the case of rare earth elements (REEs) and based on in-depth interviews with corporate executives from companies along the automotive supply chain, this contribution provides insights into the strategies of the European automotive industry to cope with these supply risks. Results show a lack of awareness of REE criticality studies and their outcomes in the past, the decisive role of price competitiveness when pursuing mitigation strategies and a lack of willingness or ability to engage in rare earth (RE) projects to get access to production output and secure supply. Overall, affected companies struggle to pursue long-term oriented strategies to secure their need for REEs. These findings are discussed with regard to the new demand for CRMs due to the shift to electric mobility and the specific challenges that the automotive industry faces.

This paper explores the structural changes in the international organization of automotive production since the early 1990s. We apply descriptive network measures to international trade data for the period 1993–2013 for three automotive component groups with different technological intensity, with the aim of understanding (1) how the automotive international trade network has changed since the beginning of the 1990s; (2) whether regionalization has increased over time; (3) how the role that rising powers play within and between regions interacts with regionalization patterns. Our findings suggest that the structure of trade has changed significantly over the last two decades in all components. The network for electric and electrical parts and engines has evolved to become more hierarchical, with a cohesive core tied to hangers-on in the periphery, while the opposite has happened for rubber and metal. Regionalization patterns also show important differences across components. Finally, we have found an apparent association between the strengthening of regionalization patterns and the role played by traditional players and rising powers.