ABSTRACT
The 1970s and 1980s have seen a profound restructuring of the industrialised economies. North American and European observers have long regarded restructuring as a temporary stage during which the industrialised economies had to adjust to lower growth and a changing international setting with some ‘new’ players, such as Japan, the Asian ‘newly industrialised economies’ (NIEs) and perhaps a few oil-producing countries. The economic recession of the early 1990s indicated that worldwide competition has not only intensified, but that continuing and even more painful restructuring could be ahead. After dismissing over 100,000 workers each, and after gaining record profits by the late 1980s, giant corporations such as General Motors and IBM lost billions of US dollars only a few years later. Leading and formerly capital-rich European national champions like Philips and Daimler-Benz became absorbed by laborious reorganisations trying to restore competitiveness, while Japanese banks and conglomerates were struggling with the aftermath of the ‘bubble economy’. Meanwhile, South East Asian firms continued to capture market niches in spite of slack worldwide growth, while Eastern European firms had little choice but to flood the world steel and chemicals markets.
