ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the case studies of three East German companies. It analyses how management perceived and dealt with unexpected environmental changes and the challenges of the intensifying competition within the global car supplier market, and how they defined and reorganised the firm's core business activities. The first stage of the firm's reorganisation was characterised by the adoption of the multinational's well-established institutionalised routines and rules. The basic organisational design principles of the West German plant served as a blueprint for what was assumed to be needed for the organisational change. The whole process of organisational change was always discussed in terms of comparison to the West German equivalent. However, the adaptation of the new East German location to the West German blueprint was facilitated through the cultural similarities of both, their deeply rooted tradition of producing with a comparable production system.
