ABSTRACT

In 1980 Bill Hayden, head of Ford Europe, came back from a factfinding visit to Japan shocked by the productivity advantage enjoyed by Japanese car producers. As a consequence he immediately started an ‘After Japan’ programme which sought tighter labour discipline, increased output and enhanced worker flexibility at Ford plants (Beynon 1984:356-357). This represented a belated but sharp recognition of the changing competitive relations between American, European and Japanese transnationals, with the dramatic rise of Japanese manufacturing exports through the 1960s and 1970s.