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

AUTOMOTIVE MNCS IN CENTRAL EUROPE
enterprise, but an issue of public interest. In
other words, public concern has been a further
stakeholder in the industrial upgrading process
that pushed the decision makers to preserve
local industrial capabilities. Central European
VW subsidiaries are a useful case for assessing
the role of public opinion, as these companies
have enjoyed high coverage in the national
media and high public interest due to the size
of these industrial projects, early arrival of the
foreign investor to the region and the strategic
role of the automotive industry in the region
in general.
The role of public opinion in the restructuring
and privatisation of former state-owned
automotive companies cannot be underestimated.
Already during the privatisation
process, public opinion de-radicalised the
intentions of the Czech government to sell
Škoda off completely.
The fear of the public that the German investor
would completely restructure the factory and
implement purely German means of production
and employment led the Czech government to
agree with VW on a form of a Joint Venture,
where government’s share gradually decreased
[…] (Mikulikova 2002: 46).
The role of public opinion also mattered for
management training. Public opinion meant
that the old management structures
that were partially considered as
page 98 obsolete could not be completely
ignored. Thus, Mikulikova (2002)
interprets introduction of management
tandems at Škoda as a consequence of public
pressures. Blazejewski, Claasen et al. (2003)
report a case of a privatised - less known -
large Polish company where the managerial
structures were completely circumvented by
the new German managers, as they felt it was
too cumbersome for the new owner to retrain
the Polish old-school managers. A high media
exposure and media attention to the VW
subsidiaries prevented this from happening in
the VW subsidiaries.
The idea of enterprise and industrial capabilities
being an issue of public concern was explicitly
expressed by company insiders as well as
stakeholders in the automotive sector. Thus, in
Audi Györ, the union leader underlined the role
of ‘public ownership’: ‘On paper this company
is the property of Audi but in our heads it is
our property because this company is based in
Hungary’ (Interview August 2007). The linkage
between company affairs and regional/ national
economic development has also been clearly
identified. The HR director at VW Slovakia
elaborated on his company’s involvement in
improving the deteriorating national industrial
capabilities of vocational training:
Before we had a complete dual system of vocational
training. [With the regime change] the first
thing that enterprises did when they were about
to privatise was to give these schools back to the
state. [..] Today, these schools do not train properly
for vocational training. [..] No one thought that
vocational training would take such a turn, and
you know, now it will take a long time – I would
say 10 years – to make the system work again. You
know, it is much easier to destroy something than
to build it up. [..] The government needs to take
the lead here to improve the system of vocational
training. [..] We cooperate with Kia and PSA
in these issues, even if we are competitors. On
issues of labour markets we are partners [...]