Dynamics of Inter-firm Linkages in Indian Automotive Industry: A Social Network Analysis

With the objective of delineating a clear understanding of the nature, intensity and geographic traits of the inter-relatedness between the component suppliers and automotive manufacturers, this chapter presents an analysis of the Indian automotive industry from a network perspective. Based on secondary data of the industry, we elaborated in the preceding two chapters on the characteristic features of the industry, viz., regional distribution of firms, distribution of products across firm size and regions, etc. The illustration, while equipped us with substantial information on the general trend and structure of the industry, does not lend adequate insight into the way firms interact, coordinate and how certain firms can potentially ply influence on others in the industry. Moreover, given that distinct regionalization is visible in the Indian automotive industry, a natural question arising in this context is whether the ‘relational structure’ of the auto-component and automotive firms in this industry is ‘localized’ in nature. This chapter tries to shed some light on this specific aspect although complementary analysis on the general structure, intensity and nature of the relation is also performed to get an insight into the structure of the Indian automotive industry. By thus invoking a concrete network framework to describe the industry structure and nature of interrelatedness, this chapter complements and extends our previous analysis (in the preceding chapter) in unravelling some of the underlying dynamics of the Indian automotive industry.