1st Edition

Europe's Next Step Organisational Innovation, Competition and Employment

    332 Pages
    by Routledge

    346 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book looks at the experience of 13 leading-edge European firms and institutions, drawn from the manufacturing services and health sectors. It shows how organisation has been the key to their productivity growth. It also shows that while Europe has much to learn from Japan and the USA, it has considerable expertise on which the production sector can grow.

    Introduction PART I: EUROPE'S PROBLEM WITH COMPETITIVENESS 1. Organisational Innovations: The Missing Link in European Competitiveness 2. Flexible Organisation: European Industry and Services in Transition 3. Commentary PART II: ORGANISATION AND INTEGRATION IN PRODUCTION 4. Swatch: A European Response to the Japanese Challenge 5. Organisational Routines and Competitiveness in the Auto Industry: The Case of Peugeot SA 6. Small Firm, Major Change: Zilverstad Silversmithing 7. The Broad Scope of Organisational Innovations PART III: ORGANISATION AND INNOVATION IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 8. Organisational Innovation in Project Management: The Renault Twingo Case 9. Integrating R&D with Manufacturing to Build World-Wide Competitiveness: SGS Thomson Integrated Circuits 10. Commentary PART IV: ORGANISATION AND INNOVATION IN HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT 11. Managing Knowledge Flows: A Key Role for Personnel Management 12. Entrepreneurship on the Shopfloor: Nationale Nederlanden 13. Does Participation in Ownership Foster Participation in Continuous Improvement? The Case of Baxi Partnership 14. Oticon: A Case to Demonstrate a Flexible and Transparent Organisation 15. Human Resources Mobilisation: Setting the Stage for Organisational Innovation PART V: CHALLENGES TO PUBLIC POLICY 16. Networking as a Mechanism for Enabling Organisational Innovations: The Case of Continuous Improvement 17. Public Support for Firm Networking in Baden-Wurttemburg CONTENTS (cont.) 18. Patients as Work in Progress: Organisational Reform in the Health Sector 19. Commentary PART VI: PERSPECTIVES 20. Perspectives: A View from the USA 21. Organisaational Innovation: A European Perspective 22. Conclusions

    Biography

    Lars Erik Andreasen is an economist working for the Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs at the European Commission in Brussels. Benjamin Coriat teaches and researches at the Universite Paris-Nord. Friso den Hertog is a researcher and Deputy Director of the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) at the University of Limburg in Maastricht. Raphael Kaplinsky is a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.