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Reconciling Automation and Flexibility? Technology and Production in the Postwar British Motor Vehicle Industry

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  • Zeitlin, Jonathan

Abstract

This article contests the view that “stages of development†determine a uniquely appropriate set of production and marketing strategies for a given industry in a given period. Looking closely at the British automobile industry after World War II, it instead presents the argument that opportunities for significant choices between more or less flexible technologies and organizational forms constitute a continuous feature of modern economic history. Moreover, piecemeal borrowing and selective adaptation have been more common than wholesale imitation of any particular system, and modification and hybridization of imported technologies represent not resistance to “foreign†elements, but creative attempts to fit those elements to local conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Zeitlin, Jonathan, 2000. "Reconciling Automation and Flexibility? Technology and Production in the Postwar British Motor Vehicle Industry," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 9-62, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:entsoc:v:1:y:2000:i:01:p:9-62_01
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    Cited by:

    1. Chiara N Focacci & Vassil Kirov, 2021. "Regional entrepreneurial ecosystems: Technological transformation, digitalisation and the longer term—The automotive and ICT sectors in the UK and Bulgaria," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 36(1), pages 56-74, February.
    2. Alan Booth, 2003. "The manufacturing failure hypothesis and the performance of British industry during the long boom," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-33, February.

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