Search Results

This chapter discusses the key players and institutional channels that influenced the emergence of a cross-national modernizing network that paved the way for the cross-national transfer of the American model of industrial production to Western Europe. In the late 1940s, France and West Germany established cross-national networks with a number of Americans in key institutional positions of power. Such a network never emerged in Italy because of differences in objectives and ideology between the Italians and the American group. The institutional contiguity inbetween the Germans and the Americans was provided by the American Military Government in Germany.

This chapter discusses the process of embedding the American model of business and industrial production in Western Europe. The launch of the Marshall plan in 1948 provided the U.S. an opportunity to extend its hold over the economic affairs of Western Europe. The Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the American agency in charge of foreign assistance, used a coercive or control mechanism to ensure the success of the embedding process. This type of mechanism was necessary to impose rapid changes in the face of strong national resistance, and to limit the extent of reinterpretation and adaptation of the original business model.

This chapter discusses the influence of internal crisis and outside dependence of some Western European countries on the success of the cross-national transfer of the American model of industrial production. The end of World War II led to the collapse of the national order in France, Germany, and Italy, and confirmed the position of the U.S. as a world superpower. The three countries then became solidly anchored to the American sphere of influence, particularly in their national reconstruction efforts. This led to the large-scale, cross-national transfer of American industrial structural arrangements.

This chapter discusses the role of a small French group in launching and fostering the large-scale transfer of American structural models of business to France. Members of this group occupy key positions of institutional power on the French national scene. They not only developed a set of mechanism that was to bring about radical transformation within the French industry, but also redefined the American business model before diffusing it onto the national scene. This same group was also instrumental in the emergence of a Western European economic space.

This chapter examines the transfer of American structural models of business and industrial production to West Germany. It states that the transfer process proceeded from coercion to voluntary imitation. After World War II, occupation authorities, dominated by the Americans, held all decision-making powers in West Germany. And as part of the American administration's efforts to rebuild the West German economy, it initiated a large-scale, cross-national structural transfer. This was accomplished using coercive means at the beginning but when the Americans co-opted a group of West Germans, the voluntary imitation process started.

This chapter discusses the organized resistance and opposition of Western European business, particularly in France, Italy, and West Germany, to the structural transformation brought about by the introduction of the American business model. Western European business leaders resented the large-scale transfer of a foreign model they believed was not adopted to European conditions and potentially dangerous for their own interests. The focus of opposition in West Germany is on the issue of competition and antitrust traditions, while in France and Italy, the issue was about the planned redefinition of physical and ownerships structures within the national industry.

This concluding chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the large-scale cross-national transfer of the American business model to Western Europe. It suggests that the post-war transformation of the national systems of industrial production in Western Europe was the consequence of an organized attempt to Americanize the Western European industrial landscape. Twenty years after the war, most of the common features of Western European systems of industrial production could be traced back to the American model, and this trend of American export of business models has still not subsided.

This chapter discusses the negative impact of the speech delivered by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard University in June 1947 on international politics and European labor and productivity. The speech divided Europe and scarred the continent for more than 40 years. This division affected the internal political balance within a number of free or democratic European countries. Some Communist Party members were ousted from government coalitions in anticipation of American assistance under the Marshall plan. However, the countries that participated in the Marshall scheme did not readily accept the American business model and launched organized oppositions to the structural transformation of their local industries.

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the role of the American business model in the transformation of European business after World War II. It attempts to address the issue about the coexistence of persistent differentiation and increasing similarities among national systems of industrial production. It proposes an account of the evolution on industrial production systems since 1945 that would take into consideration the contradictory trends of convergence and persistent differentiation.