Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

AUTOMOTIVE MNCS IN CENTRAL EUROPE
firm as a source of valuable industrial capabilities
remained alive. These norms imply a local
commitment to the preservation of industrial
capabilities independent from pure market efficiency
and competitiveness logic. Thus, the
norms related to economic liberalism have
been challenged by the other, non-economic
enterprise norm that partially goes back to a
state socialist enterprise function. The result
of this constant tension between the organising
logic of efficiency and competition, on the
one hand, and the value of industrial capabilities,
on the other, is that the firm continues to
function as a source of competitive industrial
capabilities.
I. STAKEHOLDER COALITION FOR BRAND
SURVIVAL
The system of state socialist central planning
was characterised by the fact that resource
allocation took place through political decisions
rather than being driven by the economic
rationale of the price mechanism, resource
scarcity and cost efficiency. With the regime
change, direct political allocation of productive
resources disappeared and the ‘market rationale’
officially entered the scene either anew or less
disturbed by ‘social intervention’ in countries
such as Hungary where certain market
reforms were already implemented earlier. In
the company context, the new market
rationale meant three things. First,
page 82 the links to the Communist Party
were dismantled. Second, politicallyoriented
setting of production
volumes and prices stopped as production
orders were left to ‘markets’, which meant that
only orders from customers who were ready
to pay in the hard currency at ‘market’ rather
than at the subsidised rates would be taken.
Finally, the state withdrew from the ownership
structures by privatising the previously stateowned
enterprises.
However, despite the new dominant logic
of market efficiency that was established
in the early years of post-communism, the
company level reality was more complex. The
new organising logic of economic liberalism
formulated and defended by the new political
elites did not penetrate the companies overnight
and did not make the previously existing norms
and commitments towards the enterprise
disappear completely. In an environment of
high uncertainty, a medium- and long-term
‘market value’ of enterprises and their viability
in the future was unclear, yet decisions still
had to be made. The governments and other
stakeholders such as managers and trade
union leaders needed to decide which existing
industrial projects were viable for the market
economy environment. It is in these decisions
that the desire of stakeholders to preserve the
existing industrial capabilities despite financial
difficulties can be identified.
At first glance, market-oriented rationale
entered the scene in a very prominent way:
financial viability of entrepreneurship became
a crucial factor considered by stakeholders.
In 1990, it was acknowledged by many that,
economically, Škoda was not a viable company
as it had large debts, declining sales and
falling orders. Due to high debts, the company
was unable to take out new loans that were
urgently needed to pay day-to-day operations
and the suppliers of components. There were
voices among the Czechoslovak public that