Global Management and Comparison of Production/Labor Processes in Japanese Auto Parts Company and in the United States, China, and Japan

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26885107
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Kyoto University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: Nemoto Kumiko 京都外国語大学, 外国語学部, 教授 (60737617)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 社会学 / 経営 / 労働 / 自動車産業 / 現地経営 / アメリカ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Based on my ethnographic observations at a Japanese auto parts company in the United States, this study examines the workplace problems and dynamics between Japanese/American management and American workers in the plant, focusing on the relationship between the intense profit pressures of the firm and the responses of the management and plant workers. It explores how the various levels of tensions between management and plant workers have shaped the firm’s declining performance and productivity, deterioration in product qualities, and gendered unequal division of labor and power dynamics.

Free Research Field

社会学