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

AUTOMOTIVE MNCS IN CENTRAL EUROPE
upgrading. A Hungarian union leader at Audi
Györ stated referring to German management
that: ‘if they do not take our problems seriously
then maybe the best solution for them is to
go home, because we cannot be efficient’
(Interview August 2007). Furthermore, unions
sometimes intervene directly and express their
opinions concerning upgrading. Thus, in 2002
in Škoda, as employees perceived the danger
of degradation of the product profile, a short
protest action organised by trade unions was
staged (Sperling 2004: 191).
The underlying reasons for the productionist
approach among company stakeholders are
complex. First, the highly ‘productionist’
approach of VW group in Germany has
further reinforced the productionist attitude
of Central European stakeholders. A
productionist approach on the German side
meant that core-periphery division between
the headquarters and subsidiaries was not
permanent. The original investment decisions
were driven by the desire to build up low-cost
production locations and access new markets;
the upgrading of the new subsidiaries to the
state-of-the-art production locations was
not the original intention of the VW Group
headquarters. ‘At the beginning, three halls
were constructed here. Now, the whole area is
full of buildings. At that time, no one could
imagine that VW Slovakia would become such
a huge factory’, emphasised the HR
manager (Interview March 2007).
page 92 It was subsidiaries’ initiatives to use
the window of opportunity whenever
it emerged to upgrade their plants.
A productionist norm of technical and craft
proficiency that was also a feature of the VW
group headquarters was the underlying factor
in industrial upgrading of subsidiaries: when
Central European subsidiaries proved that they
were capable to produce highly sophisticated
products, their upgrading was launched. The
HR director of VW Slovakia makes this
argument clear with the example of his plant:
Originally, the plan for this plant was to produce
Passat. Yet in 1994, we were offered an opportunity
to produce a four-wheel ‘Golf for motion’. And it is
in this project that we showed that we were capable
of producing these most sophisticated cars. And this
was the starting point. But this was a coincidence,
not a strategic decision. The headquarters were
looking for a cheap production location, they realised
that in Bratislava there was an empty capacity, so
they decided to give it a try.[..] It was in 2000 that
the strategic decision to produce the SUVs in VW
Slovakia was made. [..] And one of the reasons for
this was that earlier we showed ourselves capable
of producing these sophisticated cars [...], in the
excellent quality (Interview March 2007).
Thus, a high level of openness about the future
upgrading in the VW Group headquarters
has been an important factor supporting the
productionist attitude and the preservation
of the local non-economic enterprise norm.
The local stakeholders were the driving forces
behind the upgrading, yet this crucial role of
local management has been possible due to the
specific control mode and commitment mode
of the German MNC. More generally, Bluhm
(2007) argues that the arm’s length control
mode of the German MNC headquarters
allows certain opportunity structures to
emerge. When these opportunities emerge,
they are capitalised upon by local management
to strategically enlarge the mandate of its
subsidiary within the group.