US and Japanese Manufacturing Affiliates in the UK: Comparisons and Contrasts

This chapter compares and contrasts some aspects of the role of US manufacturing affiliates in the UK in the early 1950s, with that of their Japanese counterparts in the early 1980s. In so doing, it identifies some of the more important country-of-origin differences in the reasons for investing in the UK, in ownership patterns and organizational structure, and in economic impact; and also changes which have occurred both in the international economic scenario and in the character of multinational hierarchies over the intervening three decades. Finally, it relates these issues to recent advances in the theory of international production and in particular the eclectic paradigm set out in this book.