JAPANESE ‘TRANSPLANT’ SUPPLIER RELATIONS: ARE THEY TRANSFERABLE? SHOULD THEY BE?

In recent years Japanese firms have invested a great deal in the United States automobile industry. Starting with Honda in 1982, Japanese auto-assemblers had invested $9 billion in building or substantially re-tooling nine plants in the US by 1994. Many of these firms’ suppliers have followed; in 1993 there were 322 Japanese or Japanese-US joint-venture auto supplier plants, which employed over 30,000 American workers and represented an investment of over $8 billion. (Kenney and Florida 1991:28; 1994:126).