ABSTRACT
The automobile industry has been, and remains, one of the leading sectors for the adoption of new work practices and organisational forms. To compete with ‘lean’ production systems developed in Japan, many Western companies in the automotive sector have been forced to undergo a transformation process, to re-invent themselves in order to remain in business. This has faced companies with two key challenges. First: to learn new skills and competencies associated with the new organisational forms that lean manufacture and continuous improvement demand; and second: to ensure managers and workers embrace and adopt them. It is therefore apparent that the critical factors for success in the sector are the ability to learn and change continuously. The key contemporary approach for achieving this is increasingly being seen as the creation of learning organisations.
