The restructuring of the motor vehicle manufacturing in South Africa : a case study of Nissan South Africa

Thomas, Christopher G.

The restructuring of the motor vehicle manufacturing in South Africa : a case study of Nissan South Africa

Master Thesis

1998

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Sociology

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

This dissertation is essentially an exploratory study of the role of the motor vehicle manufacturing sector in South Africa's capitalist industrialization. A few research questions pertaining to global trends in the industry, trends amongst SA manufacturers, and the latter's prospects in a context of their goal to become world class manufacturers complement the exploratory nature of the study. Data was gathered through unstructured interviews and documentary studies. The subsequent study is mainly largely qualitative and descriptive. Quantitative data is drawn from the publications of government departments and of non-governmental agencies. The motor vehicle manufacturing sector's nurturing through more than two decades of protectionist policies in a Local Content Programme is outlined including some comments on the problems of these programmes. Pressures emanating from a re-entry into global markets and the inherent long-term constraints of a protectionist policy which retard the original national objectives behind the support for the industry are treated as reasons supporting the arguments in favour of the need for a neo-liberal oriented industrial restructuring strategy for the sector. Industrial strategy projects are guided by best practice models or new dominant paradigms of what to transplant into an economy experiencing "deindustrialization" the decline of its manufacturing sector in favour of the primary goods sector. A limited amount of quantitative data aids in a comparison of achievements of the local content era and the infancy period of the Motor Industry Development Programme. For a sociological analysis of what may be treated as an economic phenomenon, some instance, Regulation Theory, lean production, flexible specialisation, diversified quality production, and corporatism, are used in a complementary manner in this study. A case study of Nissan, a longstanding motor vehicle manufacturer in South Africa, is included in the study. It is argued that the Fordist paradigm of managerial and technological organisation of the workplace was never a dominant approach in the motor vehicle industry. Likewise, the Japanese innovations which are widely contrasted with Fordism are not uniformly found amongst Japanese vehicle manufacturers. Globally, hybrids of the Fordist and post-Fordist paradigms are developing and, with reference to these hybrids, there are differences within countries as well as within the global operations of motor vehicle manufacturing transnational corporations as to what route they are taking in their own hybrids of a new growth model which is embedded in the workers, expectations and outcomes of the actions of individuals and larger social collectives like firms, business associations, shop floor workers. labour organisations, and government departments. Industrial restructuring is a social construction of the latter social agents more than merely a profit maximizing strategy of firms which are generally viewed as rational economic actors which subsequently would be seen as the initiators of industrial restructuring.

Description

Bibliography: leaves 184-209.

Keywords

Sociology

Reference:

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