IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/225643.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skill formation, automation and governance: comparing German and Korean automotive manufacturers in Central-Eastern Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Krzywdzinski, Martin
  • Jo, Hyung Je

Abstract

Building on neo-institutionalist models of the transfer of HRM practices within multinational companies, this article analyzes the transfer of skill formation concepts using the cases of two automotive OEMs in Slovakia. The purpose of the article is twofold. First, it aims to explain the differences between the two multinationals. Second, it builds on the empirical analysis to reconsider the neo-institutionalist theoretical framework.The article is based on two qualitative case studies of automotive multinationals in Slovakia. The home country locations of both companies represent different approaches to skill formation: systematic vocational education for blue-collar workers is regarded as crucial at the German manufacturer, while the Korean company relies mainly on on-the-job-training and puts much less emphasis on skilled blue-collar work. The article shows that the differences between the companies are related to different understanding of technology/automation. It argues that the increasing automation and the decentralization of responsibilities for the product-launch processes supported the transfer of German skill formation concepts to the plant in Slovakia, while the Korean manufacturer's specific engineering-led automation concept and centralization of product launch responsibilities in its Korean headquarters reduced the need to invest in skill formation for blue collars abroad. The article concludes that theories of the transfer of HRM practices within multinationals must include technological factors, and must also develop more specific concepts of the centralization of multinationals. The article is to our knowledge the first to include technology as a core variable into the neo-institutionalist theory in the field of international business and HRM. While the relationship between technology and organization has gained huge prominence in the recent discussions about digitalization, it has been so far neglected by scholars of international business.

Suggested Citation

  • Krzywdzinski, Martin & Jo, Hyung Je, 2022. "Skill formation, automation and governance: comparing German and Korean automotive manufacturers in Central-Eastern Europe," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 115-136.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:225643
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/225643/1/Full-text-article-Krzywdzinski-et-al-Skill-formation-automation.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence F. Katz & Robert A. Margo, 2014. "Technical Change and the Relative Demand for Skilled Labor: The United States in Historical Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital in History: The American Record, pages 15-57, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Leah Platt Boustan & Carola Frydman & Robert A. Margo, 2014. "Human Capital in History: The American Record," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bous12-1, March.
    3. Sumantra Ghoshal & Nitin Nohria, 1989. "Internal differentiation within multinational corporations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 323-337, July.
    4. Johann Fortwengel, 2017. "Practice Transfer in Organizations: The Role of Governance Mode for Internal and External Fit," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(4), pages 690-710, August.
    5. Roberto Antonietti, 2007. "Opening the "Skill-Biased Technological Change" Black Box: A Look at the Microfoundations of the Technology-Skill Relationship," Economia politica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 451-476.
    6. Ernst, Dieter, 1997. "Partners For The China Circle? The Asian Production Networks Of Japanese Electronics Firms," UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, Working Paper Series qt5215p84k, UCAIS Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, UC Berkeley.
    7. Anne Kristin Hoenen & Tatiana Kostova, 2015. "Utilizing the broader agency perspective for studying headquarters–subsidiary relations in multinational companies," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 46(1), pages 104-113, January.
    8. Jurgens, Ulrich & Krzywdzinski, Martin, 2016. "New Worlds of Work: Varieties of Work in Car Factories in the BRIC Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198722670.
    9. Paul S. Adler & Barbara Goldoftas & David I. Levine, 1999. "Flexibility Versus Efficiency? A Case Study of Model Changeovers in the Toyota Production System," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 43-68, February.
    10. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1998. "Computing Inequality: Have Computers Changed the Labor Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(4), pages 1169-1213.
    11. Boustan, Leah Platt & Frydman, Carola & Margo, Robert A. (ed.), 2014. "Human Capital in History," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226163895, December.
    12. Stephen R Gates & William G Egelhoff, 1986. "Centralization in Headquarters–Subsidiary Relationships," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 17(2), pages 71-92, June.
    13. Fortwengel, Johann & Jackson, Gregory, 2016. "Legitimizing the apprenticeship practice in a distant environment: Institutional entrepreneurship through inter-organizational networks," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 51(6), pages 895-909.
    14. Jooyeon Jeong, 1995. "The Failure of Recent State Vocational Training Policies in Korea from a Comparative Perspective," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 237-252, June.
    15. Johann Fortwengel, 2017. "Understanding When MNCs can Overcome Institutional Distance: A Research Agenda," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 793-814, December.
    16. Briken, Kendra & Chillas, Shiona & Krzywdzinski, Martin & Marks, Abigail, 2017. "Labour Process Theory and the New Digital Workplace," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-17.
    17. Judy Wajcman, 2006. "New connections: social studies of science and technology and studies of work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 20(4), pages 773-786, December.
    18. Krzywdzinski, Martin, 2017. "Automation, skill requirements and labour-use strategies: high-wage and low-wage approaches to high-tech manufacturing in the automotive industry," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 247-267.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Krzywdzinski, Martin & Pfeiffer, Sabine & Evers, Maren & Gerber, Christine, 2022. "Measuring work and workers: Wearables and digital assistance systems in manufacturing and logistics," Discussion Papers, Research Group Globalization, Work, and Production SP III 2022-301, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. Krzywdzinski, Martin, 2022. "Toward a Socioeconomic Company-Level Theory of Automation at Work," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 1-1.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krzywdzinski, Martin, 2017. "Automation, skill requirements and labour-use strategies: high-wage and low-wage approaches to high-tech manufacturing in the automotive industry," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 247-267.
    2. Song, Ji-Won, 2021. "How MNE subsidiaries transfer HRM practices in distant environments: A tale of two IKEA subsidiaries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(2).
    3. Guy Michaels & Ferdinand Rauch & Stephen J Redding, 2019. "Task Specialization in U.S. Cities from 1880 to 2000," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 754-798.
    4. Martin Fiszbein, 2017. "Agricultural Diversity, Structural Change and Long-run Development: Evidence from the U.S," NBER Working Papers 23183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Gunes, Pinar Mine & Ural Marchand, Beyza, 2020. "Macroeconomic conditions and child schooling in Turkey," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    7. Stefan Leknes & Jørgen Modalsli, 2018. "Who benefited from industrialization? The local effects of hydropower technology adoption," Discussion Papers 874, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    8. Stähler, Nikolai, 2021. "The Impact of Aging and Automation on the Macroeconomy and Inequality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    9. Robert C. Allen, 2021. "The Interplay among Wages, Technology, and Globalization: The Labour Market and Inequality, 1620-2020," Working Papers 20210065, New York University Abu Dhabi, Department of Social Science, revised Jun 2021.
    10. Tetsuji Okazaki, 2020. "Complementarity between Mechanization and Human Capital: How Did Machines and Educated White-Collar Workers Enhance Labor Productivity in Prewar Japanese Coal Mines?," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1137, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    11. Randi Lunnan & Sverre Tomassen & Ulf Andersson & Gabriel R. G. Benito, 2019. "Dealing with headquarters in the multinational corporation: a subsidiary perspective on organizing costs," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 8(1), pages 1-24, December.
    12. Roberto Santolamazza & Dejan Pejcic, 2016. "Manifattura additiva: quale ruolo per il "capitale umano"?," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 113-144.
    13. Martin Krzywdzinski, 2021. "Automation, digitalization, and changes in occupational structures in the automobile industry in Germany, Japan, and the United States: a brief history from the early 1990s until 2018 [Managing fle," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(3), pages 499-535.
    14. Yi Long & Chris Nyland & Russell Smyth, 2016. "Fiscal Decentralisation, the Knowledge Economy and School Teachers’ Wages in Urban China," Monash Economics Working Papers 13-16, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. Jeremy Atack & Robert A. Margo & Paul W. Rhode, 2019. ""Automation" of Manufacturing in the Late Nineteenth Century: The Hand and Machine Labor Study," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 51-70, Spring.
    16. Tetsuji OKAZAKI, 2020. "Complementarity between mechanization and human capital: How did machines and educated white-collar workers enhance labor productivity in prewar Japanese coal mines ?," CIGS Working Paper Series 20-001E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    17. Judith Wiemann & Martina Fuchs, 2018. "The export of Germany’s “secret of success†dual technical VET: MNCs and multiscalar stakeholders changing the skill formation system in Mexico," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 11(2), pages 373-386.
    18. Marvin Goodfriend & John McDermott, 2021. "The American System of economic growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 31-75, March.
    19. Blavo, Yolanda & Lordan, Grace & Virhia, Jasmine, 2023. "Supporting productivity with a ‘remote-first’ approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119654, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Lipeng Gary Ge & Cuili Qian & Jiatao Li, 2019. "Mimicry, Knowledge Spillover and Expatriate Assignment Strategy in Overseas Subsidiaries," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 59(6), pages 981-1007, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:225643. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.