Many roads to flexibility. How large firms built autarchic regional production systems in France

Hancké, Bob ORCID: 0000-0002-3334-231X (2003) Many roads to flexibility. How large firms built autarchic regional production systems in France. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27 (3). pp. 510-526. ISSN 0309-1317

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Abstract

This paper discusses the adjustment of large firms in France, in particular how they regionalized their production structures in the 1980s. Throughout the "Golden Age," large firms had geographically reorganized their activities: strategic planning remained in Paris, while the actual production was decentralized into the provinces, primarily to address cost and labour conflict issues. When the large firms faced a profitability crisis in the 1980s, and the traditional state-financed way out of the problems was no longer available, they saw in these proto-regional production systems a chance to become more competitive. They relied on the decentralization policies of the governments in the 1980s, and used the second-order effects of the new policies as a means to modernise their own operations.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/IJURR
Additional Information:	This is an electronic version of an Article published in the International journal of urban and regional research 27 (3) pp. 510-526 © 2003 Blackwell Publishing. The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com. LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website.
Divisions:	European Institute
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	06 Dec 2005
Last Modified:	13 Sep 2024 21:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/513

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