Written by a working CEO who increased earnings in some of the companies he led by 400 percent, this book provides a real-world prescription for prosperity and growth for any company, in any industry. For nearly two decades, America's industrial manufacturing sector has been in decline—and as a result, the nation's prosperity and strength is at risk. Meanwhile, China's manufacturing capabilities and competence continue to grow, threatening to overtake America as the world's most powerful and prosperous nation. Drawing on straightforward principles that can effectively be applied to a broad spectrum of manufacturing companies, author Steven L. Blue taps his leadership skills and proven processes honed over his career of growing companies—and saving them—to offer readers an inspiring vision for revitalizing the entire manufacturing sector. Using case studies and examples from his own experiences, both at Miller Ingenuity and in other roles earlier in his career, the author organizes his lessons in leadership, strategy, and change management into seven values of ingenuity: innovation, excellence, commitment, community, teamwork, respect, and integrity. The book explains how this highly integrated system of operating values can be implemented to turn around a company (if needed) or to propel it to extraordinary growth and prosperity.

Manufacturing has played a key role in the economic fortunes of the East and South Asian regions. This timely book analyses patterns of rapid catch-up and relative stagnation in the manufacturing sector and links these to economic growth in the region. Dr Timmer describes the manufacturing performance of five Asian countries since the 1960s: China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan. Over this period Asian industrial development is placed in an international perspective by comparison with the world productivity leader, the USA. The author uses new empirical data to assess the degree of structural change in the manufacturing sector and its importance for productivity growth. He then discusses conditions for economic growth and catch up, and reviews the role of industrial and technology policies in the promotion of industrial development in Asia.

Many companies today are unable to respond fast enough to market shifts because they have concentrated too much on making technology more specialized to their own needs, hoping that this will preserve their competitive edge. Unfortunately, this has actually left many R&D staff short of the cross-functional skills they need to enable large projects to work. This innovative and original book, written by a leading management consultant, addresses these concerns and provides new insights into the theories and practices of innovation management. Ultimately, this book argues, the innovation process is no longer limited to 'know-how' but depends instead on 'know-who'. For companies to remain competitive and respond to market shifts, they must change their focus from internal specialization to learning through relationships. Three in-depth case studies from Canon, Sony and Toyota demonstrate the intracorporate benefits of external collaboration. This book provides concrete examples on how these companies use the principles of open sharing ideas, technologies and human resources; and performance measurement systems that reward cooperation and collective achievements. More importantly, it links the Japanese 'learning through know-who principle' with these practices in order to explain the high R&D performance, reduced development lead-times and improved overall competitiveness of these three firms. This book will be of great interest to business managers, international scholars of R&D and innovation and postgraduate students taking courses in technology and innovation.

Global manufacturing has been altered by the emergence of a new approach to production which differs radically from the principles of mass production. This approach has been characterised by successful manufacturers in Asia and the West who have engaged in a continuous process to improve quality, process productivity and cost performance. The authors of Beyond Quality argue that many of the methods used by these new firms are equally suitable for manufacturers in developing countries and the transition economies of eastern and Central Europe. Using case study material from Latin America, Africa and Central Europe, the authors demonstrate that it is the skill and organization of people - rather than sophisticated equipment - which determines growth in productivity and product quality. These new forms of improvement are not dependent on economies of scale and so provide small producers with the flexibility to compete effectively against mass producers.

'This book represents a major contribution to our thinking about modern manufacturing industries - and is not just timely, it is long overdue! The authors have done an outstanding job in bringing to bear a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives on a domain which all too often suffers from rather narrow disciplinary analyses. Ranging from engineering to social science and drawing on examples from the US, Europe and Asia, the book provides not only a wealth of fact and illustration but a rich landscape to inform those charged with industrial policy and manufacturing strategies.' - From the foreword by Sir Mike Gregory, University of Cambridge, UK The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the World Economy provides a critical and multi-disciplinary state-of-the-art review and analysis of current manufacturing processes, practices and policies. Expanding our knowledge and understanding of production and innovation, this volume demonstrates that manufacturing continues to matter in the world economy. The contributors, including scholars ranging from engineering to policy to economic geography, cover manufacturing policy and the revival of the industrial base in the US, UK and Canada, and engage national and regional strategies for implementing advanced manufacturing policies. Questions of economic resilience in the wake of the recent recession are asked, and industry and firm case studies are utilised in an international comparative context. Applying a wide range of international cases from the US, EU, Australia and Asia, this approach allows readers to view transformations in production systems and processes across sectors, technologies and industries. Students, scholars and policymakers in the fields of public policy, economic geography, city and regional planning, and business and management will find this collection invaluable in understanding how firms and industries adapt, through dynamic and design-driven strategies, to produce for established and emerging markets. Contributors: M.A. Brown, J.R. Bryson, S. Christopherson, J. Clark, M. Cowell, M. Doussard, D.M. Drake, C.G. Drury, A. Dugenske, M. Feldman, P.L. Forrester, C. Gibson, P.V. Hall, Y. Hansen, C. Harris, P. Jalette, R.V. Kalafsky, W.C. Kessler, G. Kim, D.F. Kogler, L. Lanahan, F. Livesey, N.J. Lowe, L. McCormick, R. Mulhall, S. Ock Park, P. Pavlinek, J. Provo, M. Ronayne, G. Schrock, C.D.Treado, V. Vanchan, S. Walcott, B. Wang, M. Ward, A. Warren, S. Weller, L. Winther, L. Wolf-Powers

Exploring the issue of foreign ownership of corporate America, a leading economist and the president of the steel producer, Esmark, revisit the sale of that company to a Russian firm. Is it a good idea to allow foreigners to purchase critical and strategic American assets? No, say authors James Koch and Craig Bouchard. In America for Sale: How the Foreign Pack Circled and Devoured Esmark, Koch and Bouchard use the sale of Esmark-a transaction that put over 50 percent of American steel production into foreign hands-to make the case that this trend presents a clear and present danger to the economic future of United States of America. America for Sale recaps the amazing, sometimes incredible events leading up to the sale of Esmark, including intense pressure from the United Steelworkers and the company's major public shareholder to make a decision not in the best interest of all shareholders. It also analyzes the efforts by the Esmark board of directors to observe its fiduciary duty, details the company's "poison pill" effort to raise its sales price, and describes the actions of Leo Gerard and Ron Bloom of the United Steelworkers Union-which led to some surprising alliances. The authors-one Esmark's president and vice chairman of the board, the other an Esmark director, preeminent American economist, and former university president-then provide their own assessment of the Esmark story. They offer legislative and policy prescriptions aimed at making sure U.S. business doesn't devolve into one big garage sale to foreigners seeking to take advantage of the coming decline of the U.S. dollar. Previously unseen documents relating to the hostile reverse tender merger of Esmark, a historic first in unseating the board of directors of a publicly traded company in the United States A chronology of the "America for Sale" phenomenon and of key events in the American steel industry, from the 1970s to 2009 Approximately 25 tables and one dozen graphs that make it easy for readers to interpret data related to the Esmark sale and the overall foreign stake in American companies Text boxes that focus on human interest stories and the amazing quirks attached to the sale of Esmark-for example, one of the Russian bidders also was interested in acquiring the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and preventing its star Russian hockey player from leaping from a team in the remote Ural mountains to the NHL; that star subsequently led the NHL in scoring in the 2009 NHL season

The southern textile strikes of 1929-1931 were ferocious struggles--thousands of millhands went on strike, the National Guard was deployed, several people were killed and hundreds injured and jailed. The southern press, and for a time the national press, covered the story in enormous detail. In recounting developments, southern reporters and editors found themselves swept up on a painful and sweeping re-examination and reconstruction of southern institutions and values. Whalen explores the largely unknown world of southern journalism and investigates the ways in which the upheaval in textiles triggered profound soul-searching among southerners. The southern textile strikes of 1929-1931 were ferocious struggles--thousands of millhands went on strike, the National Guard was deployed, several people were killed and hundreds injured and jailed. The southern press, and for a time the national press, covered the story in enormous detail. In recounting developments, southern reporters and editors found themselves swept up on a painful and sweeping re-examination and reconstruction of southern institutions and values. Whalen explores the largely unknown world of southern journalism and investigates the ways in which the upheaval in textiles triggered profound soul-searching among southerners.

The worlds of labor, journalism, and the American South collide in this study. That collision, Whalen claims, is the prelude to the stunning social, economic, and cultural transformation of the American South which occurred in the last half of the twentieth century. The textile strikes shocked the mind of the South, a fact that can readily be seen in hometown papers, as reporters and editors ran the gamut from denial and scheming to hoping and dreaming--sometimes even bravely confronting the truth. The reevaluation of southern manners and mores that would culminate in the Civil Rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s can be dated back to this period of turmoil.

Manufacturing Possibilities examines adjustment dynamics in the steel, automobile and machinery industries in Germany, the U.S., and Japan since World War II. As national industrial actors in each sector try to compete in global markets, the book argues that they recompose firm and industry boundaries, stakeholder identities and interests and governance mechanisms at all levels of their political economies. Micro level study of industrial transformation in this way provides a significant window on macro level processes of political economic change in the three societies.
Theoretically, the book marks a departure from both neoliberal economic and historical institutionalist perspectives on change in advanced political economies. It characterizes industrial change as a creative, bottom up process driven by reflective social actors. This alternative view consists of two distinctive claims. The first is that action is social, reflective, and ultimately creative. When their interactive habits are disrupted, industrial actors seek to repair their relations by reconceiving them. Such imaginative interaction redefines interest and causes unforeseen possibilities for action to emerge, enabling actors to trump existing rules and constraints. Second, industrial change driven by creative action is recompositional. In the social process of reflection, actors rearrange, modify, reconceive, and reposition inherited organizational forms and governance mechanisms as they experiment with solutions to the challenges that they face. Continuity in relations is interwoven with continuous reform and change. Most remarkably, creativity in the recomposition process makes the introduction of entirely new practices and relations possible.
Ultimately, the message of Manufacturing Possibilities is that social study of change in advanced political economies should devote itself to the discovery of possibility. Preoccupation with constraint and failure to appreciate the capaciousness of reflective social action has led much of contemporary debate to misrecognize the dynamics of change. As a result, discussion of the range of adjustment possibilities in advanced political economies has been unnecessarily limited.

Several years have passed since the 'store wars' over barriers to foreign products at Japanese distribution firms. Yet among English-speaking readers, how these firms operate remains a puzzle. In this book, the best Japanese scholars in their fields attempt to unravel that puzzle. Avoiding culture-based explanations, they employ a systematic and rigorous economic logic---yet, since they also avoid mathematical notation, the argument remains accessible to generalist readers.

The Future of Chinese Manufacturing: Employment and Labour Challenges gives context and analysis on employment and labor issues in contemporary China, specifically relating to manufacturing industries. With one fifth of the world's workforce, China has taken advantage of its cheap labor to serve as the world's factory, achieving stunning growth for two decades. This book covers the appreciation of RMB, constant increases in minimum wage, shortages of skilled workers in China's labor-intensive manufacturing sector, and the fact that many large multinational corporations (MNCs) must cut costs, and are thus shifting their main production bases to other developing countries. Under such a tough situation, and coupled with the global economic slowdown, manufacturing employment in China confronts severe labor-related challenges, such as high turnover rates, recruitment difficulties for workers, and a series of high profile labor strikes and publicity concerning working conditions.