ABSTRACT

The view that Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are actors that are gaining enormous power vis-à-vis nation-states and that, through their recently adopted global strategies, are creating a genuine global system of production is a popular one (see the global neo-liberal discourse outlined in the introduction of this book). This was, for instance, the prevailing view in the automobile industry during the 1980s, when the US Big Three automakers started to open new production plants overseas, to increase their imports of auto parts and small cars from South Korea, Taiwan, Japan or Mexico, and to establish joint-ventures with Asian vehicle producers. Given the automobile industry’s reputation as a forerunner in the development of new systems of production and organisation processes, events in that industry were taken as examples of what would happen in other industries.1 In spite of the popularity of this view, empirical analyses that prove that MNEs are indeed contributing to the emergence of a global system of production are scant. By analysing Ford Motor Company’s global strategies, this article is an attempt at filling this gap.