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General Motors in an Age of Corporate Restructuring

In: The Second Automobile Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Senter
  • Walter McManus

Abstract

General Motors’ achievement during much of the twentieth century was built on a foundation of some aspects of Fordist production and an organisational structure developed by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Sloan served forty-five years at GM, first as an executive and then on its Board of Directors (Sloan, 1990). Following unevenness in its early years, the company attained fairly consistent prosperity. This success continued until the early 1970s. After that, however, GM alternated periods of profitable operations with periods of serious financial losses. Furthermore, the company’s market share in its home market has been declining for years. We argue that General Motors’ problems stem partly from relying too long on Fordist production and also flow from not maintaining some of the valuable aspects of Sloan’s structure. We also contend that the company has been hampered somewhat by its slowness in modifying the Sloanist structure to match it more fully to GM’s growing international operations.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Senter & Walter McManus, 2009. "General Motors in an Age of Corporate Restructuring," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Michel Freyssenet (ed.), The Second Automobile Revolution, chapter 9, pages 165-184, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-23691-2_9
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230236912_9
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    Cited by:

    1. Vincent FRIGANT, 2011. "Egyptian pyramid or Aztec pyramid: How should we describe the industrial architecture of automotive supply chains in Europe?," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2011-27, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    2. Michel Freyssenet & Bruno Jetin, 2019. "The deregulation of employment and finance: the Big Three in crisis," Working Papers halshs-02020051, HAL.
    3. Michel Freyssenet & Bruno Jetin, 2011. "The deregulation of employment and finance: the Big Three in crisis," Post-Print halshs-02020051, HAL.

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