ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part focuses on the way in which innovation takes place at the company level in Hungarian manufacturing, and on the interplay between companies and their institutional environments. It discusses the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) to enterprise development and innovation in the Czech automobile industry. The part describes how FDI has had a limited quantitative impact, because the Czech government had no clear strategy with regard to FDI. The approach of the Czech government was that Czech components were to be used, employment was to rise, there should be as much capital investment as possible and plans should include exports to the West. The part provides a report from a study of 18 Hungarian enterprises. It explains the hypothesis that substantial change in different aspects of the enterprises would be the outcome of institutional and market changes in Hungary after 1989.
