Greenfields and “wildebeests”: management strategies and labour turnover in Japanese firms in Telford
| Date | 01 June 1998 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459810228333 |
| Pages | 271-284 |
| Published date | 01 June 1998 |
| Author | Chris Smith |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Management
strategies in
Japanese firms
in Telford
271
Greenfields and
“wildebeests”: management
strategies and labour turnover
in Japanese firms in Telford
Chris Smith
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and
Tony Elger
University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Introduction
From the arrival in the West of significant volumes of Japanese manufacturing
investment in the 1980s, there has been an active debate over the character of
industrial relations and employment relations within so-called Japanese
“transplants” (Abo, 1994; Kenney and Florida, 1993; Oliver and Wilkinson,
1992; Womack et al., 1990). Britain, as a traditional site for transnational capital,
had in the 1980s a government which was committed to increasing FDI in
manufacturing as the cornerstone of its industrial policy, and which portrayed
Japanese firms as carriers of new working methods and new industrial relations
practices, which could be used as models or levers of reform for British firms.
Britain has received the lion’s share of Japanese FDI into Europe, 40 per cent of
the total. While three quarters of this investment was in services, academic
debate has focused on manufacturing which is chiefly responsible for job
creation (250,000 across all Japanese European plants) and the established
“paradigm” of Japanese work organisation. Of Japanese manufacturing firms,
the UK had in 1996, 223 firms or 30.2 per cent of the total; France 114 (15.4 per
cent), Germany 101 (13.7 percent) and all other countries less than 10 per cent
(JETRO, 1997, p. 3).
With investment, came an active debate around the character of work and
employment inside the firms. As Turnbull and Delbridge (1994) have observed,
Japanese investment has not been randomly distributed, but flowed into two
geographical concentrations: new towns, such as Milton Keynes, Telford or
Livingstone; and old, industrial districts, such as South Wales, the West of
Scotland and the North East of England. In addition, investment has tended to
be 100 per cent Japanese, and greenfield, rather than brownfield. Research on
work organisation and employment relations within such firms has been
Employee Relations,
Vol. 20 No. 3, 1998, pp. 271-284,
© MCBUniversity Press, 0142-5455
The authors would like to acknowlege the Leverhulme Trust “innovative work organisation in
Japanese transplants : a regional study” grant reference F/250/J.
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