Cooperation and asymmetry: The development profile of an East-West corporate project[Kooperation und Asymmetrie: Das Entwicklungsprofil eines betrieblichen Ost-West-Projekts]

This paper deals with a case of transnational cooperation between companies. The profile of cooperation between the two motor vehicle makers Skoda and the Volkswagen Group is reconstructed, characterised by the interlocking transformation and globalisation. Decisive for the success of the project was not only Volkswagen’s substantial transfer of know-how and management resources to the Czech manufacturer but also how it was approached. The utilisation of existing Škoda competencies was crucial in providing the stability needed for the learning process. The study discusses findings at three levels of integration: corporate, regional, and international. In contrast to the success achieved in international integration, the regional integration of the company has been slow. The authors conclude that this discrepancy was to be expected, given the unequal resources available to international firms and to local industry, and is not primarily to be explained by the tendency often attributed to so-called global strategy players of external concentration on the group network. The case has rather shown that limited regional integration has been largely due to the policy pursued by the Czech government in the important early years of transformation, which failed to generate the necessary domestic efforts in restructuring.